An unexpected gift of flowers

Last year I bought six flats of calendula plants, and planted them in our new vegetable garden. I thought it would be nice to have flowers and vegetables growing together.

and a few weeks later

I loved them and made bouquets all summer.

I wrote a note in my calendar to buy them again.

On May 30 this year, we wondered what was that ring of green?

We wanted to leave it because it didn't seem like any weed we had ever seen.

A month later, we saw it was a calendula patch!

I looked it up and calendulas are self-seeding! We considered thinning the patch but then thought we would let them grow as they would.

And what a success they have been!

Today's pictures

So, now I'm wondering will this happen again next year?!

Farm and Garden Report - August 8 through September 10

One day in August, Tom and I looked up and there were over a hundred crows cawing and flying toward the north. We have never, ever seen such a sight. We are both extremely fond of crows.

The natural life around the farm has been making the turn from summer into fall. My August was a month of sweet routine: from the daily household tasks to reading, and every day around two o'clock heading out to the garden to pick vegetables and then chopping them up for supper or the freezer. Part way through the summer our old, second-hand freezer died, and we bought this adorable little energy saver that fits right in our new butt'ry. The cost was exactly the same as the Kindle - $139!


I arranged the foods a bit so you could see what's inside: chopped summer squash, grated summer squash (for cake!), leeks, blueberries, rhubarb, strawberries, and apples. Everything but the blueberries and strawberries came from Windy Poplars.


It is a wondrous thing on a day with temps in the mid-80s to go out and pick tomatoes and find they are as hot as if they had been cooked - truly, the warmth of the sun. I don't know when we've had such a tomato year. We have only three plants - two we bought, one was given to Tom, but I've made several batches of spaghetti sauce, and that delicious tomato salad. We have no idea what varieties they are but they are all great tasting.



I notice that I open the windows in the morning not to invite cooler air in, but to allow the warmth of the sun to enter the cool house. Though we had a little hot weather, for the most part the days are crisp and sunny.

On Labor Day Sunday, we pulled out the yellow beans and the summer squash in the garden. The sweet peas will be the next to go, but they have bloomed for weeks and weeks. I'm sure that those in warmer climes would feel sorry for me with the garden pretty much done by now, but it makes me happy. Planting on Memorial Day and beginning the clean-up on Labor Day is just about perfect for my gardening clock. I wrote about this three years ago, and my feelings remain the same.

The first week in August we had 44 eggs and this week there were 39, so slowing down a bit, but still have plenty to eat and sell. We do plan to get chicks this coming spring. The last time was in 2007, as long-time readers of my letters may recall.

Farm and Garden Report - week of August 1

Beginning today, I'm going to change the name of these postings from Farm and Garden Weekly to Farm and Garden Report because as the growing season winds down, there isn't really enough happening to write about each week.

For most of the week, the heat and humidity were just killing me, but then a breeze blew in some lovely cool weather improving my dispostion 100%! I know our temps aren't nearly as high as in other parts of the country but the difference is that we have no air-conditioning in the house. The fans are good as long as you are sitting directly in front of them which of course I can't do all the time. :<)

The total egg count this week was 50.

The big gardening event was harvesting the first yellow beans. Since I don't want to repeat myself, I thought I'd send you here to read more about my beloved yellow beans.

I'm picking, eating, and freezing that Zephyr squash every single day. What a great variety!

We've got lots of green tomatoes, and have had two red ones.

The sweet peas are still so incredible.

Not very clear and precise but I wanted to give you the overall view that I see every day.

The daylilies are almost all gone by. I think that because of the hot July they came earlier than usual and so of course are finished earlier too. I've even got a couple phlox open which doesn't usually happen this early in August.


It's looking a pretty dried out and sad around the garden. It really is time for me to begin to cleanup, and now that the weather is cooler, I will. Here are some views that gardeners rarely post.



The air is quieter these days. I'm not hearing the birds of summer so often. Last evening I was sitting out on the lawn and heard bluejays, chickadees, crows, and crickets. The latter are the singers of August. I heard a loud rustle in the woods close to the house the other day - moose, bear? And each night when we walk out in the north field with the dogs they smell all kinds of fascinating aromas that we can't begin to know. Chet the dog often speaks of what poor noses we humans have. :<) The roadside, so-called 'weeds' are stellar just now. The goldenrod and tansy are so bright and cheerful. I'm a big fan of these flowers.

So now we are in the quiet days of summer; the time between the riot of blooms and the colors of autumn which arrive here by the end of this month. To everything there is a season.

Farm and Garden Weekly - weeks of July 18 and July 25

In the past two weeks, we have harvested all the leeks, onions, and garlic. I've got enough leeks in the freezer for ten batches of Gladys Taber's leek and potato soup. I pick some of the zephyr squash each day and have quite a bit frozen already.






There are still lots of beautiful daylilies in the gardens, including a new one we just planted in the spring. I love this color.


Now they are sharing top billing with the sweet peas. This has been the best year ever for the old-fashioned, wonderful smelling flower. I bought three different varieties from Renee's Garden, and will get them all again next year:

Antique "Cupani's Original" - An especially strong blooming strain of the first cultivated sweet pea. Perfumed, heat-tolerant and beautifully bi-colored in deep maroon-purple and orchid-violet.

"Painted Lady" - The first named sweet pea cultivar, dating from 1737. Painted Lady is a beautiful rose, pastel pink and cream bicolor that is deliciously scented and heat tolerant. Begins flowering early.

Knee High, "Jack & Jill" - Blooming in dainty salmon-rose and soft mid-blue, our perfumed duet grows just 3 feet tall. These nostalgic and charming flowers bloom early offering heat tolerance and strong garden performance.

Now if I could only post that fragrance!

You've been seeing the monkshood as the banner photo for a few days. It is the only flower in the garden which is that color at this time of year. The blue/purple color is much more common in the spring with the iris, lupines, mountain bluets, lilacs, and violets.

On the farm front, we've decided to section off part of the north pasture. We have fewer animals than we used to, and they don't need so much grazing land. We wanted a bigger area to walk with the dogs. This pasture connects with the yard outside the kitchen door, where the vegetable garden is.


Just as the dogs are shedding, so is Daisy the miniature donkey.

donkey dreads :<)

Two weeks ago today the man up the road who grows blueberries called and said the first ones were available. He used to put up a sign outside his place, but now he doesn't. He just calls whenever he has picked and we go over and buy them. We put them on cookie sheets in the freezer, and when they have frozen we transfer them to freezer bags. During the year, I take some out and put them in a bowl in the refrigerator, and the next day we add them to our morning yogurt.

Last week's egg count was 52 and this week we got 50.

Farm and Garden Weekly - week of July 11

I recently told a couple readers that I really should write about the ease of growing daylilies, in case someone hasn't grown them before. First of all the orange ones, the so-called 'common' daylilies are the only perennials that were on this land when we bought it. There are still two areas where they grow that we haven't touched in all these 29 years. The soil has never been 'improved.' They just grow and grow. Most of our other orange daylily gardens have come from transplanting those originals. Many of the other colors were bought from a local nursery or White Flower Farm; and some were gifts from a co-worker of Tom's who was thinning out her own plants. We've never had a bit of trouble with any of them. We don't fertilize. We plant them thickly and we don't thin them nearly often enough. And yet they grow and thrive and give more pleasure than any flower I know. This week some of the orange ones are beginning to go by, but all the other colors are going strong with new ones opening every day.

The sweet peas have opened this week. I've already picked two bouquets.

The Zephyr squash looks like something out of the tropics.

And the first squashes appeared this week.

The pole beans may be taller than their supports but should be okay.

Years ago we bought four blueberry bushes. Two immediately died; the other two have straggled along all this time, and finally we have berries.


On the farm front, Tom put up some extra fencing this week to try and keep the goats from going through. They don't seem to care if there is electric fence or not. Goats do exactly what they want to do and go exactly where they want to go. They've already eaten down two small patches of orange daylilies. Since the double fencing, they haven't gotten out. Fingers crossed. You may read more about these little terrors here.

This week's egg count: 54

Farm and Garden Weekly - week of July 4

On the 5th, Tom put up some 'fairy lights' - the white twinkly ones - along our front porch. Before he began, he checked the robin's nest, and it was perfectly empty. Naturally we never saw the babies fly, but we are happy the whole time was uneventful and seemingly successful. We saw one of the baby robins, and Tom even saw the mother feeding it, but no pictures. :<( I'm not sure I've ever heard or seen as many robins as this season. This week we have experienced the hottest weather so far this summer. Up here we call it 'bad sleeping weather' and that is so right. Even with two fans it is still uncomfortable. Today it is finally cloudy after a rain last night, but muggy, muggy. I think I heard cooler next week.

We could rename the place 'daylily farm' this time of year. Everywhere I look there are orange daylilies.

Not terribly good photos, but I wanted to give an idea of the color that surrounds us

And now the other colors have begun opening. I paid no attention to size or color when we planted them, and each year I am thrilled by what is a surprise and a memory at the same time. If you love them as I do, you may enjoy going over to the sidebar under 'letter topics' and clicking on 'bowl of daylilies' and 'lily of the day.'

The zephyr squash is coming along great


The yellow pole beans love this hot weather


Is that a sweet pea blossom I see?


The garlic is ready to harvest, but we've picked a couple and they were somewhat rotten. It doesn't seem like there has been too much rain, so we don't really know what's wrong.


The tomatoes also love this hot weather

If I could afford a greenhouse, I would grow lettuce year round. As I may have said once, it is my salad. I don't mix anything with it. I don't 'dress' it. I like it plain just like the rabbits.

I'll close with his week's egg count: 54.