The Garden in June

This is my most favorite time of year! Things are thriving in the garden, the bugs have yet to make their onslaught, any diseases have yet to make an appearance, and everything just looks nice!

For the first time since living here, I feel like I am "caught up" with getting ready for the growing season. Usually by this time of year, I am overwhelmed and don't have much time to enjoy what's going on, but I think having our "staycation" earlier really helped get things caught up.

The weather has been GORGEOUS and that has really helped things out too. The back porch perennial garden is coming along very nicely. I love my new Japanese Maple!

Irises! My irises really bloomed this year!

The new iris bed in the back gave me some nice blooms and I'm betting that next year will be even better. About 4-7 of them didn't bloom at all, but I've read that some irises need a good 2-3 years to get established. Since I basically dug all these up last year and had to cut out iris borer worms, they really are new plants.

My hosta garden is really coming along, ya'll! They are doing great in their "chain mail" wire baskets in the ground and I've since added a few more hostas as well as astilbe, huchera, and Japanese painted fern. So far, no sign of Hosta Virus X and no more buying hostas from retail stores for me!

I can't wait to add more and see this all fill in.

The veggie garden is thriving! The lettuce greens are at the end of their time and the tomatoes are staring to set fruit. Every year, I try to see if I can get a ripe tomato by Fourth of July and it looks like it will be close this year. The weather has been so temperate that I've yet to see a squash bug or squash vine borer moth (knock-on-wood). By this time last year, I was fighting them both.

The new mulch around the beds has made such a HUGE difference out there. No more mucking through the mud or fighting weeds as hard. Although there are still one or two voles burrowing around the beds and it's really irritating me!

I already have a huge zucchini ready to pick and I've been snacking on my Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas every time I'm out there. I love those things...they are great when they are young and can be added into stir-fries as whole pods, or if you let them grow into "peas," they are great snacks.

This and my black raspberries make a great breakfast.

Can you tell I am happy? So. Many. Exclamation. Points!