My wet, purple garden

 This past month it has rained most days. We had a few really nice, sunny days. But mostly it has rained. About a week after my last post we had thunderstorms (in May!) and one sudden downpour in which it hailed. I ran outside to check the tomatoes, and fortunately everything managed to survive. That was the coldest night we had. In the past few weeks, the daytime temperatures have been seasonable, sometimes chilly but generally hitting a high around 20. Nights are cold, but well above the risk of frost. 

These weather conditions have been a real boon for some things in the garden. Snails and slugs are thriving. There is a bumper crop of lily beetles, those jewel red beetles which devour oriental lilies and stargazers and all those types of lilies. I have discovered as well that they lay eggs around the plants, and their larvae cover themselves in disgusting slimy fecal matter and climb up the lilies devouring leaves layer by layer. Last year I noticed some of these beetles, this year they are all over my oriental lilies. I have been using the old fashioned pick and squish approach, but they are proliferating and destroying faster than I can keep them at bay. Today I hosed down the plant and the area around them with diatomaceous earth. I have resisted using this stuff outside, because despite the fact that it is "all natural" (it is powdered fossilized plankton, and works by getting into the joints of insects' exoskeletons and rips them apart), it does not discriminate and will kill any insects that comes into contact with it, including bees. I am hoping I will do enough damage to the beetles before the next rain washes it off.

We have already put out another batch of Slug-be-gone, because the snails are everywhere, and I have holes in my baby lettuce, and have seen very small baby slugs which likely hatched out long after the rain washed away my first generous helping of Slug-be-gone. Orianne, who once kept a pet snail in a jar for months (and called him/her Sparkle, believe it or not) has become a real help in keeping the snail population at bay with snail tossing, away from our garden and onto the street. Our street is not very busy, so the snails do stand a chance of surviving, but may not end up back on my side of the street. 

Last week we had a visit of a youth orchestra from Guelph Ontario who joined my daughter Zara's string orchestra for a stellar performance. One of the reasons for my unseasonable silence on this blog is that I volunteered to "help" organize home hospitality for the visiting group. As the only one who volunteered, I ended up not just "helping" but essentially organizing the Montreal end of the visit. Once I took the pressure off, a number of other parents did step up and offer to host the kids, and did a lovely job of making the group feel welcome and all had a wonderful time. So getting back to snails. Upon arrival at our house, my daughter Orianne immediately took the youngest of the visitors staying with us, a lovely 12 year old, and introduced her to the sport of snail tossing. I did not see them for an hour or so after that, but heard giggles galore. Anyone interested in trying is welcome to come over anytime, we seem to have an ample supply.

One of my fellow Suzuki parents (also a great gardener) asked me if I had black aphids this summer, there seemed to be a lot of them around. I had never seen a black aphid (she used a French name for them which I was not familiar with, but described them so that it was clear what she was referring to), but made sure to check what was curling the top leaves of my orpines and sure enough, I have black aphids on the orpines and green ones starting on the newest leaves of my crab apples. Iulia had a bottle of Safer's which I borrowed and sprayed, and later when I hit the lilies with the diatomaceous earth, I put some of that on the orpines as well. 

Another unwanted guest on our block is the groundhog, which we seemed to have repelled last summer, but is terrorizing the local vegetables and annoying the gardeners on my block. He (she?) seemed to have moved in under Iulia's shed, and she bought some of our coyote pee and has been marking her territory. Today, we were chatting in my back yard and I saw the groundhog run through my garlic. I gave chase and he climbed the fence and ran into Iulia's yard. Now we know how he is getting around (I did not know he can climb chain link fences). We are looking into humane traps or other methods. I think all the rain may have decreased the effectiveness of our coyote pee dispensers.

I am very pleased with how my flower garden is doing. It seems that I have passed a turning point, where a lot of things I planted are settled enough to bloom and spread. All my irises were in flower this past week, and lots of columbines (not all because I have a lot of babies coming up now), peonies, centaurus, creeping thyme, clematis, purple sage, . The general effect is lots of purple, with hints of white, red and pink,  which changes the whole feel of the garden. Once the lilies start, I will move into yellow and orange again. My tulips lasted right into the first week of June, long after everyone elses' were long gone, and the irises took over. So far this year, I have not had any gaps in blooming from April right through to mid-June. Last year, I think I had almost a month, mid-June to mid July which was pretty sparse, but the weather pattern is different so I cannot predict what will happen this year.

The mystery flowers which Iulia translated from Romanian as "National carpet" are actually sweet williams and are in bloom finally. They are biennial and do not blossom the first year. I have one patch in the back yard in full bloom, and a patch on the side of the house which are destined to show their colours next year (although one is ready to go). Iulia tells me they reseed and keep blooming every year, and spread. I have a lot of things spreading, so next summer I will need to find more people looking to expand their gardens to keep mine under control.

In the back yard, I have a few of the annual poppies coming up, though most did not. I planted a variety of sunflower seeds, some new ones I bought, and some from older packages, as well as a row of Alex’s Kong variety and a few I kept from the pretty multicoloured ones I grew two or three years ago. Half of what I planted, including the Kongs, did not grow. I fed the remainder of the Kong seeds I saved to our bird Coco (who was very grateful). I put a bunch in the front of the house too, and only one or two sprouted. I had doubled up on the seeds and so had enough to spread them around. When we expanded the garden, we put the concrete blocks in strategic spots and planted sunflowers in most of them. In the end I did not have enough sprouts to fill all of the blocks, so some got peppers or basil instead. I put calendula in two areas where I have poppies, and in one bed they all grew, and in the other, very few did. I also had very sporadic results from nasturtiums. I had a few returnees in the garden beds, but nothing in the boxes and containers sprouted despite there being plenty of seeds from last year, and a full pack I bought this year.  Julie gave me some of her extra seeds which had already sprouted, so I have some in the front and side of the house.

I did a huge clean up of weeds with Josh two weeks ago, and restrung the morning glory area so hopefully this year they will climb up the tree again. The attempt to use chicken wire last year was a bust, so I pulled off the chicken wire that covered the area horizontally, allowing me to get in there and clear the weeds out properly. I also removed the grass which had infiltrated the cosmos, and dug out the roots of the purple bellflowers. Josh did a good job on the goutweed (still one patch to go off to the side). The next two weeks were very busy for both of us, and so I have a huge job of weeding to do yet again tomorrow, this time in the vegetable mostly. We have a lot of baby trees popping up, and if I don’t keep at it, I will have a forest here. It makes me think of the Little Prince who had to weed out the Baobabs to protect his rose, and his planet. Some of these baby trees take hold and it can sometimes feel like you are uprooting a Baobab.

 My cucumbers have been another problem. Not one of the seeds I planted grew, or maybe one did but died within a few days. I suspect that putting them in suspended containers to foil the beetles had the side effect of it being harder to keep the soil as wet as the ground. This may sound strange as it has been raining so much, but the week or two after I planted, we had some very hot dry days and I think I did not water the cukes quite as much as they needed. Fortunately, Julie had given me a few of her extra cucumber plants which she bought, and I picked up a cucumber plant at a local oriental store hoping it was one of those cool Japanese cucumbers which we had three years ago, and those cukes have all survived and are doing well. The tomatoes need more sun and are a bit small still. The beans and peas seem to have something eating them, not sure if it is bacterial or yet another beetle. 

I have been keeping an eye on how things are doing in the hay bales, and so far they are doing at least as well as the same plants are in the garden. Lots of weeds are sprouting up too. Only one of the pieces of potato Josh planted has grown, but it is doing well and the potatoes will be nice and clean and easy to remove in the fall. It is a nice experiment, and so far working well.