The Garden and Other Blooming Things

My friend took excellent care of the chickens, the garden, the cats, the fruit trees and anything else that came up while we were away. I could not leave this time of year without her. There’s at least one lady in town who will come out and take care of the animals but she wouldn’t mess with the garden and I’m not about to leave it on its own this time of year. This is when it needs water every day.

The beans have all come up.

This is one of the purple potatoes I planted. The plant is pretty! They got planted way late so I’m not sure how they will do.

My one little row of corn is sprouted.

What surprised the heck out of me was seeing all these tomatoes that had gotten ripe. I told my friend . . you’re a better person than I am because I would have eaten those!

I did share some with her.

Another exciting thing was my mini bananas. I had been keeping them in the greenhouse but they had gotten so big that the pots kept toppling over. Last year, I decided to plant them in the ground and I planned to mulch them during the winter. I knew they would freeze back but hoped they would emerge in the spring but this winter, we had colder temps than normal and I never got around to mulch them.

One plant came up and had multiplied. Vince didn’t know it was there and ran over it with the lawn mower but it’s back and doing great. The other one showed no signs of life. A couple of weeks ago, I dug around in the dirt and nothing looked alive so I figured I’d lost it. Yesterday, I walked around to that side of the house and almost squealed when I saw that the second one had sprouted.

The elderberries are blooming!

There’s a chance we could have elderberries this fall!

Last but definitely one of the highlights of my return home . .

The irises a blog reader sent me last year are blooming and there are probably a dozen blooms. They are so gorgeous. Even when I had a good variety of irises, I don’t think I had any that were like this. I love them.

It was very nice to come home, to a place that has so much of what we love, and to have all the plants doing so well.