The Daylily Project

As I noted a couple of posts ago, I've been hauling daylily plants home from my mother's gardens for years. Some I've lost over the years, some have multiplied like crazy, some I've shared with fellow gardeners, some I have but have lost track of. I've lost the names of almost all of them, though my mother was most careful to give me the name of each. All of them have been moved around my gardens until I know longer know what is where. Now I've set out to at least label each plant as it blooms so that I can know where the duplicates are.

I keep reading that you can eat the buds, and someday I'm going to try that. But today, I'm just going to enjoy the beautiful show of color!

Here's my catalog. I'll be adding more as they bloom.

#1 -- In Pantry Garden & Cottage Garden -- I have lots of these to share.

#3 -- South of path in Cottage Garden -- not a great photo!

#4 -- Cottage Garden “Island” & Pantry Garden -- Lots of these to share, too!

#5 -- 'Delightful Lady' -- Center of southern section of Cottage Garden -- My absolute favorite. A much more delicate pink than this picture shows. Some to share, but not until the fall.

#6 -- 'Fat & Sassy' -- Along fence on south edge of Cottage Garden

#7 -- Double Yellow (description, not name) -- West of pink rose in Cottage Garden (along south fence) -- The picture doesn't do it justice!

#8 -- Along south edge of Cottage Garden, near cut-off -- It's hard to tell from the picture, but this one is peach-colored.

#9 & #10 -- New transplants from Mother's, no pictures. Both are in the Pantry Garden.

#11 -- Along south fence of Cottage Garden, between ‘Fat & Sassy’ and double yellow

#12 -- 'Redin Kilpatrick' -- in Pantry Garden

#2 -- Joan Senior -- In Pantry Garden

Spreading the Joy, Sharing the Wealth

This week has found Skye and me making our annual trek south to visit family. We spent three nights at my mother's, with day trips to my sister's and cousin's homes. It was wonderful to spend time with all of them.

This morning finds us at Love's parents' home in southern Arkansas. We're heading north again in an hour or so. But yesterday, we were busy spreading the joy, sharing the wealth.

I don't think I've ever visited my mother without bringing home plants, most often daylilies. This trip finds my trunk loaded with three daylilies, four irises, and a pot full of little oak trees -- and enough to share of each. So yesterday evening, my mother-in-law and I were in her back yard, setting out a bit of each. I hope they will do well for her. She always speaks of her mother's irises, and perhaps these will remind her of those.

July Ozark Gardening Calendar

July 1
Kitchen Garden: Plant bush & pole beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, lettuce.
Monitor tomatoes for stink bugs & spray with pyrethrin.
Pantry Garden: Dig potatoes. Plant beans
Berry Patch: Continue blueberry harvest.
All gardens: Continue beetle patrol.

July 7
Orchard: Patrol for webworms in pecans, cut, and burn.

July 15
Kitchen Garden/Pantry Garden: plant bush beans, collards, southern peas, Irish potatoes.
Indoors: brocolli, lettuce, cabbage

July – after blueberry harvest
Berry Patch: Fertilize blueberries with cottonseed meal (6-2.5-1.7), feather meal (13-0-0), fish meal (10-4-0), soybean meal (7-1.6-2-3) or alfalfa meal (3-1-2).

July 25
Kitchen Garden/Pantry Garden: Plant turnips.

July 29
pre-sprout corn to plant August 1

Upon the Laying of an Egg

February 18, 2009, marks a momentous occasion at The Realm. So does June 21, 2009. What's so important about those dates? Well, February 18 is the day that we brought home 10 Cuckoo Marans chicks to join the household, and June 21 is the day Skye found the first egg laid by our lovely ladies.

Time is short this morning, so just a quick overview. I'll write more details later. After returning the males to the neighbor who gave us the chicks, we have 5 lovely Cuckoo Marans living the the Chicken Tractor designed and built by Love. In April, 3 little Cinnamon Queens from a local farm supply store joined The Flock. This Sunday, someone laid her first egg, which Skye scrambled and ate for breakfast Monday morning.

More details of the Chicken Saga to follow, I promise. If you'd like to see more pictures, check out Fowl Friday over at Skye's blog. Right now, I have to fix sack lunches for the day and get ready to leave The Realm for another day at the library.

Counting Down

Yes, I'm counting down the days to my summer break, which starts Friday! I hope to get back in the writing mode. I've been in the mood for a while, but it always comes down to: do I garden or write? do I sleep or write? do I spend time interacting with my family or write? Somehow, writing never wins.

But as I was gardening in the early morning today (yes, I can get some gardening in before work if I get up at 5:00, and it's much cooler at 5am than 5pm), I finally realized why I haven't been writing. While I never write as much during the school year as I do during the five weeks I am "off" in the summer, this spring has been pretty much a desert. But Love went back to work in January. I had gotten used to those extra hours his schedule while working on his master's had allowed me. Now they're gone, and the house is the wreck it always becomes when I'm trying to juggle work, family, my gardens, and the house. The house always comes in last. And that's as it should be. I don't clean house for life.... I garden for life.

June Ozark Gardening Calendar

June 1
Kitchen Garden:
Plant bush & pole beans, carrots, celery, corn, cucumber, eggplant, melon, radish, & summer squash.
Transplant long keeper tomato and peppers.
Indoors:
Plant brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower, & fall crop celery.
Cottage Garden:
Cut sage back halfway.

June 10
Kitchen Garden:
Plant various beans & southern peas.

May Ozark Gardening Calendar

May 1
Kitchen Garden:
Plant beans, dill, sunflower, gourds, & winter squash.
Dust asaragus with rock phosphate for cucumber beetles.
Transplant sweet potato slips (throughout month).

When soil temperature is 65F and nights are 55F
Kitchen Garden:
Plant peanuts.

May 6
Kitchen Garden:
Transplant celery & cucumbers.
Indoors:
Plant long keeper tomatoes & fall cabbages.

May 15
Kitchen Garden:
Plant carrots.
Transplant melons.
Orchard:
Fertilize pecans.

April Ozark Gardening Calendar

The average last frost for Fayetteville, Arkansas, is April 15. However, the latest first frost was recorded on May 9, 1980.

April 1
Kitchen Garden:
Plant carrots, beets, radish, spinach
Transplant garlic, onion
Broadcast marigolds as cover crop for tomatotes.
Indoors:Plant cucmbers & peppers.

April 15
Kitchen Garden:
Plant calendula alongside asparagus.
Plant dill & potatoes.
Inside:
Plant melons, cucumbers & winter squash.

April 17
Woodlot:
Plant elderberry cuttings.

When soil is at 60F
Kitchen Garden:
Plant beans.

April 21
Kitchen Garden:
Plant basil, okra & summer squash.

April 29
Kitchen Garden:
Plant dill.
Transplant cucumber, peppers, tomatoes, & eggplant.
Cottage Garden:
Plant bee balm.

March Ozark Gardening Calendar

Kitchen Garden:
Weekly plant spinach and English peas until night temperature hits 45F or April 15.

Berry Patch:
At leaf break on blueberries, fertilize with blood meal (NPK 12-1.5-0.6)

Orchard:
1st 50F March day, spray apples & plums w/ dormant oil spray.
When growth begins, fertilize apple trees.

March 1
Indoors:
Plant onions and tomatoes.
Berry Patch:
Transplant blackberries.

March 2
Kitchen Garden:
Plant potatoes.
Work leaves into soil.
Remove mulch from early planting beds.
Fertilize perennials.
Indoors:
Plant cabbage, brocolli, caulieflower, & lettuce.
Cottage Garden:
Fertilize perennials.

March 10
Kitchen Garden:
Plant mustard weekly until May.

March 15
Kitchen Garden:
Plant carrots, cilantro, radish, beets, & turnips.
Transplant collards (give protection).
Move onions and leeks to cold frame.
Cottage Garden:
Plant larkspur.
Orchard:
Fertilize pecan trees.

March 18
Cottage Garden:
Prune butterfly bush.

March 23
Indoors:
Plant summer squash.

March 30
Cottage Garden:
Plant sunflowers.