monkeys and ponies

The bees love the echinacea. I love the bees on the echinacea.



( Five more photos after the cut, not all of which involve bees. )

To alleviate today's grumpiness, I took some flower photos I've been meaning to shoot for at least a week now. Most of them aren't anything special -- just documentation so that I know what blooms when -- but I must say that I am very pleased with this macro of one of the paper daisies in the front planter. My only regret is that I wish I'd framed it just a tiny bit better so that none of the top petals were cut off. Still, it'll do.



(As always, more garden shots in my photostream, if you care to look.)

Those three sets of spindly shoots at right? Garlic!

I've never sprouted garlic before (well, not deliberately, that is), and I'm really curious to see how this experiment turns out. It's growing pretty fast, considering that I just planted it last week. The fronds at upper left are garlic chives given to me by columbina's boss. Yes, it's one giant ceramic pot of garlicky goodness.


( Two more photos after the cut. )

I am strangely crabby today but will try to put that aside in favor of reporting back on how Passover dinner went, which is to say, very well.

( But let's be honest: you probably just want to know how the tiramatzah turned out. )

I cleared out the garden this morning. All that's left to do is pull up the basil plants, and purée and freeze the leaves, but I am too lazy to do that today. It's not going to get quite cold enough to freeze overnight this week anyway, so I can take care of the basil next weekend.

There was still a fair amount of produce outside, even though it's early November.


( Three more photos, after the cut. )

I didn't really expect to have more garden photos this late in the year, but just before we left on vacation last week, I took a few shots of the morning glories, as well as the bees enjoying the giant rudbeckia.

( Some flowers and some very happy bees, after the cut. )

I'm way behind on garden photography, but I finally took a few shots this afternoon.

( Right this way for more garden madness, including, of course, a gratuitous cat photo. )

Three posts in two days? It's like I'm becoming some kind of LiveJournal whore.

( Yes, time for more garden photos, and maybe even another cat photo. This is LJ, after all; there must be cat photos. )

With the frost-free date (Memorial Day) rapidly approaching, the annual Garden Madness has struck the Boston area. You can't go near a nursery on a weekend without being stuck in a traffic jam. At 9:45am on Saturday, the parking lot at the Winchester Mahoney's was nearly full, and by the time I left, about an hour later, people looked like they were ready to knife each other for a parking spot.

I turned over the vegetable garden and planted pea, radish, and carrot seeds last weekend, but since I plan to put in most of the vegetables, herbs, and flowers next weekend, I had no choice but to weed the back garden. When we bought this house in 2000, the back garden was a tangled mix of Japanese knotweed and various ivies, but after clearing all that away, I planted tons of herbs and flowers, giving us a beautiful (and largely edible) garden perched on top of an old stone wall. Since then, I've let some of the flowers and other plants re-seed themselves, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Sadly, I know better now. But! The herb garden is still in pretty decent shape, about 75% self-maintaining (yay) and, after today, cleared out and ready for planting.

( More garden madness, and even some photos, after the cut. )