What's blooming in your yard?

[BC Gal]

Crab apples are the best. They may be small but the taste is like noting else....yummmmmm. The pic makes me twice as drooly

[tobiwobi]

A little trick I use for bringing in flowers inside to overwinter: I fill up my bathtub and each plant that's brought in gets fully submerged for approx 5 min. So all the little bugs and spiders end up floating in the tub. Also, I don't have to inhale fumes from sprays and such, if I sprayed. The pot I put in the plastic bag and do my best to let as little of the water in as possible, while the foliage is submerged. So it doesn't treat anything that may be in soil. Still, it worked great for me over the years.

[harbie]

After spending just over 2 hours at the in laws place watering their "Garden of Eden" I think I would like a backyard that is all asphalt

[Shwa Girl]

We just picked raspberries. Big deal you say? I am so proud -- 40 raspberries.

[harbie]

These are the only pics I could find right now of their place. It was at our civil wedding in 2004

This is only a quarter of the backyard



The wedding arch and more flowers

[harbie]

sorry about the size for some reason it wont re size to the correct size????

[macw1960]

We just picked raspberries. Big deal you say? I am so proud -- 40 raspberries.

Fresh from the garden and they taste so much better, enjoy.
My problem when I pick our raspberries is that I eat them as I pick them.

[BC Gal]

I found and ate two strawberries today The few fruits that appear this time of year are so sweet and delicious. Right now is all about the plums though. The tree is covered in fruit this year and they are ready to pick I want to try and make plum fruit roll-ups and maybe pressure can some plums. I haven't done either before so fingers crossed!

[marstec]

BC Gal,

Make sure your plums have thin skins if you are doing preserves. I have a Pembina plum and the skins are really tough...the inside is really sweet and juicy though.

We've only had the one light frost and it's almost the end of September! I took these pictures this morning:

Sweet peas in pot on the deck; I have red and pink ones in another part of the garden. These smell wonderful! You definitely need to provide a trellis for the tall climbing varieties. They seem to bloom more prolifically from the top.

Stella Ruby daylily...not much to look at compared to my other daylilies, but when you consider that this one bloomed from early summer until now, it's pretty amazing.

Dahlia in an oak planter on the deck. I will dig the tubers up once we get a hard frost.

[avoncallingu]

My sedum is blooming and the butterflies and bees are really enjoying it. The geraniums, impatience and marigolds are doing well. The petunias - not so much. Red ants made huge homes at the base of our sedum plants but didn't seem to affect the plant except that they fell sideways.

[marstec]

My sedum is blooming and the butterflies and bees are really enjoying it. The geraniums, impatience and marigolds are doing well. The petunias - not so much. Red ants made huge homes at the base of our sedum plants but didn't seem to affect the plant except that they fell sideways.

My sedums get floppy too. If you want to keep them upright, buy one of those cheap tomato cages and cut off the pointy ends. Turn it upside down onto the sedum (preferably in the Spring before it has a chance to grow really big), bend the cut pieces of wire into a "U" shape and use those as anchors to keep the cage in place at ground level. I did this for a gasplant and it works wonders.

[Ciel]

Oh, reading about ripe plums brings thoughts of plum platz (a sweet flat dough topped with cut plums and vanilla sugar sprinkled on top and baked). Mild envy about the berries that some of you have now...

My radish seeds planted in late August must have been mad at me--the biggest radish of the ones pulled out is one about the size of a dime; the others shrivelled or stayed teeny! I forgot to water too so that could have been an issue.

Three heads of lettuce have bolted and have flower or seed heads developing. Will see what they are about on Thursday and likely cut down my plants, as temperature drop will happen by Friday.

The eggplants-two little finger types are still hanging on on the plant but I doubt they will make much progress. The round eggplant had a bunch of large flowers turn up and a couple of little plants started but they are not round.

Cauliflower leaves (still no white globe hiding in their midst) have started to show yellowing on the tips. Definitely will cut them down and leave a a few inches of stalk to see if it regenerates in the spring.

The raspberry canes are still dry sticks. Will let them stay through winter (hoping for green leaves in spring but that is wishful thinking on my part).

Snapdragon blooms exist on one plant. The other three have not bloomed but the stalks are green so they are rooted in the garden. Will also leave them alone.

Squirrels like to leave black walnut peels/shells in the garden (waving a fist at them).

[Shwa Girl]

We picked 20 more raspberries today. And some canes have white flowers -- maybe more raspberries coming, then.
Our geraniums have new blossoms. We bought them at Sobeys.
Our biannual snapdragons are in full bloom. They started in August -- a little bit late.
We are still keeping up with mowing the lawn - grass getting tall with nice rain showers and 60 degree Fahrenheit temperatures.

What crazy October weather, eh?

[itsmewhoelse]

I have SNOW blooming in my back yard today! yuck

[Ciel]

Some critter (the wandering cat? intrepid squirrel) left a nice half set of teeth marks in one of the dangling three eggplants. The nerve! Maybe the bitter taste convinced the critter it did not find a purple nut or treat ready to eat.

I cut the non-bolting lettuce leaves down and washed and spun them for salad in the next few days. Trimmed a chrysanthemum a bit as it was top heavy with soon-to-open-blooms that it was impeding sunlight to the eggplants.

Rain is imminent here in Hamilton with a light gray colour wash in the sky for a couple of hours now. Leaves and pine needles have begun their downward drift.

Bonus for Hamilton residents-next week is 3 garbage containers/bags collection week! Purple zone gets yard waste collection too. Have scrap metal in the yard? Routes Youth Centre in Dundas has its fall metal scrap drive on Oct. 13 on Olympic Drive (no propane tanks, microwaves nor fridges please).