Gardens-In-The-Sand

Blues

Here are some visitors to the garden this week

This "jewel wasp" is a beauty...

AKA "Cuckoo wasp" so-named for it's habit of parasitizing other bugs...

This black swallowtail was very interested in my outdoor kitchen...

The clasping heliotrope is blue, right?

While the visitors to the heliotrope tend to be generally on the small side, I like them...

Speaking of blue...
Got a bit of frost...

With a final frost date of April 11, this light frost on April 24 was a bit of the unpredictable side of gardening...

How about a bit of red?

No cat pics today, cat went on walkabout... She was acting squirrelly, met me at the gate when I came home, being vocal... Her voice was a bit hoarse... Apparently she'd been calling all day... at dark, she took off after calling a number of times...

Cats have lives of their own, but Siamese don't generally stay gone for several days... I've done a bit of looking for her... either she'll show back up on her own, or not... there are big dogs in the area, and all the neighbors have guns... it's a big ole dangerous world out there...

What is this?

Lol...

I planted these, and promptly forgot doing so. They're in a row, I definitely planted them...

I'll discover what I have in due time, it's not often that I get seedlings that I don't recognize.

The echinacea are coming up...

As are the tropical milkweed, and the stokesia... But I didn't take pictures...

The agalinis have been coming up.

It's very important to recognize the plants early. Many people pull everything they don't recognize... It makes having unusual plants in the garden a bit difficult...

Agalinis shouldn't be an unusual plant in the southern garden... it comes up everywhere that I put in a garden in the middle Georgia area... All it requires is that you don't pull it for a weed!

Agalinis is a host plant for the buckeye butterfly.

These critters are acting like they are fixing to ensure the next generation... Spending time with the host plants... They sure are pretty!

The salvia is amazing... pictures simply don't do it justice!

Every time I walk past these poppies, I reach for my camera.

I don't think the camera has the ability to record these the way that my eyes see them...

If nebody is wonderin, I akshully do have some beans n squash n sweet-corn n irish taters seedlings up, it's not all eye-candy...

I useta have a GF who tole everyone that I had a coupla rows of veggies growing in an acre of flowers... Wasn't quite true... It was more like 2 acres of flowers, and a row or two of vegetables...

:)

Here's another picture of the cat...

She's having a bit of breakfast...

The other night, I heard her slapping at the wood pile... She'd cornered a snake. It was too dark to tell, but it had the markings of a copperhead... Ask Steve Earle...
I picked her up, said leave that alone... stick to stuff with fur...

April 11 2012

The rats are chewing the insulation off the wiring...

One more reason to love the cat...
She caught this monster right in front of me....
It was dusk, there was a big commotion in the lumber, I shined the flashlight toward one end, the rat zigged when he shoulda zagged... right into the cat's teeth.... The cat didn't waste time torturing the big mean nasty rat...
Rats must be tasty, cats sure eat them up in a hurry.

Early blooms in the silphium...

The buckeye blooms have been pretty...

the viper's bugloss is starting to bloom.

Pretty in purple...

Columbine and iris.

Somebody was here... Good sized snake came and left his calling card...

It's not raining enough...

Spring with Rain!

After last years terrific drought, having a bit of rain makes a very nice change...

The poppies are blooming...

But...
The bees and butterflies are going nuts over the chinaberry tree.

Yeah... I know... Invasive menace...
But I didn't plant it... It was there when I cleared for the garden.
Makes it ok...

Here's a zebra...

I picked some greens...

Magenta spreen.... Real tasty...

I have spinach too....

The cat is taking a break after a busy day killing varmits....
A bit later I watched the cat stalk a short-tailed vole... She played with her meal for what seemed like an hour before finally eating it... We should all eat food that squeaks... the cat certainly seems healthy enough on a diet of live rodents...

Camping in the Garden

Cheery fire.

The cat brought dinner.

I pulled the weeds last winter, and spread well-aged manure...
A little too well-aged... It came with weed seeds which grew with the cool season rains...

Got some manure that isn't as well-aged... Hoping for a few less weeds....

Top dressing the flowers after pulling out the weeds... Let's see how they do...

Toadflax.

I consider this winter annual to be a wildflower...

Coral honeysuckle.

Eastern columbine

Salvia

So far things are looking up...

We deserve a decent gardening year after the one we had last year...

Early Spring

I have some early blooms to share...

Is February too early for peach and pear blooms?

I had good pears last year in the drought, but the peaches didn't set...

I'm not really expecting a second year of pears, but I wouldn't complain if I got some.... A friend is taking the Master Gardener course offered by the extension service, and she tells me that peaches are difficult for the home gardener to grow in GA.

Here's hoping for a bit of luck... I really like peaches...