Cottage Garden 8

I just spent a little bit of time in my garden, inspecting the plants for bugs, and I was greatly rewarded. Found a few other things, as well, as noted in the pictures:

My first dahlia in bloom.


The hydrangea that was supposed to be blue that ended up pink and has now faded to green. Hmmm . . . Happily, I still like it.


Ripening Romas.



More tomatoes. I think these are beefsteaks??? They are huge already, and just packed onto the vine. Beautiful!



And this, the dreaded bugs. (Sorry, this is difficult to see due to the blurriness of the photo. My camera limits me too often. I love it, except for real close-up shots.) This is a cutworm loaded with eggs/larvae or something. I feel very fortunate to have found this one when I did, gross as it is! I asked my brave husband to dispose of it. (We both hate killing things.) I'm hoping he stomped on it, but he asked for a can of bug spray. So long as I never see one hundred small cutworms marching toward me, I guess it doesn't matter the manner of disposal. Ugh, ugh, ugh!

Cottage Garden 7

It's been too long since I've posted anything, as life has been too busy. I now have the china cupboard almost done, and already have some of the china in. It looks so nice! I'll take a picture when it's done, and post that. By the way, the bottom portion of the cupboard makes an excellent place to take pictures of the kids. We had a lot of fun with that. On to the gardens, though:

Ageratum in the pot on my back deck. Photo taken July 8.


I bought a bunch of perennials at a "buy 1, get 1" sale. Also, I was happy to find a kiwi vine. I thought they all grew on trees. And I didn't know there were hardy varieties. So this was a great discovery! If I get some kiwi on it, I'll be even happier! I have to figure out where and how to plant it now.


One of the first zinnias. Photo taken July 8.


What remains of the shorn tomato plants: stalk and fruit.


The first tomato ripening. Photo taken July 8.



A strawberry plant I bought for Sophia.


One of three very large cutworms that made quick work of a couple of tomato plants.
(As an aside, I should tell you that my next degree will be in "creatures that kill a garden".)


(And the next degree will be in hardscaping.) I'm already wishing I'd built up the bed with more soil before putting plants in, but it still looks so much better after adding the rock border. I'm learning as I go.


The pot on the back porch. Photo taken July 16. Dahlia buds clearly visible; zinnias in full bloom. Ageratum being eaten by little lime-green inchworms who covered themselves with flower pieces as a disguise. Very crafty, but after all the damage they did to the ageratum, I surely discovered them, and took an insect spray to them. It's starting to recover now. Had I not found this when I did, the ageratum would surely all be eaten by now!


Another zinnia. Photo taken July 16.


A lime-green zinnia with a lime-green bug. I love this color of zinnia! Next year I'll plant more. They don't seem to grow as well as the pink ones or the purple ones, so I'll plant LOTS of seeds in hopes of a few more than the ONE I got this year. About this bug. I thought it was beautiful! It seemed harmless enough, so I left it there. Big mistake. -- Lots of holes in the zinnia a short time later. Aren't there any bugs that are GOOD for a garden???