Fertilizer Friday - I'm Baaaaaack!

Tootsie over at Tootsie Time hosts Fertilizer Friday each week, where participants fertilize their flowers and post photos of their gardens.  I like the meme because I''m not good at remembering to fertilize, or rather when the last time I fertilized was!  I took a break from Fertilizer Fridays last year, but decided to give it a go whenever I can this year.

This is what's happening at the School of Yard Knocks this Fertilizer Friday:

Wave petunias in a whiskey barrel.  I bought these at the end of June for $6 for two packages at Canadian Tire.  They were pretty sad looking when I bought them, but I'm hopeful they will still flourish.

More of my bargain wave petunias:

My Therese Bugnet rugrosa finished her first round of blooms about 7-10 days ago, but is putting out new flowers again.

My beloved yarrow:

I have tomatoes!  I'm embarassed to say that I didn't even know I had baby tomatoes until I took my camera out there today to take these pictures.

I also have baby zucchini!  This is one of the yellow ones, but I also have baby green ones.

My patty pan squash plants are HUGE and putting out the blooms:

Two barrels of petunias in the foreground.  They don't get a lot of sun, but I'm hoping they'll still get a little bigger.

My clematis really does have buds!  I can't wait for them to open.

The first raspberries are *almost* ready (I had one the other day, and they are still on the sour side, but I couldn't resist).

What's happening in your garden this Friday?

And now for the Veggie Report ...

My veggies are coming along nicely.  We've had a good mix of rain and sunshine over the past few weeks.

I went a little crazy with my tomato purchases this year.  I have no idea what I was doing but I ended up with way too many tomato plants.  I have 17 planted and I sent 5 home with my Auntie Mary this morning. I know I have Lemon Boys and Sweet Millions, but there are at least two other varieties out there.  Will make a note the next time I go out (it's currently raining).

In addition to my usual bed of tomatoes, I stuck a row down the centre of this bed as well.  Those are beets on the sides.

National Pickling cucumbers.

Patty Pan squash (also known as Sunburst or scallop squash).

Kentucky Wonder pole beans and zucchini.  I have two beds planted like this - one with Gold Rush zucchini and one with black zucchini.

Fertilizer Friday

It's Fertilizer Friday, folks - time to fertilizer our plants indoors and out, and post pictures of what's growing in our little corner of the world today. This meme is hosted by Tootsie Time - make sure you stop by to link in, or to find links to other participants.

I missed the last two Fertilizer Fridays :-( My niece got married on August 8th and I took a trip to Temple Gardens in Moose Jaw the following week. Altho' I got home in time to take pictures, the weather was not cooperating. We had major rainstorms here last weekend. I am behind in most things gardening. I did, however, make about 4 gallons of bortsch last weekend, which I froze in small containers for the winter. My beets and other veggies came in handy for that!

But I snapped some pictures on my lunch break today and this Fertilizer Friday, I am ready to flaunt:

Stargazer lilies, purchased at an end-of-season perennial sale

Finally, some ripe tomatoes (sweet millions)! I was watching and watching this one little tomato - I actually blogged it weeks ago because it was the first one to form. It was turning ever so slowly. I got home from Moose Jaw and it was gone! I'm pretty sure it was my petsitter, hahahahahaha (love you anyway Miss Michelle!).

An angel tucked in behind some raspberries and my new Therese Bugnet rugosa.

Begonias are still going strong.

One of the hanging baskets on my deck.

Scarlet runner beans in my herb bed.

Kentucky wonder pole beans climbed all the way up my handstrung trellis and then some. The bush beans in front are the royal burgundy ones.

Other side of the pole bean trellis.

Marigolds are still going strong too.

My sunflowers are a bit of a surprise - much much taller than expected but very pretty. Not too many blooms open yet.

A supermacro shot of a borage flower. The bees love these!

Himalayan impatiens in front of two barrels with wave petunias.

And a different view of the barrels/Himalayan impatiens:

What's happening with your plants today?

Fertilizer Friday ~ Flaunt your Flowers

It's Friday! Time to grab our fertilizer and give our plants inside and out a good feeding. Once you're done, post pictures of what's growing at your place. Don't forget to visit Tootsie Time to link up with her fun Fertilizer Friday meme!

My saskatoon berries are coming along. Lots to eat straight off the bushes, and my beagle Gabe heads straight for the bushes every time I let him outside, so that he can forage below the bushes to pick up the berries the birds drop.

These next flowers, I'm hoping someone can identify for me. My mom planted them. She chose them because they are very heat resistant and they grow bountifully against the garage, which gets full south and west sun. I suspect some people would classify these as weeds as they are mildly invasive.

I need help identifying these purple flowers too, please; also planted by my mom. They grow in the north-facing perennial bed and can tolerate a lot of shade. The petals are a deeper purple than the pictures show.

Barrel of geraniums, impatiens, and spikes by my backdoor.

And a closeup of a geranium ....

Friends of mine bought me this rosebush as a memorial to my mom. I'm not sure which variety it is.

A couple photos of my tomato plants, which are growing like gangbusters. Obviously the weekly fertilizing is doing the trick.

They are packed so tightly in the bed, you can't really tell one plant from the other. I had the same number of tomato plants in that bed last year, and they were nowhere near as bountiful.

And, that's what's going on at the School of Yard Knocks this Fertilizer Friday. Don't forget to check out Tootise Time, where you can link yourself up in this meme, or find links to other gardens that are participating.

First peas and other baby veg

There's nothing yummier than snap peas straight from the vine, still warm from the sun.

One of many baby cukes (National Pickling).

Super Fantastic tomatoes off to a super fantastic start.

To me, the smell of summer is dill. I love running my hands through the dill to make the smell rise. I've been eating baby potatoes with whole cream, fried onions and dill for the past week. I haven't had that since my mom passed away - I've been scared to try my hand at it. But it turned out okay. Yum! Thanks Mom!

First tomato

"Before" photos

I finally got the last of my flower seedlings planted tonight. The calendula, sunflowers, and last of the marigolds went into the ground. I rarely plant anything right in the ground because the dogs will just trample it. If I do put something right in the ground, I try and position it close to a barrel or planter or fence or someplace the dogs don't usually go. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. They've broken about 4 of my snapdragons already. I love my dogs more than I love my garden though (I love my dogs, I love my dogs, yes I love my plant-trampling dogs *very* much, I really do). My whole yard is evolving around the dogs, really. The raised beds were all about the dogs. It's working. It's just a work in progress.

I also had some pansies which I stuck into pots (above) and the alyssum, which I stuck into planters I had already planted (on the side of the house).

So, this is my first "before" picture. With luck, by August this will be all lushly green, and you won't even see the boxes. This is the view from my back fence. You can see my handstrung trellis for my pole beans in the foreground and my little yellow house, with the patio lanterns gleaming, looks faaaar in the distance. (Okay, you may have to click on the picture to enlarge it in order to actually see the gleaming patio lanterns.)

Take note because the above is an extremely rare photo of my "orchard." My orchard is always very weedy and I hate taking pictures that showcase my weeds. However, I got it weed-free last Saturday and figured I better take a picture before the green sprouts start showing again. In the foreground on the left is my dad's poor crabapple tree. I think it's on its last limbs. Dad fussed over that tree endlessly and I have absolutely no knowledge of what the fussing entailed. So, it is languishing. Beyond the mailbox my mom painted (gardening hand tools stored inside) are raspberry canes; and beyond those, the saskatoons. There's a sweet millions cherry tomato plant in the planter in the foreground.

Okay, this is my "deckio." It is a wooden deck, but only about 4" off the ground - not a stone patio and not a deck, hence the "deckio." I love it. It's very cosy. My mom and dad built this themselves and I have a picture of them in my verandah in which they are looking hot and grubby but giving big smiles and thumbs up while they stand on the completed deckio.

You can see the fuschias I bought for my mom for Mother's Day hanging there, and beyond the deckio is the firepit, barrels with wave petunias (and marigolds planted right against those barrels)and then the raised beds. On the right is a "ladder" my dad built my mom specifically to stick little planters on, and my poor snappies are precariously arranged around the ladder. What the dogs need to do over there is anyone's guess. But anyway, again, barring snow in July or a tornado, this should look very different in August.

Knock wood.