Time to play...plant identification!

I'll post a few pictures of flowers and you tell me what we've got! Here goes...

6-12-08

This seems to be coming from a bulb. It has foliage similar to a hyacinth, but it just bloomed a couple days ago. Those buds you see in the foreground are from the lavender it is next to in the bed.

6-8-08

This is a taller one that happens to be bending over.

6-8-08

This plant has green foliage that hugs the ground and turns reddish as the summer goes on, if I remember correctly. Each plant shoots up a few of these spindly stems with the clumps of little red flowers at the top, about a foot tall.

Greens

6-8-08
This is my favorite mustard green. Nice and pungent. It comes in a mix from Fedco and I've gotten it from Territorial in the past too. Anyone know the exact name? A mizuna maybe?

6-8-08
This rainbow chard is about twice this size today.

6-12-08

And here's the full bed. I planted a short row of rainbow chard and scattered a spicy seed mix for the rest of it. You can also see a broccoli plant I added in a bare spot. I typically don't have a lot of success with greens. Just as they are getting ready to eat many start to bolt because it's become too hot. I know I can fix that by starting the seeds indoors and transplanting them, but I'm not ready to take that step yet. It helps that George keeps us stocked with greens from his garden two doors down.

Peony

6-8-08

Chives

6-8-08
That's sage blooming in the background.

Iris

6-12-08

6-8-08

Early June Notes

Double Yield Cucumber

I haven't had much time to post (or garden) lately, so here are some notes on what's been happening over the last few weeks.

-I'm not sure when our last frost was. On May 1 there was frost in areas around the county, but I'm pretty sure we didn't get any in our garden. If we actually didn't get any frost in May, as I suspect, then our last frost might have been in the first week of April.

-May was only slightly cooler than average and quite dry.

-We are in the middle of a heatwave right now. This is day 3 of 90 degrees with at least 2 more to come.

-Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get everything planted before the heatwave. Thursday night I rigged up the trellis netting for the pole beans and I planted the beans last night. I also got cucumbers, summer squash, broccoli, thai basil and a few tomato plants in last night. Tonight I hope to finish the tomatoes and basil and plant as many peppers as I can.

-Most of my plants this year came from Black Brook Farm, who were selling at the co-op the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Our neighbor George starts his own plants from seed and he came through with peppers, tomatoes, squash, and one eggplant. I also picked up jalapenos and basil at the Regional Market this morning.

-After the vegetables are planted, we've got sunflower and zinnia seed itching to get in the ground, as well as some new perennials. I also need to prune the lilac bush.

-Strawberry alert! The local news was abuzz this past week that the first strawberries are ready for picking. Cobblestone Valley says they should have their organic berries ready in the coming week, which is slightly early for them. Since I have more free time with my June class being canceled, maybe I can make a weekly trip down for a season that might be four weeks long this year! Will trade berries for babysitting!

-Peonies bloomed this week.

-Someone is eating my peas. I've had a good-sized Hav-a-Hart trap set the last couple nights. I swear it was not tripped this morning but when I just went out to snap some photos, the trap was sprung and it was empty. And now I have both rows of peas eaten instead of just one. This means war. Or a fence.

Allium and Phlox

5-28-08

I know there are lots of varieties of phlox, but don't have a clue what these behind the allium are. Anyone know?