Sunflowers & Bumble Bees

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Martie (the Taos Sunflower).  I never look at a sunflower without thinking of her!  

I have some "volunteer" sunflowers growing in my little vegetable garden.  I think the chipmunks might have had a paw in that.......

The sunflowers don't interfere with the tomatoes or zucchini, so I let them grow because my goldfinches, cardinals and chickadees love sunflower seeds! (plus it's free seed!)

Since I don't use any pesticides, there are lots of bugs in the garden too.  They don't seem to bother my veggies or flowers much -- the birds do an excellent job of the "insect extermination" chores for me.  And I count on the bees to complete all pollination activities so I can grow lots of tomatoes.  Mr. Bumble Bee takes this task very seriously and as you can see, he's already picked up quite a bit of pollen today!

Tomato blossoms are OK, but Mr. Bumble Bee knows that he can get the biggest "bang for his buck" on the multiple blossoms of this sunflower!

Look at him go!  Making his way around the entire flower!

By the time he was ready to fly away, he had collected so much pollen on his back legs that he could barely fly!  He really had to work at getting up some speed for the journey to his pollen storage facility.  (What do they do with that pollen anyway??)

Finally got the landing gear retracted and he's off!  Good-bye Mr. Bumble Bee!  Thanks for allowing me to photograph you.  You're welcome back anytime & bring your friends too!  It's a short summer season here in Minnesota and we have to enjoy these flowers while we can!

Some Miscellaneous Stuff

This afternoon I donated my 120th unit of whole blood. For this achievement, I received my 15 gallon pin to add to my blood donor flair collection, plus a t-shirt and lovely purple water bottle. You know, it really doesn't seem like that long ago when I was celebrating my 100th unit.....

I realized when I was hanging out laundry the other day that I haven't shared any photos of the garden yet this year, so here they are. This garden bed contains 2 yellow zucchini plants (foreground), 3 pepper plants -- yellow banana, red and purple (at the left hiding behind the zucchini), 4 tomato plants (center), and 2 rows of giant sunflowers that I hope to harvest to have sunflowers heads to put out for my birds this winter (far right side).

Here's the other raised garden bed, containing radishes (pretty much done for the year now), leaf lettuce, beets, carrots, onions, and green beans. The orange flags were to mark the rows before everything sprouted, but I could probably take them down now. The white stuff between the rows on both these gardens is horse bedding (wood shavings). I was hoping it would help to keep the weeds down between the rows and I could till it into the soil as compost in the fall.

Remember a few years ago when I did a garden makeover at the front of the house? Here's how it looks today. Now that the plants and flowers have had a couple of years to grow and fill in, this garden has turned out exactly like I envisioned (hoped) it would. The lilies are especially fantastic this year.

I think this sunflower was planted by a chipmunk. It's right outside the basement window and I decided to let it grow. It has a perfect blossom and I'm sure the birdies will love feasting on the seeds later this season.

I finally got my fish children into their outside pond for the summer. They're not at all cooperative about having their picture taken and usually stay under the big rock when they see someone standing by their pool, but I did manage to catch a couple of them hanging out by the water lettuce.

Here's a little bit closer (but not necessarily better) look at them. They've adapted well to living in the backyard pond and I'm sure they won't be too happy coming back in to their 20-gallon tank in the fall after living in 60-gallon luxury for the summer. I have until October sometime to decide whether I want to invest in another larger aquarium for inside the house.......

Garden Fence Fail!

I spotted this little guy in the garden this morning. How in the world do they get in? The fence is stapled down all the way around the bottom edge.
Fortunately for this little bun (and my garden) he was feasting on the dandelion leaves, so I let him stay. Maybe the abundance of dandelions growing in there will distract him from the peas and beans.......

Let the weekend begin.....

We had some big thunderstorms in the area yesterday. In the town where my Mom and Dad live, the roof was blown off the local cafe -- a not-so-pleasant surprise for the customers in the dining room enjoying the noon special. Fortunately, there was no damage at Mom and Dad's house. The storms moved through fast but here's a picture I took from our driveway of the last line of storms moving into Iowa around suppertime. Wow, I love seeing the towering thunderstorm clouds (as long as they're not heading towards me!)

We had an unexpected visitor show up in the backyard for afternoon snacks today! I'm always amazed at how their summer fur is so completely different from their winter coat. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see this old doe has quite a few scars -- I suppose from running through the woods and hitting all kinds of branches, fences, etc.

She was hearing or seeing something farther down in the yard......I don't know what it was, but it sure got her attention!

I did some work in the vegetable gardens this afternoon. The squash, zucchini and tomatoes are humongous and I had to trim some of the branches and vines out of that garden so the plants could get more sunlight. The other veggie garden got some attention too and I pulled out all of the lettuce, onions and beets. Except for a few smaller ones, these onions are all quite nice. There are so many though that I may have to put some in the dehydrator to make sure they don't spoil. The beet crop was mighty disappointing. I'd like to try replanting some more seeds, but I'm guessing it's probably too late in the season for that. (There's a couple small golden zucchini I picked too.)

The weather's been so cool and predicted to remain so into the next week, so I'm going to replant some leaf lettuce and more peas too.


I finally got my rain barrels set up today. I read in a Birds & Blooms magazine about one gentleman who used garbage barrels as a less expensive substitute for those +$100 rain barrels sold in home & garden stores, so I bought a couple of 50 gallon Rubbermaid garbage barrels and some downspout adaptor tubes. I installed them this afternoon on both ends of the garage where the downspouts are closer to the ground and I have level surfaces to set the barrels.

It looks like kind of a "Rube Goldberg" set-up, but I think it's good enough for who it's for and both of these together cost me way less than $100, so I'm happy.

Not much else going on with me. Tomorrow we'll be riding with some friends in the motorcycle "Cruise for Kids" benefitting our local Ronald McDonald House. The weather forecast sounds perfect and we're looking forward to a fun day. I'll take my camera and see if I can get any interesting pictures to share with you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Random Friday

Happy 3rd of July! I hope some of you are enjoying this day as a holiday from work (I sure am!) It's been a while since my last post, so here's a potpourri of observations from the past week.

A look in the garden the other day revealed that some thing were missing--like beet tops.......

and pea sprouts!

Since I'm reasonably certain Peter Cottontail and his buddies can't access the garden, my immediate suspect was Bambi's mom and sure enough, after very little searching, I found her hoofprint (several, actually!)
Obviously the greens provided a tasty diversion from the usual nightly feast of corn and birdseed and my 3-foot fence was no obstacle for Mrs. White-Tail. Liquid Fence to the rescue! I mixed up a fresh batch of this horrible-smelling stuff and applied a liberal dose to all of this tempting salad bar. And it worked! Here's some of the beautiful fresh lettuce and peas I used to make us delicious salads for supper last night. (those peas were so sweet--no wonder the deer liked them!)

There are lots of flowers blooming all over the place right now. Here are some of the sweet-smelling blossoms on the staghorn sumac bushes. This busy little bumblebee was loving it! See all the pollen collected on his/her back legs?

I'm starting to see some butterflies, but the butterfly activity seems slow this summer. I think this is a Pearl Crescent.

The common milkweed in my yard is starting to bloom. I actually saw a couple of monarchs checking out the flowers for nectar. The monarch numbers seem to be down this year too and I have yet to find any eggs or larvae on any of my milkweed plants.

Hopefully there's just a delay in their migration and things will pick up soon--I've got a brand new monarch ranch on the kitchen counter just waiting to be populated with caterpillars.

Two of my neighbors have beehives now and I'm guessing this might be one of their honeybees checking out the milkweed blossoms for nectar too.

Did you get your new "license to bird" yet?

The new duck stamps are available at your local post office and you don't have to be a duck hunter. "Federal Duck Stamp Dollars are used to purchase wetlands and other valuable habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System, benefitting many different birds and other wildlife species."

Another plus: your duck stamp can be used as a season pass to any National Wildlife Refuge! (where you might be able to see the really neat Long-Tailed Duck pictured on this stamp)

I saw this inside my compost bin the other day.......

Thanks to Susan's post a couple weeks ago about slime mold in her yard, I was pretty certain that's what this was. So instead of being grossed out, I was pretty excited!

Two of the baby chickadees have fledged and have been seen hanging around the yard.

A nest box check last evening revealed two little ones still inside. I don't know how those overworked parents can manage it, but they're looking pretty frazzled when they stop by to pick up some mealworms.

Thus ends another nerdy post from the Nature Knitter. Since you've read this to the end, you may be a nature nerd too--check out The Nature Lady's blog and take the quiz. (I believe I answered "yes" to 15 of the 16 questions.) It's time to come out of the closet and declare yourself as a Nature Nerd too! Finally it's cool to be a nerd! Woo-Hoo!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Garden Update

This afternoon I harvested the first produce from this year's vegetable garden -- a radish!
This is the first time I've planted radishes in the garden and I couldn't believe how beautiful the color on this little radish was. It tasted pretty good too.

Here's a look at my two raised bed gardens for this year. As you can see, I've gone back planting in rows again. The radish came from this bed -- down on the lower left side (radishes are sharing a row with leaf lettuce -- the bright green leaves at the lower right of the picture). There are also some volunteer strawberry plants that I discovered this spring while cleaning out this bed and I decided to leave them and see if they will produce any strawberries. In this bed, I've also planted cucumbers (pickling and eating), peas, green beans, carrots, beets, and onions. I got everything planted really early this year (late April) and have been fortunate that we've not had any late frosts this spring.

Here's my second raised bed (you might remember what a disaster it was last year when my dirt was delivered from the garden center). Earlier this spring my neighbor Scott brought over a little pickup load of compost for me and that was just enough to cover this bed and it's doing really nicely now. In here I've planted zucchini, winter squash, tomatoes (Roma, cherry, and regular ones for BLTs and canning), a couple of red pepper plants, a jalapeno pepper and cilantro for making salsa, and broccoli (that I'm trying to grow from seed).

In case you're wondering, the little plastic containers are "wind protectors" for a couple of really small pepper and tomato plants that I grew from seed.

I've got some garbage-can potatoes going this year again too. After last year's successful harvest, I added a fourth garbage can. I think I planted these on Easter Sunday and after a slow start, they are now doing very well.

This has nothing to do with the gardens, but here's one of the cute little hummingbirds that's visiting me this year. After getting a drink from the oriole feeder, she loves to sit on this little branch perch and fluffle up her feathers (that's what she's going here--see how her tail's fanned out and moving really fast?)

Transplants, Sprouts & A New Camera

My veggie seeds are doing well since I transplanted them into their individual "pots" last Friday. Here I have 3 different kinds of tomatoes and some broccoli. I put them out on the deck a couple hours yesterday afternoon for a little fresh air and sunshine.

Penny sez, "I approve of these sprouts being grown for my noms!"

Here are some radishes just beginning to sprout in my garden. I checked when I got home from work today and there are some tiny lettuce sprouts just beginning to make their appearance also.

A few weeks ago, after reading Jennifer's post about her new camera and seeing the wonderful pictures it took, I decided to take the plunge and purchase one for myself.
I've been wanting a smaller, more portable and less expensive camera than my big Canon PowerShot and this seems to be the perfect little camera. In fact, the first 3 photos on this post were taken by my new camera. Now I have a nice little pocket-sized camera to carry along on walks, to my naturalist classes, in my bag to work, or wherever there's a chance I might have that perfect photo opportunity (as long as I don't forget it!)

Garden Update

I took all of these pictures yesterday and had every intention of doing a post last night, but a vet appointment for Penny, phone calls and "The Greatest American Dog" all conspired together against my best Blogger intentions for a timely post, so without further delay, here are some pictures and an update on my gardening efforts.

Even though it's been pretty dry lately and my watering efforts are irregular at best, the garden is thriving. We've eaten a couple cucumbers already this week. Here's another one that's almost reached the ideal size for supper. These are Japanese Climbing Cucumbers. They seem to be doing much better now after a couple good doses of Liquid Fence. Did you know deer LOVE cucumbers? And because they're climbing up a trellis, they're at an ideal height for a deer to nom, nom, nom!

This is Bright Lights Swiss Chard. I picked some the other night and cut it up for Swiss Chard Patties. I also have another recipe I want to try for Braised Swiss Chard. (Both recipes are from cooks.com).

Here's a real surprise--garbage can potatoes! Don't they look fabulous? And they tasted fabulous too! I tend to forget about them in their own little spot in the yard, but decided it was time to dig down into the dirt and see if there was anything resembling potatoes hiding in there. I was so surprised that there were potatoes and they were really nice ones too. I didn't even have to peel them, just scrubbed them clean with water and the vegetable brush, cut them up and boiled them for supper. This has been my most successful garden experiment so far this summer and I'll definitely try it again next year--maybe even add another garbage can to my collection for more potatoes.

Here's the yellow zucchini. I've already picked several of these--made a chocolate zucchini cake and zucchini fritters one night for supper. The really nice thing about these yellow zucchini is that you can SEE them and pick them before they turn into the size of a baseball bat. Those green zucchini sometimes can hide under a leaf and grow really fast if you miss them for a few days.

My squash is growing like crazy now too. This is Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash. Isn't it cute? This is a white acorn-type squash. I've never grown squash like this before and it looks like I'm going to have plenty to share from just 2 plants.

The tomatoes are still slow. I've picked 6 red grape tomatoes so far, and there are a couple more hiding in here and just turning ripe. These are a little bit bigger than grape tomatoes you buy in the store--they're almost 2 inches long, but very tasty right out of the garden.

The regular tomatoes are growing, but still no signs of ripening at all. All of the tomatoes took a bit of a beating from high winds in a thunderstorm early last week. Even though I have them in the heavy-duty cages, a couple of them were almost completely toppled over when I got home from work. I set them to rights and tamped the dirt back down around the roots, but the bottom branches came out of the cages and I had to remove several that were laying on the ground.


We had a little rain shower yesterday evening around suppertime. It was a nice surprise because we haven't had much rain for several weeks.

It rained pretty hard for about 15 minutes. This chipmunk found a good spot to stay out of the rain and continue stuffing his fat little cheeks.

And you know what happens when the sun shines while it's raining........

Can you see the second rainbow?

I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to post again tomorrow, but if I don't, I hope you all have a splendid weekend and get a chance to enjoy nature in your backyard and beyond.