June's (Unintentionally Only) Post: Doodle, Oregon, and Garden Stuff

June is almost over. It quite got away from us, what with traveling and school and such. Two of my summer classes were five-week courses that ended on June 20 (I got an A in both, thanks). We left early for our Oregon trip for a unplanned quickie visit with our daughter and granddaughter who were staying in Myrtle Beach. And, of course, we spent a delightful week in Seaside, Oregon with my parents.

The garden is doing amazing things. We've been able to enjoy fresh tomatoes with fresh basil pesto broiled on top. Danny is loving the pepper plants. And the spaghetti squash...well, all I can say is that hopefully there is a way of preserving it, because at this rate we are never going to be able to keep up with it once it starts to ripen.

There are a lot of pictures following. Some of the garden ones were taken the day we left for our travels (June 6) and some today (June 25). Kind of a before-and-after thing. There are some pictures of our visit with the Doodle, and some pictures of our visit to Oregon. In Oregon, we climbed the Astoria Column (read about the Column here) - it was the first time that I'd ever been to the Column when it was open.

6/6 view of peppers

6/6 view of basil, rosemary, sage, basil

6/6 view of tomatoes

6/6 view of shade bed

6/6 view of squash

6/6 - one lone jalapeno!

Danny & the Doodle - she was fascinated by his face

Danny & the Doodle again

Note that his glasses have been removed to keep them safe

My turn with the Doodle!

Guess my finger wasn't what she was looking for

The two of us at the top of the Astoria Column.

View from atop the Column

I tried to take a picture of my parents, who are standing in front of the building.

The Columbia River, from the top of the Astoria Column

More from atop the Column

6/25 pepper plants - oops, there's a basil in there now!

A closeup of the peppers, in an attempt to show off their productive ways

6/25 another pepper closeup

6/25 and another

6/25 - The basils, rosemary, and sage - note that we've been harvesting basil quite regularly!

6/25 The tomato plants...from the front

...and from the back. Go, tomatoes, go!

6/25 The shade bed. Not doing as well as hoped, although the coleus (and the weeds) seem happy

6/25 - Squash overload!

On 6/25, the squash are growing out of the box!

Irrigation: Check.

The irrigation system is in. For the container plants on the patio, we have a Rainbird drip irrigation system. The smaller plants are on 1 GPH emitters while the larger ones are on 2 GPH emitters. (We ran the system this morning for 20 minutes - and twenty minutes is too long. Every plant had water in its tray. We dumped out the pepper plants' trays so that they won't drown.)

The squash are on a 25 foot length of weeper hose and the ornamental garden is on a 50 foot length of soaker hose. These two hoses are joined by a length of plain hose, and the weeper hose is connected to a plain hose which is connected to the faucet.

At each of the two faucets, we installed the manual timers (think kitchen "tick-tick" timer) that we got at Tractor Supply. Once we sort out the proper time for each group to have the water running, taking care of the watering chore is going to be very easy!

Speaking of the ornamental garden, yesterday Danny planted the coleus, Johnny-jump-up, and English daisy seedlings that had been languishing in my office. They're all still pretty tiny, but hopefully they will perk up now that they are out of the house and in the ground where they belong.

Here are this week's photos. Everything is doing really quite well!

Spaghetti Squash 

Stevia, Banana Pepper, and Three Other Kinds of Pepper

Look! Our little banana pepper plant has produced again!

 A closeup to give an idea of the size.

Basil, Rosemary, Pineapple Sage, Basil

Patio Tomato, Patio Tomato, Stevia, Patio Tomato

The tomato plants are already putting on tomatoes!

Another closeup of the plant in action.

Hard to see...but all the little sticks indicate the newest plantings.

And...the first thing we have is...Peppers!

Everything is growing like crazy. The tomato plants are putting on tomatoes. But the first thing we're going to be able to harvest is a pepper! Hot banana pepper, as it turns out. Here are this week's photos, including a closeup of the amazing pepper plant.

Stevia, Hot Banana Pepper, and Three other pepper plants

Hot Banana Pepper

Basil, Rosemary, Pineapple Sage, Basil

Tomato, Tomato, Stevia, Tomato

The morningglories...still getting going

Spaghetti Squash

Phew, Time Flies When One Has a Garden!

I just realized this morning that I didn't take pictures of the garden last week and that it has been exactly two weeks since I last posted! I guess, in my own defense, that I have been busy, but, still...

The pineapple sage is blooming. The flowers are gorgeous, but usually when a plant like this blooms, it means it's nearing the end of its life cycle. I don't know yet what to do with pineapple sage, but I'm going to have to find out.

Here are this week's pictures. A new one has been added - the morning glory plants under the trees. These were started from seed a few weeks back and then put outside about two weeks ago.

Stevia, four kinds of pepper

Basil, Rosemary, Pineapple Sage, Basil

Tomato, Tomato, Stevia, Tomato

Spaghetti Squash

Morning Glory

We discovered that the reason the pepper plants were going all yellow and looking so bad had to do with overwater - they literally were drowning. So Danny has put me in charge of the watering tasks, and I've started putting in a Rainbird irrigation system for the pots, so that all one has to do is turn on the faucet for a short while every other day or so. Of course, weather being what it is, no soon had I started putting in the system then we started getting fairly regular rain, and we haven't even had a chance to test the system because we are getting plenty of water already!

Next Sweater and Another Pair of Socks

What a productive day! I finished the second sweater and another pair of Liberty Wool socks. I changed up the neckline a little on the sweater by adding a row of shell, left of the shaping on the shoulders, and added a row of single crochet at the end of the sleeves.

Blue Liberty Wool Socks

Both sweaters

The newest sweater