Cutworms

This year has been an especially bad year for cutworms in the vegetable garden. Every morning, I patrol the garden looking for the tell-tale signs that they’ve been out and about. You can typically tell cutworm damage because the seedlings look like they’ve been snipped off at the base of the plant.

If you you use your fingers to make rings about an inch deep around the stem, you’ll find the cutworm, usually about 2-3 inches away from the stem. They can vary in size and are brown, so they can be hard to spot.

This past week I’ve dug up 10, the chickens have been turning them into eggs for me.  This is one pest that can do some serious damage in a vegetable garden. I lost about half of my second planting of lettuce to these little beasties. Last year they ravaged by beans and cucumbers.

Are you dealing with any pests in the garden at the moment? 

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Parade of Flowers

I’m finally to the point where I have a lot of things blooming most of the time. Here are some photos of things that are blooming in my garden, I took all these photos yesterday morning. As you can tell, I gravitate towards purple and pink flowers with a touch of white and chartreuse thrown in. There’s the odd yellow Alexander flower, that was here when we moved in. I have yet to find a final home for it, someday I’ll figure out where it will look best.














The herbacious peonies are just starting to come out, I’m so excited to see them all. My plants are finally mostly mature, which means I have about 10 peonies that will be providing me with much loveliness in the garden and on the table.

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Climbers on the Arch

Last fall, I used a stock panel to make an arch at the main entrance of the back garden. I planted a grape on one corner and a clematis on each of the other three. The grapevine is still small, only about a foot tall, the clematis planted on the side with it is also fairly short, only a few feet tall but it’s blooming.


The two on the other side are fairly tall, both have lots of buds. I still need to plant a few things along the base of the clematis to keep the roots cool.

I’ve been trying to incorporate more climbers in the garden. Most of these clematis I got at the local discount store as tiny bare rooted plants for a few dollars each. It’s nice see them finally starting to bloom and grow.

Do you have any climbers in your garden?

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Hydrangeas in Containers

Around here, the deer mow down the hydrangeas to nubs every winter. Which means they have to come up from the roots and often don’t bloom. If they do, they only have one or two blossoms. Last fall, I dug up two of my ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangeas to see how well they would do in containers. After overwintering them in the basement, I moved them out and BAM – they’re blooming already.

Since this worked so well, I have four or five other hydrangeas that I plan on digging up and keeping in containers. I’ll most likely place them on pavers in the perennial borders during the summer and fall.

They’re a little leggy and I’ve been considering planting something underneath them to fill out the container, but they’re most likely that way from being weak last year before I transplanted them. I’m thinking that this fall I’ll cut them back hard and let them grow up from the roots next year. They’ll be shorter, but should have larger blooms. This is all a grand experiment and I already am enjoying more blooms on them than I have seen in the past 5 years.

What measures have you taken in the past to ensure blooms from favorite plants?

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Cheep, Cheep, Cheep

Ever since we moved here, we have a pair of phoebes that build a nest or two each summer in the alcove above the door to the garage. They keep building up on the previous nest, when that one got too close to the roof, they started a new one. The other day I heard the little birdies in the nest chirping when I walked by.

Phoebes are great birds to have around, I see them swooping around to catch flies and mosquitoes all the time. Yesterday, while I was working in the office, I could see one catching cabbage butterflies in the potager!

I’m happy these lovely birds come back year after year. Any bird that eats mosquitoes and garden pests is always encouraged. We didn’t have phoebes in Ohio, so they were a new bird for us when we moved here. They’re much like the wrens that we loved in Ohio as far as pest control.

What birds are you enjoying watching at the moment?

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