As I think I have mentioned before, we plant a lot of seeds. I keep all the seed packets, but honestly sometimes forget what I have planted where. I have a great seed catalog that shows what seedlings look like and I use that to match up or try and guess what we have growing. This year there have been many strange plants emerging, many that I don’t recognize from the last few seasons. I spent some time pulling many I thought were weeds and trying to identify tiny green specks. I have had my eye on several feathery stocks, almost certain that they were growing where I had planted some poppy seeds. I did notice them last season, but they never flowered. They never got very big at all, and I have learned sometimes it takes some plants grown from seed several seasons to get going. Which was exactly what I thought about these. This spring, they were some of the first to emerge from the soil. These feathery stalks were in several areas and were growing faster than any other plants. I believed this to be the case since they were on their second year. I thought for sure they were poppies. Well, I was certainly wrong. You may have looked at these photos and known exactly what they were. After I found out, it seemed silly that I thought they were anything but those orange vegetables that rabbits love to eat. I would have easily guessed that if I had remembered the conversation I had with the teenager who needed somewhere to put his biology project. After unloading some new plants yesterday into the back yard, we walked past where one of the largest stalks had been growing. Just at the very top of the soil peaked out an orange top. I stopped and looked closer, and the teenage biology student giggled and peered over my shoulder. I didn’t recall the conversation, but I did recall the project for school at the end of his sophomore year. We walked around the yard searching for all the look alike feathery stalks, and low and behold we had a carrot crop growing. We pulled a few and left a few to see how much bigger they would get. Those pesky carrots had been growing last year as well, just much smaller. Since I didn’t think I was growing any harvest-able plants, I had just watched them as if they were a flower. In fact, while planting some annuals this year, I stumbled upon something I thought were old bulbs. I’m fairly certain those were old carrots from last year. :) Apparently, our biology student is a Johnny carrot seed. We had a good laugh over the whole carrot thing, and I was reminded of the carrots that were growing in my grandpa’s backyard garden. I always thought I was helping when I would “harvest” his carrot crop and bring them proudly inside the house to show him. I’m pretty certain they were never ready to be gathered, as the look on his face would tell me. He never got mad at me, just would take the tiny carrots and wash them off. I think we may try carrots again, just for fun.
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Well hello! If you are reading this, thank you! It’s been too long since I updated the garden sight and was looking back at all the posts from last summer. I’m so glad we have such a fun record of all the plants from last year. We will try to keep this updated and see how different the plants look this year. We had a dry winter, and my lack of winter watering took its toll. We lost several plants, and I would say that from looking at the photos from last summer, it seems many of the plants and flowers are off to a slower start this season. I haven’t spent much time out in the yard, just doing a good spring clean up and planting a quick bit of annuals. I haven’t even filled many of my pots yet! One reason is simply not having much time to dedicate and the other is weather. We have already had some hail storms that have bruised and beaten some of the plants, and I think my fear is that this may be the start of a volatile summer. As a result, I just may not plant as much as I normally do and see how my existing plants handle the weather. We have some huge Lupine plants this year. One that is an amazing deep purple and I’m sure it’s the biggest one that I have ever had. Some violet and baby pink are beginning to flower as well on the other side of the yard. I have success with these every year, but noticed my happy ones form last year are much smaller this time around. Our California poppies are everywhere, and just seeing a few blooms this morning. I planted a ton of poppy seeds this spring, of all different varieties. I can’t wait to see if they do well this season. The oriental poppy I planted last year, didn’t survive the winter. My thought is that it needed a bit more sunshine and the area I planted it in got a lot of morning shade. My photographer took some shots of the garden as it looked this afternoon. I’m hoping to repeat this a few times a month to show its progress. We have some Cottonwood trees that are going crazy and so the year is filled with little white puffs.
Thanks for reading about the start to our summer garden in Colorado. |
AuthorCrazy plant girl who likes all things flowers, gardens and kittens. Together with my landscape foreman and photographer/site manager, we are watching our garden grow. Archives
August 2019
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