Walking the Estate on a June Evening

 Come view my plants with me! I'll tell you some tidbits about my plants and what's going on. 

I put some houseplants out for a bit of fresh summer air. Some of you advised me to put my spiderwort outside to get rid of its brown faded leaves. We'll see. 

Another houseplant, the big spider from the dining room. I like to think it gives the hummingbirds a little cover at the feeder. The pink geranium is Phoebe's from 3 years ago! The red geranium is mine from last year. They cover up the sugar drips from the feeder quite prettily. 

The rhubarb on the left is still going strong. The little swamp white oak grows steadily in the middle and the red raspberries on the right are exploding. I am hoping to make red raspberry jam this year. There's apple mint (meadow tea, the locals say) mixed in there, too. 

This is my rain garden full of native plants, and I adore it. I am reading about native plants and having a real epiphany about their importance to the birds and bees and, you know, people. Because we are all connected and nature needs us to do our part to fix the damage. 

My tomato plants were nibbled early on, but not recently. I suspect a rabbit family took up residence under the red raspberries and we have tried to make them feel unwelcome with bobcat pee and stern lectures. The plants are heavily mulched with grass clippings from my dad. 

Black raspberries coming on!

The main raised bed has Phoebe's zinnias that she planted from seed, pepper plants, okra seedlings that I started from seed, and cucumbers and green beans just coming up. The okra seedlings were also being nibbled, but I suspected slugs or snails. I ringed each seedling with crushed egg shells and diatomaceous earth. The damage slowed down, so I guess it helped?

In the back is my new composter gotten free from a neighbor via freecycle. My old composter sat on the ground and the mice made themselves free with it. I mean, I still got plenty of great compost but it annoyed me to feed mice so close to our house when they take any opportunity to come inside in cold weather. Behind the composter are some junk trees growing in the fences there. Their roots are not on our property but their branches sure are. One tree I have been cutting back for years. I don't want to use chemicals on them, but they look so ridiculous and they're not situated for anything useful. 

Here is Phoebe's pepper plant and my new herb bed my husband made me. I am having a hard time thinning the basil seedlings. I love the transformation of seed to seedling to food so much that I can barely stand to take any of the seedlings away. I know, I know, they need the space. . . I actually transplanted some in my front porch pot to help my mental state!

My front porch flowers make me so happy. Just happy. Life is zipping by, my children are at a hectic age, but we walked the estate here and I'm grateful.