Photo by Jessica Walliser The larkspur this year is beautiful and reminds me of my grandmother’s garden. |
Our strawberry crop disappointed us this year. They didn’t produce many, and what fruits did appear were puny. I’m guessing it was due to all the rain we had this spring.
Part of me wonders if there was a lack of pollination due to the fact nobody wanted to fly around in all that rain. I heard that several of our local farms had the same problem. Last year’s bumper crop spoiled us, and I will miss the strawberry jam this coming winter for sure.
The raspberries, on the other hand, are going berserk! I sure won’t be missing any raspberry jam … I think I’ll be up to my elbows in it! They have just begun to ripen and I’m thinking I may have to invite some friends over to help them selves. Unless the birds and Japanese beetles take more than their share, we will have more than we can handle. I love going out to the garden in the evenings and eating them by the handful. So sweet!
Moving into summer, it has remained quite dry here with only an occasional brief thunderstorm. I continue to water the new grass and plantings on a daily basis and have even had to water our front driveway bed, which is filled purposefully with drought and heat-tolerant plants. No significant rain for more than a month will cause even those toughies to look a bit ragged. The sprinkler has worked it’s magic and things are looking much better.
The larkspur has been just beautiful this year. I have been growing it for more than 10 years from seeds originally collected from my grandmother’s garden. I never remember it looking so brilliantly blue. As a result, I’m thinking of her a lot this summer and wishing she was still in our lives. I wonder what her garden looks like now and if the people living in her house are giving it the attention it deserves. I won’t ever go there again just incase they aren’t. It would break my heart.
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