Off with their heads

Nora often expresses surprise at how violent gardening actually is.  She cringes in horror as I squash non-beneficial bugs between my fingers (we just got through the rose chafer phase, and this morning found the first of the Japanese beetles on the raspberries), ruthlessly prune and dead-head shrubs and flowers, and uproot plants altogether if I don’t like their appearance or placement.  But that’s gardening.

I try to explain to her that proper pest control (which requires hand-picking when you grow organic vegetables and fruit) and merciless pruning are necessary for a healthy, long-lasting garden.  When I manage to stay on top of the deadheading and pruning (and I have not this year as evidenced by the photos below), I can extend the bloom time on most of my summer perennials until the first hard frost in October.  In fact, I think the garden is at its best in late August and early September.

A very spent tea rose

Bee Balm gone wild.  Believe it or not, this clump began as two small plants last summer.  Monarda is avoided by many gardeners for this reason; it is highly invasive.  But I think it's beautiful and not surprisingly, the bees and butterflies love it.

Currently, I’m days behind in my deadheading duties.  The roses have dropped petals everywhere, the daylilies look shabby with their crumpled blooms, the catmint’s purple blossoms have washed-out, and the hardy geraniums have dropped their brilliant fuchsia flowers altogether and need a serious brush cut to encourage a 2^nd bloom in August.

On a bright note, the bee balm (monarda) and all of the various daisy-like flowers (heliopsis, cone flowers, shasta daises and rudbeckia) are in full bloom as of a couple of days ago, and the garden phlox is just opening.

In the vegetable garden, things are looking up.  Nora and I did a fair amount of weeding this past Sunday.  The cucumbers, squash and beans are flowering, and some of the beets and kale are ready for picking. 

On the berry front, the strawberries produced a decent amount in June, and are just beginning to flower again.  We have several varieties of everbearing strawberries, so they first produce in June and then continue, with a 2-3 week rest period, to produce throughout the summer and into early fall.  Although most descriptions of everbearing strawberries claim they produce the largest berries and largest crop in June, ours have always tended to produce more as summer progresses.  Jam production picks up dramatically by mid-late August.  As the June strawberry crop wanes, the raspberries and blueberries step it up.  I made the first batch of “to die for” blueberry muffins on Saturday (I’ll post the recipe later), and have been bagging and freezing raspberries for jam.

This morning's pick