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Ilona's Garden Journal

Everything Is Late, But Coming Along

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Home in Late June

My main endeavor this summer has been to weed, since absent from the garden so long. While taking care of the vegetable plot, which if you will remember was planted hurriedly just before leaving town, I noticed some tomato fruits. Green, small to medium sized, but coming along. After all the rain you wouldn’t think I need to water, but they are in raised beds and it looks like I will need to give them a drink. Planted with a few pepper plants, which are not as far along as I’d like, but looking healthy, I gave the bed a dust mulch.

The Annabelle hydrangea is blooming her head off, one of the few things of note in my garden this year. In fact I can’t well contain her or get rid of her… she loves it here.

The bugs are intolerable, it makes work in the garden constrained to short increments of time. Sometimes the mosquitoes, sometimes little gnats that won’t leave your eyes alone. Maybe I should use swimming goggles to extend my worktime, what do you think? I do love weeding when it is hot and dry, though. It means sure death for those that are grubbed out. There was also some time spent pruning and trimming the spring flowering shrubs- better late than never, removing poison ivy from inside them…. hopefully will get to the roots later… once poison ivy gets a foothold it can be tenacious.

Many people, including myself, often dislike the chore of weeding, but as in housework, it isn’t the effort, but the result that is of such great satisfaction. To look over a freshly cleaned walkway, flower bed, or nicely trimmed shrubs makes for a good feeling… even when sticky with sweat and bothered by bugs. I don’t know how to translate that good feeling of being in touch with the earth, and yet playing a part in the care and control of it that makes gardening such a deeply passionate pastime. I know there is something of the happiness that comes from making the world, even a small corner of it a better place.

puppy-sitting

Visited Lake Erie

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© 2011 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

About Ilona Erwin

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

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Comments

  1. FireMom says

    My lily sprouts came up earlier than they ever have — and didn’t bloom until July 2 — the latest they’ve ever bloomed. But they’re lovely!

  2. Lona says

    I hope you are catching up on the weeding Ilona. I was afraid we would have more mosquitoes this year because of all of the rain and we do. I wear glasses and those little gnats still find their way into my eyes. LOL!
    It is amazing how fast everything dries up after all of that rain we had. My tomatoes are really late and just blooming so your is still ahead of mine. Have a wonderful week dog sitting.