This is part of our milkweed collection for the monarchs. A month ago we didn't see much sign of any milkweeds this year, but here they are, ready to flower!
And here is our first monarch-to-be caterpillar. Now in a couple weeks begins the chrysalis watch.
We even have some milkweed plants that have migrated to the other side of the silo ring and are growing in the Egyptian walking onions. And there's another caterpillar!
These petunias looked just pitiful a month ago. All the vines and filler vines had been nipped out and it all looked pretty sad. A couple nights ago the weather guys predicted storms--hail, wind, etc.--so I went out quick and took pictures in case the predictions came true. They didn't!
I love those colors!
Don't you love summer?
Here is the strawberry bed Leann made out of a pallet back in May. The plants are also supposed to be coming out the holes on the side but some of them have succumbed. I know that in the rest of the world you have strawberries in June. They're ready a few weeks later here. I hear blueberries are starting to show here, too.
Our onions this year have been a lesson in waiting...waiting to see if they would recover from their waterlogged beginning. Our neighbor orders onions for about 30 people around here from a place in Texas. When it was time for the place in Texas to harvest the little onion plants, they were flooded out. The plants eventually came but they weren't in quite the usual hardy condition when they arrived. So we planted them and waited. And watched. And waited. And watched. And they just stayed spindly and puny. Every week or so I'd pull one to see if it was growing at all underneath or if it was rotting in the soil. But there were roots and what would become the bulb was still firm. So more waiting and watching. And now we have these lovely onions! And beans for dried beans on the right. One row is Swedish brown beans! We found the seeds on the Internet!
And here are some of the not-so-puny-anymore onions!
