Welcome to my garden.  We are in Zone 6.  This pictorial garden diary will be added to from time to time, so for those of you who are interested, just scroll down to see the latest of what is happening in and at Home Farm Herbery in Munfordville, KY. Also as you scroll down, you will discover links to gardening articles I have written that may help you as a gardener.

We also offer gardening tips and ideas.  We also welcome any gardening news, ideas, tips or photos from your garden. email them to us and upon review we will publish them here. We may even create a whole new gardening page just for you! Send to askarlene@scrtc.com

Caring for Crape Myrtle

Here it is, May 2004 all ready.  The garden is starting to come to life and we just cannot keep up with it.  It changes daily, opening up, peaking, fading!

Here are some pictures recently taken of Arlene's garden at Home Farm Herbery.

May 29th, 2004 and we have had days of heavy rains and thunderstorms.  We get about 12 hours of no rain, then 12 hours of the skies opening. It has gone on for 6 days. The shrub roses are hanging heavy as are many other flowers.  The beautiful pots of geraniums I  had ready for sitting on Glynis' back porch are just about shot and they were 6 big beautiful pots.  But here are some pictures taken on the 29th.  

Do you have a deer problem in your garden? Try planting these types of plants and trees.

June 6th, 2004. As I have said, we have endured incredible rains and thunderstorms for days.  Sun shown brightly yesterday, but overcast again today. Should be good to try and clean out some patches of the Cottage Garden and replant some perennials. I picked the first of the peaches off one of the peach trees in our little peach orchard.  I noticed a lot of them on the ground. So, I cleaned the tree.  They have a wonderful taste and all organic as we use no sprays of any kind on them.

I also harvested the first bunches of radishes.  A real treat as we love radish sandwiches with lots of salt, pepper and mayo!

I planted 3 more raised beds of tomatoes and 2 patio planters of black seeded simpson lettuce.  I finally planted the last 10 packs of sunflower seeds. 10 different varieties.  These are for the birds who love them and also for their ability to grace the beds of Home Farm Herbery.  I do believe we have about 30 different varieties planted now. 

I was able to plant the following annuals, zinna ( which I love), marigolds, calandra, yellow daisy and some others (I have all ready forgotten the name of between the beds and computer).  These all went into the bare spots of the raised beds of the perennials.  In this one section where some of the Asiatic Lilies are, there are some orange ones and one of them has 18 (yes I said eighteen) blooms on it.  Another one has 16!  Amazing!

The purple balloon flowers are really at their peak right now and a couple of old Easter lilies I had received as gifts over the years were planted in a corner of one of the iris beds and on June 9th I discovered they are in their glory again."  One of them had 8 blooms on it and the other had 6 blooms.  Plus there were 3 shoots coming out of the ground that each had two buds on them. So just put those old Easter lilies in the ground and forget about them.

Do you have flowers you would like to dry? Read "Drying Flowers"

June 11th. About 80 degrees or so, but overcast and a good wind. I went down to Glynis "Citadel" and planted the last rose and made some small beds for the Glads, Asiatic Lilies and Oriental Lilies she bought and never got planted.  I think the Asicatic Lilies are goners, but perhaps the others will take heart and come up.  Meanwhile, out front of the "Bunkhouse" the Calla Lilies are doing their thing. 

June 12th, the skies opened up for about 15 hours. Thunder and lightening and pouring rain. We were out of electric for 4+ hours. Still no telephone. We spent a day on the patio reading and drinking wine and watching nature at her best or worst depending on how one looks at the glass.

June 13th, still no phones. Still overcast. Everytime I go into the garden to work we get light shower. I pack up and go in, it stops. I did get some delphinium seedlings planted and a small area cleaned. The pin cushion flowers in front of the Garden Cottage (Scabiosa (Butterfly Blue variety) are very pretty right now and you can see one of Linda's gnomes peeking through.  The gardens are starting to show many signs of purple hues. The Lavender in front of the BunkHouse is ready to be picked.  It always matures earlier than the lavender beds below in the Mediterranean herb beds.  This morning, Glynis said, "The roses down at the Citadel, (where she lives) are really fragrant and one is almost a red black color"  I will have to walk down there.

June 15th, and we are still getting overcast, showers interupted by major thunder and lightening occasionally.  Today it is very overcast, very still and the weather forecast predicts the same kind of weather until June 21.  Carl and I got the walkways burned and I got tons of weeds cleared out.  The cottage garden in the pictures below are driving me crazy with the grass that seems to be taking over where I had it weeded out and planted perennials.  I have no idea where the grass comes from.  It is hard to see, but the honeysuckle on the Garden Cottage (where Linda and Kane live) is really going crazy on that building as is the shrub roses.  They are covering the 2 picture windows and I considered chopping them out, but Linda has never opened the blinds on those windows in 3 years, so I just left them to do their thing.

June 18th, 2004 and it is very hot and humid today.  Weather station says up to 97, but should cool down to the 60's tonight after we get the thunderstorms and rain that is predicted for later on today.  For the 6 summers that I have lived here, I have never seen storms like these.

Got some weeding done and cleaned out the green house this a.m. Soaking wet with sweat.  The geranimums that usually do so well are really too wet right now.  Harvested some more basil.  Also onions.  I have to harvest the chocolate mint as it has gone crazy this year.  Laid some more mulch out in the big rose bed.  The Day Lily bed changes every day.  Here are some pretty ones I discovered today.

June 19, 2004.  Harvested all the lavender today and it made for a good pruning on the lavender bushes which is needed each season. There is nothing as lovely, to me, as working on the harvesting of lavender.  The scent is beyond description.  Then there is the pleasure of bundling it up and hanging it from the rafter in our garage for 2 or 3 weeks to dry.  The garage is such a delight to walk through regardless of it being a much overdue chore of cleaning up, throwing out and realizing it will never have a car in it.

I pinched a lot of basil, plus I got all the new grape vine growth on one side of the long pergola trained up and I tied up all the new climbing rose growth on the other side.  Still overcast today.

Even though the sun shown through for about 10 minutes.  The cantalope and various melons we planted are looking good.  I bent all the onions over and hopefully that will make them grow larger.  The potatoes were popping through the straw, so I added more straw to cover them up.

June 22nd 2004  It is overcast again this a.m., but a day of firsts.  Harvested the first crop of the year for our chocolate mint. It is more abundant than last year. Now we have to get it dried. It makes such great tea.

The first of the Canna Lilies is out and the Cleomie (spelling?). Also the first dahlias, Zinnia, Glads, Pink Calla Lilies, and Mums.  We also enjoyed the 1st yellow cherry tomatoes and red cherry tomatoes that I have growing in the hanging planters on the covered patio.

The weeding is an ongoing thing.

June 26th, 2004  Today I harvested Greek Oregano, Broadleaf Sage, Parsley, and more Basil.  The house smelled wonderful as they were all being dried. That morning was only 68 degrees and overcast. Nice to work, but the first of the mosquitoes have arrived.  Only normal after all the rain we have had this past month. Carl weed whacked the whole big strawberry bed and now they will rest until next year.

June 28th, 2004.  Today Carl and I had to tackle mowing 5 acres of the 15 acres here.  Jeff and Pam take care of 10 acres when they come in for weekends and stay at the big house.  Kane is so busy with his summer job and between his "play time" on his days off and rain, we just could not stand it any longer.  We each took a riding mower and off we went.  Glynis came and 6 p.m. and grabbed a weed whacker to do the parts we could nto get at.  So we have decided we will do it from now on.  The Oriental lilies are doing well and so are the Hostas in the rose arbor.  At the end of the arbor, one can see the little trailer waiting for the next visitor or wwoofer.  One can not see the yellow and pink glads very well in this picture, but they are beautiful.  

Want to make a wild life garden?  Here's how to make a wildlife garden.

June 30th, 2004. About 1 p.m. a tremendous thunderstorm came up and we had a fine downpour for about an hour with lusty cool winds. We also had the electric go off. We sat out on the patio and read until the storm spent itself. Afterwards, we were rewarded with a hugh bouquet of yellow, pink & red gladioli that had to be cut. Also these Oriental Lilies opened up for us.

July 7th, 2004 We have had thundershowers, big winds and lightening almost every day for the past 4 days.  Some last a half hour, some 2 or 3 hours.  It raises havoc with some of the flowers, especially the gladioli.  But the Oriental Lilies are really enjoying it.  Our many varieties of melons are looking good. I have to get down to work on them.  We are enjoying some grape and cherry tomatoes daily.  The weeding is beyond comprehension and we are back to no workers.  They all want white collar wages and air conditioned areas to work in.  We finally got a company to come in and mow and weed whack 2 times a month. 

August 13, 2004  Today was a pleasure day.  Lots of work done around here and got some great pictures of one of my favorite flowers, the Zinnia!     Our last little WWOOFer only lasted a day and a half, but she did a good job in the Mediterranean herb beds.  We still look like a Burmese Jungle in the Cottage Garden and I got another 3 feet dug out and mulched.  I am now convinced that the paths are going to be widened and the flowers are going to be patio pots for the rest of my old age.

September 2nd, 2004  Today is overcast and misty.  Did a 2 a.m. run to take Carl to the Louisville airport. Did some pruning of "mystery" trees that keep growing in weird places.  Can never pull them out and then all of a sudden they are 6 ft high.  The pictures below are of the Cottage Garden now that magnificent thing is cemented over.  The dark brown paths are the original paths through the garden which finally got beyond my control. So, we are starting on our future Cottage Patio Garden! These pictures were taken today between raindrops.  The bottom center picture is of the side garden in front of the pergola.  Now that the 5 ft. high weeds are gone (boo hoo, including the flowers they were choking out), we can see Glynis' new home again.

September 15th 2004.

I finally got the greenhouse cleaned out and cleaned up. It had become a trash receptacle over for everything over the summer. Now one can work in there.

October 1st, 2004

The weather has been magnificent here. The leaves are barely turning and those that are fall into the streets and fields. Temperatures have been in mid to high 70’s during the day time and in the mid 50’s at night. It really makes for wonderful sleeping weather with all the doors and windows open and a nice quilt on the bed. . However, the other evening it seemed really chilly, maybe a breeze, so I had to close everything up because I was really getting cold. The next morning we had our lowest temperature of 47 degrees. It warmed up quite rapidly during the day. We are really enjoying the fall here now even though we still have a ways to go for full fall turning of the trees.

October 2nd, 2004

I was able to find time to repot the lavender I started from seed. I planted about 50 seeds early this spring in the greenhouse and I have gotten 6 nice plants. Most of my failures are my fault. Time runs away from me nowadays and I sometimes forget what I have going in there.  These I will baby and I have about 1000 more lavender seeds from Provence, France that I will start soon and perhaps I will get a good crop to go down with the others in the Mediterranean herb beds.