June Gardens

It's hard to believe that summer arrived yesterday. If your garden is like ours, it's growing like crazy!

June was a beautiful month at the End of the Oregon Trail.  We began to harvest the Tennis Ball lettuce in May, and had more ready for the food bank in June too.  And last week Kathy harvested some gooseberries from our bush out by the sidewalk.  We completed the vegetable bed with squash, watermelon, cabbage, beets, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, peppers and broom corn. (I think that is everything!)





The herb and flower gardens are coming along too.  The lambs ear is very vigorous this time of year, the Mullein is beginning to bloom and we have Marigolds, Zinnias, Cleome, Dahlias, Nigella (Love in a Mist) Amaranth and Sunflowers all coming up.  The daylilies are budding up nicely too: the Feverfew and Foxglove are stunning right now.



The hops have been climbing up a storm, and sheltering a very nice population of ladybug eggs and larvae. We need them to take care of all the aphids on the roses and other plants in the garden.  I found a nest with two eggs in the Old Cardinal rose bush when I went to prune it back.  The birds have been busy eating the insects off the veggies, and we even had Chickadees in the birdhouse on the hops arbor.

Hollyhocks are on their way, and the Scarlet Runner Beans are beginning to climb the Tee Pee again. (we gave the Tee Pee a bit of a trim a few weeks ago to give room for the beans to climb)

We had two student groups in May and June.  The team showed them how the compost bins work, talked about gardening in the 1800's and had time for some hands-on planting in pots too.

Roses continued their show in June, with the very last blooming just about two weeks ago.  But he was sure worth the wait!  By the beginning of July most of the roses will be done for the season, and I will be very busy getting them all deadheaded and trimmed for next year's show.



Here are more photos from June.  I hope you get a chance to stop in and see the gardens this season. We are all very excited to see the progress, and share with visitors. You may even see us in the gardens on weekends, and during the open air concert series beginning on Thursdays in July.