Gembur News: Yard Tour June 12, 2010

If you are not a member of my family, you may not know about the yard tour. It is a time honored Freeman tradition. When your car pulls into the driveway of one of our houses, you get out and walk immediately to the garden. No you may not take your suitcases in the house; they'll keep just fine where they are in the trunk. No, you may not rest a minute out of the heat. Yes, I guess if you have to go to the bathroom, go ahead, but for Pete's sake, hurry up. The very first most important thing you do is take a yard tour. (I am exaggerating a little, but not too much.)

Basically, the owner of the house walks with you through all the flower and vegetable gardens directing your attention to all his favorite plants (which means every single plant), and you hear the story of where the plant came from, it's growing history, how it is the best or worst it has ever been this year, and what the gardener plans to do with the plant in the future. If you are lucky, the gardener sees a plant that needs dividing and digs you some right then and there. No need to change clothes. Every Freeman worth his salt can dig up a daylily or two without any dirt getting on his pants.

Since most of you have never been to my house (and a few of you who have been to my house have not been subjected to this delightful ritual cause I know you don't care a lick about plants), I thought I'd give you a virtual yard tour. I did not photograph every plant because there is not an SD card in the universe that big. But I took pictures of the highlights, focusing mainly on my veggies cause I love them third only to Aaron and Livy, and you'll just have to visit to see the rest.

Before we start, if you want to see what everything looked like the last time I posted, here's the link. This was in the beginning of April. (Wow, I should really blog about my garden more regularly!)

So, first stop, back deck. This is one of my grape tomatoes. I've gotten to eat a handful so far. My larger tomatoes aren't much to look at yet. May need to fertilize those slackers!

Down in my back yard. These are my potatoes, which are looking straggly. That's okay, cause it's time to eat them. I dug one pot like this already. I didn't get a ton of potatoes, but I got enough to cut up and surround a roast chicken. I left these other pots a while longer, so hopefully I'll get more potatoes or at least larger.

Here's my bush beans. Fairly newly planted.

Red onions. Mature, but I am just leaving them in the ground until I need them. We ate a ton of them as spring onions, but now the greens are tough and falling over. The bulbs are big enough now to be real onions, but they do keep getting a little bigger.

Yellow onions too.

Here's a bag of herbs. Basil, thyme, and oregano. The oregano in particular has been going crazy.

Here's a close up of the lettuce mix I planted this spring. It's been prolific and good, very spicy and different flavored, but I am getting kind of sick of it. Soon, it may go into the compost. I'll have to plant another mix or maybe some mild single lettuces in the fall.

Here are my two bags of lettuce a little farther back.

Ace peppers. You can kind of only see 2, but there are 4 plants here. They are all covered with peppers. This may be my best pepper year ever. When I see the ginormous peppers, it is hard not to pick them right now and make them into stuffed peppers, but I really like them better when they turn red, so I am trying to be patient.

Now, on to the front yard, where there is a long flower bed next to the house. Here you see my orange coneflowers and my hollyhocks blooming in front of a large rosemary bush. The rosemary has a funny shape that looks pretty good when flowers are in front of it. But in winter, it looks like it belongs in the freak show for plants. It's my fault cause I hit it with the lawn mower all the time. :)