Garden Update (a few too many pictures!)

My garden looks OK this year.  Last year was dreadful.  The spring was so wet and cold and it persisted for so long that I had a lot of seeds rot in the ground.  I reseeded carrots and parsnips 3 times to no avail.  Then it was wet and warm. A few things that had germinated just went mouldy.  I never saw so much mould in my garden.  This year is better.  It's been cooler than last year overall, but a more normal amount of rain has fallen and we've had a few warm days.

We'll see what the coming weeks bring in terms of warmth and precipitation, but for now, things are perhaps a bit slow, but overall not bad.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share some pictures of how it's going so far.

Here's the view outside the front door.  There are some new perennials still waiting to be planted, but the hostas are putting on a lovely show and the astilbes are getting ready to bloom.  I'm pleased with the clematis on the right as it has a lot more flowers than it did last year.

My front step containers have been planted for a couple of weeks now and they look reasonably good, I think.  They should get a bit more colourful as the weeks go on.  I definitely did a pink/purple theme this year.

My climbing rose looks really lovely right now.  Lots of blooms.

This yellow rose isn't a climber and it's very thorny but pretty all the same.

Another lovely blossom.

Here's a closer look at that clematis - such a lovely colour!

I have some pots out on my back deck, including some cleome in the foreground that have yet to be planted out.  My dwarf citrus plants are all outside now.

Nasturtiums, Asiatic lilies, and a patio tomato.

Colourful coleus with gazanias, geraniums and citrus in the back row.

Here's my autumn sweet clematis which won't flower until the fall but is putting on a lot of growth this year, which makes me very happy. I haven't yet planted the coir-lined chair yet.  It'll probably get a few little annuals in it.

My grapevine is planning world domination.  In the fall I think I will do a hard pruning.  This year the harvest looks promising though, if the raccoons don't get it first.

One of my veggie raised beds has become a perennial 'holding bed' until I decide where to put things.  It has some Canterbury bells, some threadleaf coreopsis, astrantia, hosta, phlox, and such, waiting to be planted elsewhere.

My older raised beds are having some structural issues.  I have to figure out what to do here.  These two beds haven't been planted.  I might transfer the soil from the one at the far left to the one on the back where my potatoes are this year.

This is carrots and Swiss chard.  I've had to replant 2 rows.  I think the seed was old.  I left a few sunflowers in place that were kindly planted by squirrels or chipmunks!

Here I have cucumber (left), rows of parsnips (middle) and squash (right).  The squash will tumble out of the bed and grow all over.

Here I have cucumbers, bush beans, lettuce, and kale.  And weeds.  Ha!

I have a great volunteer squash plant in one of the compost heaps.  We'll see what that produces.

The blackberries were incredibly floriferous this spring, meaning a good harvest this fall.  Best since I've lived here.

I planted asparagus for the first time this year, in this bed.  You wouldn't really know it because it's now got some potatoes that I didn't plant but must have missed harvesting last fall, and a lot of weeds, but...

...here's one of the asparagus plants closer up...they are very fern-like.  You can't harvest asparagus until it's had about 3 years to grow, so this is a long term crop.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are looking good, and there's a squash volunteer in there as well!  I left it in place to see what it would produce.

Tomatoes - recently weeded by my very helpful university student whom I have hired for some work this summer to help me keep up with garden tasks.  

My plum tree is having fruit for the first time ever, so I'm really excited about that.  I'm upset because 2 of my 3 plum trees have black knot fungus, which means I shall have to cut them down, but I hope the third one will stay healthy.

My second greenhouse, which used to be the duck house, has melons, herbs, zucchini, and a few more tomatoes.

I have some lovely geraniums blooming.

The peonies are almost finished now.

The bees are happily harvesting from the comfrey flowers.

My first few daylilies have bloomed in the past couple of days.

The hostas are doing very well this year, even the little ones that got planted at the end of last year.

There is a riot of foxgloves, and when I stand near them, I can hear all the bees buzzing.  The bumble bees love the foxgloves.

I put in some new astilbe and daylily this year, as well as calamagrostis ornamental grass.

And it looks like the black currant harvest will be reasonably good as well, which it wasn't last year.

So all in all, I'm happy with the garden, and hope it will continue to thrive.  I wish I had more time to spend in it!

At the Zoo, Part Two!

I said I'd come back and do part 2 of the pictures from the zoo visit, and here I am doing just that.  Shocking, isn't it?!

We'll start with the otters, who are great fun to watch as they swim and dive and play around their enclosure.  They're actually one of my favourite animals.

They have a large pool to play in with a kind of 'island' in the middle of it that has a little fountain.

On to one of the slowest animals at the zoo - this tortoise!  The tortoise actually has a wheelchair because it was having mobility issues with its back legs, but the zookeepers report that its mobility is significantly improved, so it doesn't need its wheelchair very much at the moment.

Another quiet, silent type - the caiman.  It's in the same subfamily as the alligator, but it's much smaller. It certainly was enjoying time under a heat lamp on the day of this visit.

The meerkats are absolutely charming little critters.  Their expressions and poses are captivating and they cooperated well with being photographed!

So cute!  I like how they use their tails as a sort of 'kickstand' while they check out their surroundings.

These tiny marmosets were also very charming.  I was interested to note how many colours were present in their fur - at first they seem just grey, but when you look closely, there's a sort of golden brown mixed in with the fur - they must camouflage quite well, exept for those ear tufts.

Look at that cute little sleeping hut!

The local wildlife also enjoy the zoo - I spotted this chipping sparrow on the side of one of the paths.

This lovely swan stayed very still and quiet for its photo shoot.

This cat is a serval, native to sub-Saharan Africa.  A few people have them as pets, which I don't think is a great idea.  They do have really beautiful markings though, and are quite small for a wild cat.  

There is a double set of fencing around its enclosure so I couldn't get pictures without the mesh in the way.  

There's a spot where you can hand-feed alpaca and European fallow deer.  They are quite sweet animals and seem to enjoy the contact with visitors.

The woman who shears my sheep also shears the zoo's alpacas, and I happen to have a couple of their fleeces.  I haven't spun them up yet.  

The deer and alpaca enclosure also was temporarily hosting these two pigeons.  The male, who is chasing the female (typical!) is quite beautifully marked.

This little one is a red fox, but it's a different colour morph compared to the usual red foxes one sees.

These are squirrel monkeys!  They are incredibly cute, and very active.  They were eating almonds and pieces of fruit.  They seemed to get into little squabbles when one would get something that another one wanted.  Just like some people, I suppose! These images are taken through glass, which is why they look a bit cloudy.

Eating an almond.

This is a very sleepy woodland caribou, with a group of mallards in the background.

These lovely rhea were quite beautiful.

They came right over to me for a visit, and I was so enchanted by them that I forgot to take close-up pictures!  

There are peacocks at the zoo, which is a little bit funny because my friend Teresa has a peacock on her farm, and I tend to think of them as farm animals more than zoo animals, but I suppose they are quite rare.

I spotted a little caterpillar on the railing at the peacock enclosure.  Not a zoo feature!

The black bears are absolutely gorgeous animals, and they were enjoying a snack of carrots and apples. Again, I was really glad it was a cooler day, because often the bears are just sleeping in the sun.

Extra crunchy!

Nom nom nom!

And, the last animal on the zoo circuit is the peccary, and they are super cute too!  They live in Central and South America.

Good bye little peccary!  See you next time!

I hope you enjoyed the visit to the Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton, even though it was only in pictures.