I have lots of pictures to share this week. Enjoy!

The Mandevilla on the front porch is blooming. Beautiful!!

 

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It’s the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time for the Saturday on the Farm – The View From My Front Porch.

Looking off to the left, there is a lot to see. Starting in the lower left corner, you can see part of the Wild Rose Bush, and a few falling down Glads, and some Hostas along the front. Heading out into the yard, towards the driveway, are two hardy Hibiscus. A pink one, and a white one. You can see a part of the big Mimosa tree by the corner of the roof. Coming back into the front yard, is a purple Butterfly Bush.

While siting on the porch, looking straight ahead, is my huge white Butterfly Bush. Over on the back left of the picture is the front bulb garden. It did have a Glad blooming, but at this time of year it is always full of weeds, as the rest of the bulbs are spring bulbs. And I’m afraid of poison ivy, so I only weed it once a year. (bad gardener! lol) That’s a butterfly house in that garden.

Here’s a better shot of the Butterfly Bush. To put a little perspective to the picture, that’s a double seat bench, and a video game chair in front of the bush. Last week, I shared more information about the Butterfly Bush.

Looking off to the right, you can see my Mandevilla. on the porch post. Along the front of the house, is a bed with Hostas, Wild Roses, Glads and WEEDS. Just keeping it real. I have weeds. sigh. The tree at the end of the house is a Holly Tree that my husband transplanted from the woods on top of the hill. Farther out in the yard, is a small Mimosa tree, and the mound is a wild Blackberry patch. And you guessed it, weeds!

Fun FYI, my father in law lives in the brown house, and my mother and brother live in the tan house across the street. We have our own compound. 🙂 And my kids can’t get away with much, because someone is always watching. lol

Here’s a closer shot of the Mandevilla. It has four buds on it that will be opening this week.

Thanks for stopping by my front porch for a visit. Come back real soon!  🙂

 

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The Butterfly Bush is a large shrub that is easily grown and blooms from mid-summer to fall. They grow best in full sun, and can be grown in Zones 5 and above. They don’t usually fair very well in colder climates.

I’ve had two for several years now, and the only regular maintenance is pruning in the fall. And that pruning isn’t absolutely necessary. The flowers are produced on new wood. If you don’t prune, the bush will get very large. We prune ours back in the fall, and they still end up over 15 feet by the end of the next summer.

I always thought that the Butterfly Bush and Lilacs were in the same family. Turns out, they are not. They have similar little flowers, though. The Butterfly Bush does not have as much scent as Lilacs do.

Butterflies, moths, bees, all kinds of flies, and hummingbirds are regular visitors to our Butterfly Bushes. It is so relaxing and such a joy to sit and watch the butterflies. They fly from flower to flower and from bush to bush. We’ve even seen many Butterfly fights. Yes, they fight and chase each other. One never thinks of Butterflies being aggressive in that manner, but they are.

Here’s a butterfly hanging upside down on our purple Butterfly Bush.

Then the Butterflyy cooperated by righting itself for another picture. It’s an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. And very beautiful.

We have several different varieties of butterflies that visit our bushes, but I haven’t identified all of them yet. Of all the other creatures that visit the butterfly bush, this one is the scariest looking. It’s a large brown and yellow bee/wasp looking thing. I haven’t been able to identify it yet. I took a couple of pictures of it today. This picture is really bad, except for the wings.  I cropped the picture, and added my name, but other than that, the picture is unedited. In all the other pictures I took, the wings are just a blurry spot, as the are always moving. This must be a picture miracle, as I have no idea how I got it. I am fascinated by the wings, though.

For some reason, when I took this picture, the flash went off. The creature didn’t like it at all. It started chasing me! I screamed and ran, and it finally left me alone. lol Apparently it didn’t like it’s picture taken. Or it really liked the red shirt I was wearing. lol Either way, I will be much more careful if I ever take it’s picture again!

If you want to identify butterflies and moths, Butterflies & Moths of North America is a great site with lots of images.

 

You can find Butterfly Bushes are most nursery & garden centers. Or in gardening catalogs. You can even buy Butterfly Bush on Amazon! (affiliate link) I found out you can even buy seeds to start your own Butterfly Bush!

 

EDITED to Add: After I posted this, my husband found out that the above was a Hummingbird Moth, or a Clear Wing Moth. I’m still not sure why it charged at me, but I guess running and screaming is not necessary. lol

 

*Disclosure: The Amazon link above is an affiliate link. If you click the link and purchase something, I will receive a commission.
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It’s time for another Saturday on the Farm the View from My Front Porch. It’s been raining for days here in Kentucky. In fact, it was raining when I took these pictures this afternoon. We’re not having flooding here, but parts of our yard has standing water on it. According to the radar, it looks like we have a few more days of rain. At least it’s not 105 degrees outside like it could be in July.

At some point, there will be a ramp going off the front porch in this direction, towards the driveway. In this picture, the purple flowers on the left in the yard are the Hostas blooming. The bush way out in the yard is the Hibiscus. Parts of it are laying done because of wind damage a couple of weeks ago, and others are just weighed down with rain. I also need to divide it this fall, as it’s getting huge.

I tried all week to have one of my sons fill the red wagon with dirt. sigh…. When it wasn’t raining, they said they couldn’t do it because the dirt was too heavy being wet from all the rain. Sounds like an excuse to me…… Guess I’m going to have to find the strength and energy to do it myself.

Because it was raining, and my rocking chair was soaked, I had to stand up to take these pictures. The Butterfly Bush below is huge. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but it’s at least 15 feet tall. And we pruned it back last fall. This height came from the new growth. You can see the little pointy ends of the branches where the flowers are getting ready to bloom. In another week or two, this bush will be covered in white flowers and butterflies.  🙂

Looking off to the left, we have more purple Hosta flowers in front of the house. You can also see our pool out in the side yard, with a volleyball net beyond that. The tree way out in the middle of the side yard is a Mimosa. Not the big one I talked about last week, this one has only been growing for two or three years. It did have a couple of blossoms on it this year for the first time. That “mound” of growth to the left of the tree is a wild blackberry patch that came up on it’s own. Gotta love free berries! lol The brown house beyond that is my father in laws house. And my mother lives across the street from him. We have our own compound going on. lol

Since the chairs were blocking the straight ahead view in the middle picture above, here’s a picture of the garden in the front yard. The Cat Mint in between the logs with little watering cans on top, and the red wagon is doing well. The white stacked planter has Alyssum in it.

That is a very wet View From My Front Porch!

 

 

 

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I found out about Bible Gardens a few years ago when I came across a book and just loved the idea of starting one. Even though I’ve had a Bible Garden for 7 or 8 years, it is still a work in progress. Plants grow, change, die, I add something new, the goat eats my new bush (true story!). It’s an ever changing garden.

A Bible Garden is a garden with plants that are mentioned in the Bible or plants that have Bible sounding names. Some examples of plants that are mentioned in the Bible are Roses, Hyssop, Burning Bush. Some examples of plants that aren’t necessarily named in the Bible but have Bible sounding names are Lily of the Valley (below), Rose of Sharon, Lambs Ear, or the Passion Flower in the picture above.

Bible Gardens can be a fun family project to plant and maintain. I used to have a bench next to my Bible Garden, and it was a beautiful, peaceful place to go to pray or to just sit and think. The Burning Bush below is just gorgeous in the fall.

Lambs Ear, below, is a fun plant to have if you have small children. It is so soft and a family favorite. The flower stalks are beautiful, too. All of the little green buds open to a purple flower so that the whole stalk is covered in purple. You can see how “furry” the bigger leaves are. Just like a real lambs ear.

I learned about Bible Gardens by reading. This is the book that I have.

(Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links. If you click on them and buy a book, I will earn a small commission)

The author has done a great job of researching the subject and presenting it. She uses the Latin name for plants, so it can be hard to find some of these plants in your local nursery or in a catalog. She often calls them by a common name in her explanation, so that does make it easier to find some of the plants now.

Here are three more books available on Bible Gardens.

There are many, many books on plants of the Bible. You can get plant specific books, also, with just flowers, or just herbs, or just trees.

Bible Gardens are beautiful, peaceful, a great conversation starter with your guests, and just a fun way to garden.

 

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There’s a lot going on in my gardens this week. The Roses and Day Lilies are blooming in the Bible Garden

Beautiful!

We had a storm go through earlier this week that had a lot of wind. My Hisbicus didn’t care for the wind that much.

The two Hibiscus below are are between the driveway and the house, going towards the front yard. The one on the left survived the storm, the one on the right is severely leaning over. The wind didn’t break the bush, so I’ll prop them up and they will still bloom.

Now on to the vegetables! The lettuce in the raised bed behind the house didn’t appreciate the wind, either.

We finally made it out to the garden to plant the potatoes. We like to place the seed potato on top of the ground, then cover with straw. We had more straw as needed to keep the potatoes covered.

Harvesting is so easy! Pull pack the straw and there are your potatoes. No digging! This year we’re using some hay that was given to us for free. If anything starts growing from it, it is easy to pull the weeds out, as they are not in the ground, just in the hay.

I started to plant the Armenian Cucumber seeds. When I pulled back the cardboard and used my little hand shovel to make a row for the seeds, I found lots of worms.

That’s why I love using cardboard and mulch gardening. The worms love it. I never did get the cucumbers planted. I got sick from the heat and and to stop. Those will be going in the ground shortly.

Once the cucumbers are planted, we’ll have all the major veggies that we wanted planted done. We will put in two more rows of corn in another week, so that it doesn’t all ripen at the same time.

What’s growing in your garden?

 

 

 

 

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This week, on Saturday on the Farm, let’s talk about compost!

Compost is a great way to add organic matter and nutrients back to your soil. Composting is very frugal. Since your adding food scraps, leaves, clippings, and etc. from your yard, your compost is free. For a minimal investment of time, you receive a fertilizer that is better for your garden that store bought fertilizer.

To start composting, you need someplace to put it. Below, you can see the compost bin my husband made for me out of used palettes. There are numerous kinds of compost bins you can buy, but you really can make your own. You can also use trash cans for compost bins. You just have to make sure that you put numerous holes in the sides and bottom of the can. Water needs to drain out, and compost needs air to decompose.

Once you have your bin, it’s time to start building your compost pile. Here are some of the natural items that you can add to your compost bin.

• Vegetable scraps
• Fruit scraps
• spent vegetable plants from your garden
• leaves, fresh or dried
• grass clippings
• hay and straw
• newspapers, cardboard, old phone books, paper napkins
• wood shavings, sawdust, and ashes
• weeds you’ve pulled, as long as they don’t have seeds
• coffee grounds, tea bags
• popcorn kernels
• old spices
• egg shells, rinsed
• manure from cows, goats and rabbits can also be used

 

What NOT to add to your compost pile:

• meat or seafood
• bones
• cheese
• oils
• citrus fruits

If you have enough to build your compost all at once, that is an option. Just layer your items, preferably alternating green (things that are still alive) and brown (your dried leaves, hay, straw, etc). Then leave your pile alone for several months. You can turn it once a month or so, and if it looks really dry, water it a little, but don’t soak it.

I like to add to my compost pile as I go along. Since my bin has two sides, I keep one side that I’m always adding to. In the picture below, the compost on the left is ready to be used, and the pile on the right is the one I’m adding to. Later this fall, I’ll stop adding to the pile on the right. By then, I will have used all the compost in the left pile, and I’ll start adding to it. In the spring, the pile on the right will be ready to use.

To use your compost, spread it around your plants. Compost is especially good for vegetable gardens and fruit trees, bushes, etc. I shared earlier how to make compost tea. This is a great way to get some quick nutrition to your plants.

Composting is easy, free (after you build or buy your bin) and your gardens will love it.

 

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