A Bountiful Day

After a friend offered some plums from a tree in her yard, I thought I had better check the old tree in our back field.  It is completely hanging with fruit this year.  This usually happens every second year.  I have started picking, and eating, and giving away.  I have never been one to make jams and jellies, so I am trying to freeze them - cut in half - and keep them for fruit smoothies later.  Wish me luck on this first-time experiment.

D'ya like my use of plant pots?  This is just the tip of this plum tree iceberg.

Along with this bounty, when I got over the to Cottage on Monday, I found this recently planted eggplant in sorry condition.  It is swarming with potato bugs.  

How did this happen so quickly?  Well, there is a bountiful supply of these beetles from the potato field across the road from the Cottage.  The potatoes are almost all eaten up, and the beetles are flying around looking for more.  I guess eggplant is as tasty as potato.  

 At the Cottage that day I entertained some folks from our "Haliburton Garden Club."  So it was an afternoon brimming with friends.  This is just what a garden is for, eh?

The squares and cookies they brought were plentiful indeed.  Thanks, one and all, for a rich and relaxing afternoon.

Blooming Successes

Around the house here in Hants County, there are a few blossoms that please me a great deal.  Even the Easter Lilies, above, are sort of a novel and fun addition to the weedy border by the driveway.  

This Trumpet Vine brings me great joy, finally blooming this year.  (There was one stem of three blooms last year, which waited until I was out of town for a few days to do it's thing, so I missed it!)  In a way, these flowers are a bit anticlimactic, being rather sparse and faded looking, and the vine refuses to stick to the stone wall.  Now it has loose branches breaking down again. Yet the novelty of having this rather tropical (in my eyes) vine prospering now is something I count as a success.

Along the sunny and dry side of the house the hardy Glads are starting to bloom!  As I write this, we are getting some more well-needed rain. 

 And the solitary Eggplant is looking promising.  I think a slug has already sampled the fruit.

Around the other side, in a shady nook, the random combination of things is rather pleasing.  The Hydrangea was put there temporarily, but now the Aralia "Sun King" sets it off nicely, I think.  

I hope you all can enjoy the random combinations that turn out as if you had well-designed them.