Watermelons and Other Crops

These are some of the crops I have planted for this year. So far there are 15 Charleston Gray watermelon plants, 3 cantaloupe plants, and 6 pumpkin plants.

Hill with 4 Charleston Gray watermelon plants.

Hill with 3 pumpkin plants.

Hill with 3 cantaloupe plants.

These plants are all growing in Larue County, Kentucky.

White Nancy Plant - Lamium maculatum

The distinctive leaf on this plant is great. It is called the White Nancy plant or Lamium maculatum. It has a greyish-white leaf with green outline or stroke. The veins make a neat fingerprint texture.

Cat Tails

Cat tails growing in eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky. Shot about mid-day in JPEG mode using full sunlight setting.

Moss Underwater in Stream

Used Photoshop to reduce glare/reflection on water surface to bring out color and detail of moss. It was a brisk flowing stream that kept the strands of moss moving in the water. The intense greens in the moss caught my eye. Also the fine hail like texture of the moss was interesting as it clung to the rocks the water was flowing past.

Plant Underwater in Stream

It is still winter here and finding any green plants that are not evergreens is rare. So I found a group of plants growing underwater in a stream, it intrigued me. They sort of remind me of lettuce. The light bands caused by the rippling water. Photoshop was used to reduce some reflection and glare on the water's surface.

Evergreen Branches

Here is a bluish-green set of branches found in a flowerbed outside a house.

Thistles

Here are some pictures of thistles growing in Cherokee Park in Louisville Kentucky in September of 2008.

Unknown Plant

Here is an interesting plant that is growing out of one of the watermelon mounds. It has an interesting fruit or seed pod. It has a nice orange-yellow flower.

Emerging Grapes, Lettuce, and Cherries

The temperatures are starting to warm up and the we are starting to have full sun so the vegetables and fruit are growing.
Here are some pictures of the concord grapes, lettuce and cherries.

Green Leaf Plants in the Garden

Ground cover flowers

These plants in my mom's garden seem to make good ground cover.

This first flower appears to be a dwarf crested iris (Iris cristata). I checked a book out of the library entitled Better Homes and Gardens Compete Guide to Flower Gardening and it is described on pages 247-248. It says it is a wildflower that spreads via rhizomes and provides a dense ground cover. The flower can be blue, lavender, or white with yellow-white crests. It likes shade but if put in full sun needs moisture. Cultivars are listed as Iris cristata alba - white flowers or 'Shenandoah Sky' for light blue or 'Abbey's Violet' for deep violet-blue with white-yellow crests. It appears to me this flower is Abbey's Violet with the purples, blues, whites and yellows seen in the picture.

See another picture as this U.S. Forest Service website: http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/regions/southern/RufusMorgan/index.shtml

The plants in the next picture are a little hard to identify. The plant with the flowers appears to be a weed known as ground ivy. See this web page at the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service to see if you think it is a match. Another sample can seen at the Minnesota Wildflowers site. According to that site its scientific name is Glechoma hederacea and it is known as Creeping Charlie or Gill-over-the-Ground. Here is one last site that has a beautiful picture and very detailed description: http://www.treknature.com/gallery/photo160405.htm

The serrated leaf coming across might be a some sort of wild larkspur.

This last picture shows a flowering Vinca major vine with a variegated leaf. According to Wikipedia it is also called Large Perwinkle, Greater Periwinkle, or Blue Periwinkle. I have found this plant to very pervasive and a fast grower.

See more information on Wikipedia

Pink Tulips

Here are some tulips blooming in the sunroom.

The blooms will close up in the night and then open back up in the day time.

Flowers

Rainy days are here but the first tulip flower has emerged. It is pink. It looks like there are two more almost ready to bloom.

The amaryllis flower stalk continues to grow taller.

Two of the daffodil bulbs are showing life and growth is beginning to appear.

Amaryllis

Finally, after maybe a year the amaryllis plant is forming a bloom. This is a great flower but it takes a while to bloom. I have 3 other plants that came from this bulb. The smallest is about the size of large green onion.

Tulip Update

Here are some pictures from about 2 days ago showing the progress of the tulips. The largest plant now has almost 1 leaf out and is forming others.

Tulips and Daffodils

I took some old milk jugs and turned them into planters for some tulip and daffodil bulbs I bought back in October 2007. I was afraid that the bulbs would die if I left them in the garage much longer without being planted. So I took the last of some potting soil and planted them about a week ago.

The bulbs are beginning to sprout with the tulips growing the fastest. I am keeping them in the sun room with the temperature varying throughout the day to the mid-60s to mid-70s F and a humidity of 40-80%. One tulip plant seems to be growing about 1 inch a day.

Once the temperatures warm up for good for spring I will plant them outside to make a flower bed of irises, tulips (Tulipa), daffodils (Narcissus), and balloon flowers (Platycodon grandiflorus).

Now Thats Just Peachy

As I commented in the last post, here are some very small peaches forming on the tree. In that first picture the largest peach is probably comparable to a quarter and the other to a dime.

Peach Blooms

The peach tree is continuing to provide blooms into our winter season. My cousin suggested I pollinate some of the blooms since the bees are in hibernation right now. So I took an ear swab and brushed it across the flowers several weeks ago.

They have such beautiful pink flowers.

Yesterday, I noticed some small peaches forming on some of the branches. There will be some pictures of these later in the week.

More Peach Flowers

The tree now seems to have 7 or so flowers and about 5 leaves open up. The weather today is rainy but the temperature could get to 70 F. It is neat to see the flowers but I hope I did not mess up the tree's cycle by bringing it in doors.

More Blooms

Well, the first two blooms on the top of the plant closed up. Three blooms toward the middle have now opened up as can be seen in the picture.


Here is a closeup of one of the blooms. Needs to be in focus.



A side view of the bloom can be seen here which shows the curling pedals