Weeds

This is my last 6-day week of the year. Starting next week I can start to try to get my garden in shape- I do have two different people who help me weed but things are still out of hand. Hopefully, I can take advantage of the long weekend we are going to have by trying to get my blueberries, currants, gooseberries in shape and also start to weed everything else. Witch grass is my worst weed although I also have one patch of chrysanthemum weed and a big patch of goutweed(which I call evilweed). Deer are also becoming a problem as the Dana's two remaining dogs are now quite ole and are no longer doing their thing.

Honeyberries

Lonicera aerulea var. edulis is very hardy and they taste pretty good. They look sort of like elongated blueberries- when they turn blue you need to wait a few days till you eat them- otherwise they have an unpleasant bitterness. The shrub itself is neat, dense and compact- my tallest one is now six feet tall. Apparently you need two different cultivars to cross pollinate to get fruit. Birds love them as they are my first fruit so this year is the first year I netted them and the first year I got lots of fruit. They are so loaded with berries that the blue is noticable.

Lilac Tea Over

I still haven't completely recovered from our "Lilac Tea"--it went very well and now that it's over, the orange poppies are now in bloom every where in my gardens : the purple of the lilacs goes well with the orange. My Iris is at its peak now-- all my old fashioned varieties which I have been saving for the last 20 years. I have most of my vegetables planted-- all I need to do now is mow (the grass is growing very fast this year) and weed (the weeds, as always, are doing very well.