Watching your flower plants produce gorgeous blooms, and your veggies mature for harvesting, is the most rewarding experience of the hobby of gardening.

June is here, so the spring flowers are done blooming, but the perennials are filling out the void by showing off their beauty, and will continue to do so until late fall.

Also, the vegetable garden is progressing nicely and we already are able to use lettuce, dill, sorrel, parsley, green beans, scallions, rhubarb, and strawberries.

Now we are awaiting the ripening of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini.  Also, my blackberry bush should be producing some fruits…can’t wait for these yummy berries.

Stella D’Oro Reblooming Daylilies (Hemerocallis Stella D’Oro) and Echinacea.

Pure White Easter Lily.

Purple Bell Flowers  (Campanula).  This is a VERY invasive plant, so watch out where you want to plant it.

Pink Spider Flowers.

Traffic Light Poker flowers (Kniphofia).

My mom used to grow these flowers in Europe.  She loved planting it alongside our picket fence and let their vines spread all over the fence, creating a wall of blooms.  The above pictured Nasturtium plant is enjoying the sun on a deck in  Brackney, PA….at my sister-in-law’s residence.  So nice of her to share the picture, and for bringing back nice memories of the past…:-)

My veggies are beginning to thrive…a little more rain would be helpful though.  Since I created this post last week, we did get some rain, and everything is doing so much better.  Watering with a hose helps, but rainwater is best for plants.

Bush-type Green Beans.  I already harvested them twice this season, and they keep on blooming and producing.

Pickling cucumbers and Buttercrunch Lettuce.

Detroit Dark Red Beets and Dill.

Sorrel leaves, Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, Rhubarb, Garlic.

Big Boy and Early Girl tomatoes…also Cherry Tomatoes are catching up with them.  Today I worked some finely crushed eggshells (used my blender with some water) and 1 tsp. of Epsom Salt,  into the soil under each bush.  Tomatoes love the extra calcium, and the Epsom Salt crystals break down into the water, magnesium, and sulfur – three components which are beneficial to all plants.  You can also use chopped up banana peels worked into the ground, or steeped them in a mason jar of water for several days, then use the mixture to water the base of your tomato plants.

English Cucumbers.  Did you know that you can spray yellowing cucumber leaves with a mixture of 1 tsp. of Epsom Salt to 1 gallon of water to make them healthy again?

This Zucchini plant has lots of blooms…hopefully they will pollinate and produce nice and healthy zucchini cukes…:-).  It is OK to trim off any crossing foliage to provide more light to the flowers.