Very pretty Annie - enjoyed the trip through your garden with my morning cup of coffee - thank you for sharing......

Lynne

Annie, I just spent the most enjoyable time going through your gardens. Thank you for inviting us.

I love your style of gardening.

I jotted down some thoughts while touring.

First comment, your vegetable garden is what I think of when I hear the word potager, an informal mix of veggies, flowers and fruit.

Everything looks very lush and green. We are now getting very dry and are hoping the predicted rains on Sunday hit the farm.

We are in a similar zone, mine is probably 6a. I am wondering if you have to dig your elephant ears each year. That has always kept me from using them. I leave glads and dahlias in the ground and mulch and they have been with me for three years now.

I love the setting for the new patio.

Veggie garden comments: My favorite sweet potato is Beauregard too. Couldn't get it this year so ended up with Vardamon.

I raised Cajun Delight okra for years...didn't this year because I missed ordering the seed and had to make do with local available seeds.

I love Brandywine tomatoes, at least the pinks. I weighed one in at 31 oz. The golds are huge too, but we don't like the flavor nearly as much. Forgot to plant the reds.

New plant for me to see: The eyeball plant! very unique.

I love the chickens. I have them too.
Do you let them freely roam your garden? I have wanted to do that, but the back fence is just barbed wire and varmints, including my dog, could get to them. I should run chicken wire along the back side.

The Wyandotte pullet is beautiful. I had a banty version, but the dog "played" with her a bit too hard.

I will be looking forward to more pictures.

You made my morning!

I enjoyed seeing your garden, pets and chickens too. I'm with Gldno, the Eyeball plant is a new one for me too, did you plant it from seed? I think I need one. LOL

Oh my gosh Annie, I loved every inch of that garden tour. I'm sure there's much more to see also. I felt right at home and got inspired to get out tomorrow to work on pulling up ferns that have overtaken my main garden, so that I can plant flowers and herbs. I worked Tues-Sat this week so there wasn't any gardening time. I want to get out early before the sun starts blasting.

Thanks for the inspiration and do post more pictures of your gardens, critters and home too.

FlowerLady

I will try to answer everyone's questions.

Lynne, gdno1 and hosta_house:

Thanks for your sweet comments. It means a lot to me. No one hardly ever comes out here to see what I do all day long. It's just so nice to be a part of the GW family and share with other gardeners who appreciate your hard work.

I love to go out early in the morning when the air is still fresh and stroll through my gardens with my coffee (the cats & 2 kittens following, ducking in and out of plants). The butterflies & dragonflies thick in the air. Honeybees and bumblebees happily visiting the flowers and sipping dew off the leaves and songbirds everywhere. there is nothing to compare with that.
I try to look at my gardens each day with fresh eyes so that I can see what I need to do or what I might want to change. It gets away from me so easily now as I have developed arthritis of the spine and have circulatory problems and bad feet (ugh), but I do a little every day and don't worry about what I cannot do. I don't fret over the clutter of empty pots and items I need for gardening. I keep things handy to save me trips back and forth. The extra walking quickly tires me and kills my feet and ankles. It just goes with the territory I guess, and anyhow, I rather like the look.
My "boys" (dogs) love those early morning romps. They sniff out the previous night's visitors - raccoons, skunks, possums and coyotes that come down into the yard looking for a meal. They love it and I enjoy watching them run like the wind. They circle around and come back to me from time to time to let me know they are being good boys and not leaving the property (like the used to do). Shep loves his job as guard dog and takes it very seriously. He is happy to be needed and to have a job - he's the black and tan English Shepherd. Gus stays close to his "Marmee". He's Marmee's boy. Both used to take off whenever they got the chance and I could not let them out with me. I am so glad they figured it out.

We have all kinds of wildlife out here. I often find tracks of chicken predators in the soft dust or mud circling the henhouse and chicken run. Last night something tried a few of the Roma tomatoes that were still a bit green. They left the rest alone.

There are a number of Marsh Hawks that live in the Big Woods up at the south end of our meadow. They worry my chickens and cats. I have lost my two beautiful Chinese geese and two chickens this year so far. Owls are a threat as are coyotes (they got the geese) and bobcats and Lynx. We even have Pumas here, but so far none have been here.
Then there are the snakes...Oh boy! I cannot have poisonous snakes in my yard threatening my critters and my grandbabies.

"Country life". Never a dull minute!
It really does make you feel alive and every day is different and new.

The Eyeball plants self-seed. I bought a few little plants last year from a local nursery. Imagine my delight to have them come back this year! If you guys want some seeds, just send me an email with your name and mailing address. This fall when they go to seed, I will send you a little baggie of them. No need to to send me an envelope or stamps.

They are a great little "no-care" plant. They do well in dry, well-drained soil with occasional waterings. I grow them my with colorful and fragrant Vincas, Sweet Allysum and Sweet Petunias which also self-seed and like the same conditions.

The Elephants Ears are grown year round in large containers. I set them out in the shade in May where they thrive all summer. I have to water them every day, but I enjoy watering. I give them about 1 cup doses of composted steer manure once a month and add fresh soil or composted soil as the EE's and all my Tropical's use it up fast in those pots. If they make a lot of babies, I divide them and re-pot them.

I mix play sand in with good potting soil for all my tropicals so they won't rot. I haul them into the greenhouse in the Fall when there is a forecast for frost - UGH! I have a small dolly to help me with that chore but it is still all I can do and I usually take two or three days to move all my tropicals inside. I do not water them in the winter in the greenhouse. Ants and mice can be a major pain about nesting in the pots in the winter, but haven't lost any plants in all these years. This year I put one pot of EE's in the whiskey barrel fish pond to see how they would do in water. It is doing okay but the leaves are small. It looks good though, so was a good experiment.

My chickens are allowed out when I am out there working so they can roam free in relative safety, chasing grasshoppers and eating grass and grubs and all kinds of bugs (and clean out nest of baby snakes - yeah!) When I go in for more than a half hour, I call them, back to the chicken run and close them up with some grain and fresh water. They happily come running when I call, anticipating I will have something for them to eat, so I try not to let them down.

I did not trust my dogs around the chickens when I first adopted them. In fact they couldn't be trusted with the cats either. I had to teach the Boys not to chase the cats or anything else that is Marmee's! Once the dogs finally got the idea that they were there to PROTECT Marmee's chickens, not chase them, they began to proudly take their jobs very seriously. (strays and wild animals are okay to chase off). However, the neighbor's dogs and roving wild dogs...well that is something else, so I have to watch for them. But the chickens are leery and that is good.

I will be posting a lot more pictures of them later today. They are beautiful birds and so darned cute! Anxious for them to start laying and starting families. :)

Beauregard is the very best sweet potato - it is softer and not grainy and does well in the hot, humid South. Love those "Louisiana Yams".

It has been super hot here for weeks! Triple digits and bad heat index made it feel even hotter. We've had no rain since early June. It was so dry! I have well water, so have been running my sprinklers and soaker hose to keep everything green and healthy. I gave them a good feeding of MiracleGrow once. It is great for a quick boost for your plants as long as you continue to water them deeply. I have only been watering the potager and the cottage garden areas out back and the small Virginia and Loblolly pines planted out back. They will need regular watering until they become established.

I love pines of all kinds. Love to hear the wind singing through their branches way up high. The wildlife loves them too for food and nesting areas and for shelter. I like pine cones too. Have baskets and baskets of all kinds of pine cones collected all over the USA. Jays and squirrels love the pine nuts, so we will all be happy. By the time those trees get really big, I will likely need to down-size my gardening areas again, so I will enjoy having my little piney woods out back. I can stroll up through the woods and sip Juleps! I want to have a wooden bench swing to set out there under my pines. There will be that much less lawn to have to mow, and more cooling shade. Pine also cleanse the air of pollutants (I try to think ahead).

I love pine straw. I love the way it smells and love it as a natural mulch on the ground under trees. I will put it to good use in my strawberry beds and elsewhere, too.

~Annie

Good morning Annie ~ I loved your narrative of your country/cottage life. I'm sorry to hear you are dealing with arthritis, etc. I love your positive attitude. All any of us can do is take each day as it comes and do what we can.

I did get out this morning, not as early as I wanted to, and worked for an hour. That was it. I was dripping wet and didn't want to make myself sick or overly fatigued, which is so easy to do.

Have a nice day and a great week.

FlowerLady

What a beautiful narrative Annie - it sounds like you and the garden are one. With my Mom under hospice care my lingering strolls in the morning with coffee have been curtailed. My time to see the garden wake up will come again..... right now Mom is the important one and the gardens come second. Thank you for sharing your day with us :) ........

Lynne

Wow, Annie! I love your place! Your chickens are as pretty as your flowers. As I was looking at the pics, I wondered how your critters all get along with each other, and you answered that in your last post.

We live on a small corner lot in the city, and have a yellow lab. Like your dogs, she loves going out with me when I garden, and will run hard around me in the grass, then lie down in the sun or shade, depending on the weather. She does a good job staying out of the flower beds, and when we planted the new area, she understood it was flowers and stayed out, except for the dirt on the edge that she dug out when she was jealous of the attention we were giving our grandbaby. LOL

Thanks for the wonderful tour,
Sue

Loved the tour through your garden, it brought back a lot of happy memories of my gramp's garden where I spent many hours exploring when I was quite small. His garden at their summer cottage was very much like yours. I wish I could have a few bantams to go on bug patrol but since we inherited Basil the terminator not possible. We used to have 3 black indian ducks, cornish game, and a few mongrel bantams but can't have any right now, Basil would have visions of instant dinner floating through his head.

Annette

Annie,

You have a beautiful garden with so many unique plantings! I love your dog and chick pix! So cute! Your potager is just outstanding...how wonderful to grow such a fabulous bounty.

Cameron

Thanks, Annie, nice to see how you spend your days. You must also spend a lot of time in the kitchen putting up goods grown in your garden.

Herding dogs are my favorites, especially Samoyeds. I have recently developed a fondness for Queensland heelers, as they are very popular in NM. If a collie came my way, I'd snatch the dog up in a heartbeat.

Your chickens look quite large to me. Not that I know much about chickens.

Lorna

Wow! I guess I missed a lot during my vacation. That's an incredible garden you've got there. The chickens are so pretty I'm tempted to get some for "yard art". Everything seems so comfortable and "down home", you really have a lot to maintain, but you do it all so well! The only thing you need is some iris ;-) (coming next week - promise!)

Sorry to hear of your health problems limiting your gardening, but they don't appear to limit your enjoyment of it, good for you!

Hi GG!
Glad to see you back on here again.
Hope you had a a great time!
Chickens do make TERRIFIC live yard art, but there is nothing to compare to the taste of fresh eggs they give you for a just pennies a day and all the bugs you allow them to clean out of your garden. I love to watch them run! So cute & so funny!!!They are so comical to watch, but they've been given a bum rap as being stupid. Actually they are quite intelligent creatures, as birds go.

Lorna, I love herding dogs too. They are the smartest of the smartest, and besides being hard working beauties, loyal and trustworthy, they are very affectionate. They are often the best dogs with children and make great guardians for them too. My boys are friendly to everyone, but quick to alert me of "strangers" and will guard me and the house unless I say otherwise. Working dogs (aka herding dogs) need a job in order to be truly happy.

I bid you all adieu for the night.
~ Annie

Oh Annie, that was wonderful. It feels like home to look at all of your great photos. We also have chickens, about 22 of them. They are laying so much now we are giving eggs away by the dozens daily. I'm terrified of them but love having them around and you cannot beat the fresh eggs. We have 3 dogs, one is a yellow lab we rescued as a pup and she is scared of her own shadow. We also have a catahoula mix who is a tremendous help at herding the horses when they decide to "visit" the house. And, we adopted a Brittany last year who was in bad need of a good home. He is learning to protect the chickens and to help herd the horses. Mostly he just loves to be where ever you are and to ride in the vehicles, especially the tractor. We also have a cat that was saved from the side of the highway. It is so funny watching him stalk the chickens! We always say no more dogs or cats but then another one comes our way that we just can't say no to. We lost a blue heeler a couple of years ago and a red heeler last year. The heelers are the smartest dogs I have ever owned or worked with. It just hurts too much when you have to say goodbye to them. I almost forgot the orphaned pygmy goat who now thinks she is a horse.
Okay enough about the animals...your gardens are fabulous!! I love your style of gardening and I admire you for keeping on..you are an inspiration. Love the veggies and the grassy paths through the flowers. Do you can all of your veggies? We did a run of salsa last night and I have green beans in the canner now. I love the brandywine tomatoes--perfect on a fresh egg sandwich.
We have only been here 3 years and hardly ever get any visitors either. I just hope I can accomplish half as much as you have with my gardens. Just beautiful!

Gorgeous pictures, Annie! I remember when you posted pictures of the destruction that happened around you. You have brought everything back to life and it looks great. All that hard work has really paid off!

Thanks for the garden tour and the jolt of inspiration you've given me.

Marilyn

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Janie

Janie,
I sent you an email. :)
Try it again after you read my email.

Annie, could you share the pics with me too, please?

Mickie

I tried to view your garden and could not see it. Was interested in seeing another OK garden.