Black Gold

If you are a gardener, you know what Black Gold is and it is a treasure. Black Gold is compost. Since mine wasn't quite ready to use this spring, we found finished compost at the trash disposal company. Farmers, gardeners and homeowners bring garden waste, grass clippings, etc. to the trash disposal company and they compost on a huge scale. They only charged $20 for a pickup bed full!! What a great value.

Half of the compost has been unloaded onto the flower beds surrounding the house and the newly refurbished asparagus bed.

It smells as good as it looks. It is rich and will enrich the plants in each of these beds. See the new asparagus bed, almost finished.

Love the physical part of gardening.

Done. Beautiful asparagus bed in early spring. The bed now is full of asparagus fern fronds setting seed and building up energy for next year.

My tomatoes thriving in the black gold bed. My sister Sandi was here over the 4th and she graciously offered to help so we put mulch on all the beds - a job that got delayed this spring when I was under the weather. It was a dirty job but so necessary and Sandi was my hero in doing this with me. Hope to see those red treasures setting on these tomato plants soon.

The pansy's are still thriving among the lily-of-the-valley in spite of the hot muggy weather.

And, the columbines are blooming again.

Sandi picked cherries from the old cherry tree which had a rough spring. The big winds took  out half the cherry tree and Sandi got enough cherries for only about two pints of jam. Luckily we planted another cherry tree about three years ago and it is doing well so hopefully this little piece of earth will have another cherry tree to carry on the tradition.

Of course, Buddy is in the middle of cherry picking with Sandi.

As you can see, I still haven't painted the barn but I intend to get it done this year. The hollyhocks are beginning to bloom.

The driveway into our ranch shows the old barn. Can you see it in geranium red? I can't wait to freshen it up.

Love alfalfa bales which are a symbol of summer in the country.

Gorgeous iris, yellow and purple, were beautiful this year.

My view from the kitchen window for a few weeks.

The sun is going down, the cicadas are singing, the firefly's will soon be out...sweet summer times.