Hybridizing Daylilies, Vegetables July 13, 2014

Welcome to my Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post, to see What's Blooming Now at gardens around the world join others at May Dreams Gardens hosted by Carol.   In addition to flowers featured today there are also some roses left, Crocosmia 'Lucifer', annuals Petunia, Browallia, Ageratum, Marigold, 3 Clematis, Daphne 'Lawrence Crocker' surprising me with a second bloom, Daphne 'Summer Ice' with very long bloom season, Rozanne and other hardy geraniums.  Today I am also linking with-

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise

I Heart Macro hosted by Laura

Macro Monday 2 hosted by Gemma Wiseman

Blue Monday hosted by Smiling Sally

The lovely Hydrangea Endless Summer, which I hope will fill the void left by freezing out of all my blue Hydrangea macrophyllas.

A velvety red daylily-

A dramatic eye zone, Daring Deception-

I was gone on the 15th swimming in a pond with my grandkids and teaching their music lessons, and went out today and found lots of new or unseen flowers so am adding some, Malva alcea fastigiata, which comes up and takes care of itself every year-

Coreopsis 'Sunburst', just blooming after being started last Nov. 25 under lights-

Crocosmia 'Lucifer' which looks great in other people's yards but gets too tall and flops for me-

And now featuring some daylilies I hybridized and grew from seed, back in my wild and crazy daylily days.  At one point I had 380 varieties- discards from a couple of collectors, some from my daylily club sales, and some from internet companies and trades.  These were mostly $5 and below type daylilies, meaning older but some great daylilies, as I couldn't afford the expensive ones, new and snazzy.    At the time I had beds I could get weeded, in nice rows all on maps so I knew what they were.   Then I was gone for the month of June for the births of my 2 grandsons, many weeds set seed, and it's been all downhill from there, textbook chaos and entrophy.  But that is why I like the productivity of growing vegetables, I can control the chaos more in annual crops where I can pretty much clear the ground and get a clean start every year.

I labeled the pollinated blooms with the name of the pollen parent, and started the seeds by planting them in pots that I kept in a refrigerator or cold garage until they sprouted, since chilling helps daylily seeds germinate.   One entire bed is all seedlings I grew, mostly from Erin Farmer as one parent, a clown of a daylily with white midribs, and narrow petals, many of the flowers have this characteristic-

The whole bed-

An unusual round form, a bicolor, perhaps my favorite of the group-

In a clump-

Another unusual seedling, a gold spider-

Meanwhile Beauty plums are getting ripe, a predictably heavy crop this year after lots of winter snow.  Beauty is a very soft plum but lovely cooked, I make beef gelatin with stevia for sweetener and a little almond extract-

First peas of the season, planted a little late, Sugar Snap Sprint, with an edible pod, hence the name, I don't see the point in shelling peas when I can eat the whole thing; I also planted Super Sugar Snap which gets taller but the rabbits found them and nibbled them down so it will take them a while to recover and make peas-

One of my rows of squash, this year I'm growing Cocozelle, Striped Zucchini, Crookneck, mixed Scallops, and Delicata, the cucumbers are on the right growing up a trellis, on the left are overwintered kale plants going to seed-

First award for earliest fruit set goes to Cocozelle-

Pretty plant, the abundant green is sheep sorrel, I spared it since it is edible but it knows no bounds-

Winner of largest plant award, usually my first to bear, Crookneck, with wonderful buttery flavor-

Winner of widest plant, Striped Zucchini, wait until you see how big the fruit gets-

And winner of cutest plant, isn't it adorable, I haven't grown it before but I fell in love with the fruits last fall, Delicata, which is getting ready to vine out-

I've been enamoured of the small Sweat bees with metallic green head and thorax since I first discovered them this spring, I was surprised to see them pollinating squash blossoms- 

And I was even more surprised to find myself in a swarm of them because I had discovered a number of their underground nesting mounds, here's one taking off from the hole in the dirt, the ones returning to the nest are golden with pollen on their hind legs-

Here an assortment of pole beans, and runner beans with the red flowers, I saw hummingbirds visiting them today- they actually think I grow them just for them, imagine!   I was surprised to see the hummer visiting my Alliums, Elephant Garlic, too.   Bush beans and some cole family plants are in the front-

Insuk's Wang Kong, above, a wonderful runner bean from Korea, named after the gracious Korean woman who brought it over, it sets better in heat than most runner beans-

I searched my seed sources for gynecious and parthenocarpic cucumbers last fall, and bought a few, they have the advantage of mostly female flowers or flowers that set fruit without being pollinated, so the yield is higher than plants that require pollination and have a lot of male flowers.  Diva is earliest-

And also Dasher-

I run soaker hoses down the rows, and mulch with composted grass clippings to retain the water better and keep down the weeds.   Other cucumbers I'm growing are Cool Breeze, Eureka, Tanja, and new to me, a melon with a cucumber parent, Gold Bar, I usually can't grow melons because they need too much heat, so I thought I would see if they could set fruit, the plants are rather wimpy so far.

Well, I hope you can make some room for some edible plants in your garden, Hannah

                                                      or cameras are macro

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