Vegetable garden… and putting in a new flower bed.

This is the vegetable garden towards the end of last summer.

It probably looks like I really love growing vegetables… but I don’t.
What I do like—is eating things I know no one else has touched.

What I really love growing are flowers.  And now that the vegetable garden is pretty well established, it’s time to start putting some flowerbeds around it.  Last summer I split some Shasta Daisies and Black-eyed Susans and stuck them in front of the garden fence.  Nothing fancy.

But this year, I am putting in a real bed.  This is early March:

I am also going to run a bed down the side fence as well.

For the front bed, I am moving the Shastas and Susans forward off the fence a few feet to make room for Dahlias along the back row.  This is the first time I’ve grown Dahlias, so we’ll see how I do.  I know I will not feel like digging tubers come fall.  But I bet Paul will—he is my secret garden weapon.  The reason anything manages to get staked or divided or rototilled or added to the sprinkler system.

For the side bed I am thinking lots and lots of Benary’s zinnia.  Hollyhock, herbs, sunflowers… And whatever this flower is:

I’ve asked maybe ten people who know about such things.  I got nine answers of, “I have no idea,” and one answer of Jerusalem Artichoke.  However, when I googled it, I didn’t think the leaves were the same.  The flower is similar, but my leaves are much broader.

Also, when I dug it up to split it, there wasn’t any evidence of tubers.  So, who knows.  I’ll tell you this though—it gets huge.  And the stems are like bamboo—tough.  And when they dry, you can practically use them as stakes

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