Fall

In the next couple days I'm going to start taking out all my summer vegetable plants and getting my beds ready for winter. I'm interested to see what I will find. There have been so many bees and insects buzzing around during the day that I have avoided looking through "the jungle" as my mom put it. I was stung once by a bee and once by something else. From now on, I'll be doing my work in the early morning or late evening. I can tell that the frost is not too far away now because the bees are manic about their work.

For The Birds

I planted these wild sunflowers from seeds in early summer for the birds. I'll leave the heads on as long as possible for the birds to eat. Last night we saw a hummingbird checking out our Rose of Sharon plants in the front. I have never seen a hummingbird around our house before. Yay! Perhaps we'll put in a feeder for the winter.

My garden companion still likes to follow me around and check out the garden.

My other garden companion is giving her baby a nap in the garden.

The lettuce I planted from seeds so long ago is finally full grown. For a while I had decided I would only grow lettuce from starts, but these have been so good, I might change my mind. Worth the wait.

Harvest Begins

Today I picked German Chamomile for tea. So satisfying! It surprised me how happy I was picking away, just the same as when we pick apples from the orchards in Hood River. Joy. I have a list of things in my mind that I think make me happy, but in the moment, supreme happiness comes from harvesting food straight from the earth. Simple and good.

The cherry tomatoes are gearing up to ripen in the next couple weeks. The basil is finally starting strong as well. Perfect timing. Now I just need to find some good mozarella cheese. MMMM. Sigh. I love this.

Wildflowers: A Photo History

Before:



New Soil:



Pacific NW Seed Mix planted: (from http://www.victoryseeds.com/)



Today:

Blooms and Baby Veggies

This is so rewarding! My yard is overflowing with flowers and vegetable babies and peas hanging on their vines. The first long awaited nasturtium is here along with a host of new buds and my hydrangea (top photo) is finally looking a little pink. There are squash blooms coming along everywhere. I have been hoping to produce enough to donate something to "plant a row for the hungry". It looks like I will be donating cherry tomatoes, yellow crookneck squash, acorn squash, and zucchini. My lettuce has done very well as well and we have been supplementing our barbecue hamburger nights with lettuce. I waste less when I can just go out and cut off exactly how many lettuce leaves I need. A note on the brilliance of nature: I am so glad that tomatoes and strawberries turn red when they are ready to be picked. It would be harder to find them, especially on the really big bushes.

What I learned this month....

Hybrid tomatoes will grow very large and should be penned up with the larger tomato cages. If you use the smaller cages with the hybrid and don't trim off half the plant, the plant will grow up and pull the cage out and over. (Yes, there is a small tomato cage in the tomato plant above!!) Perhaps I will look into proper pruning of tomato bushes.

Nasturtiums like lots of water and fertilizer! My husband planted a couple nasturtiums under my rose bush to surprise me and they are doing so much better than the nasturtiums I planted in the front row of my flower beds.

Snap peas should not be picked until they are absolutely bulging and the flower has been pushed off the end.

July and the Monster Squash

Tomorrow is the 4th of July and my tomatoes and squash have gone gargantuan in the last couple weeks. I've had to tie up my three biggest monster cherry tomatoes as they have outgrown their tomato cages and pulled them up out of the ground with them. I never imagined them growing as big as they are. My wildflowers are up and delightful. I'll try to get a good picture of them soon. Every couple days there is a new kind of flower blooming throughout the patch. Fun.

At this point I should be getting my fall seeds started. I feel so overwhelmed with how huge everything is at the moment, I'm not sure what to do next. Especially what to do for a winter crop. I'd like to put something in to protect the ground over the winter, particularly in the back, but I want it to look good and be good for the soil. Still working that out....