The End of Summer

The total eclipse of the sun a week ago was a wonderful sight to see, and since then, the weather has been unusually mild. There's not much happening in the garden.

The damnable Japanese beetles are fewer, but still enough to keep me going out to pick them off the roses and okra at least twice a day.  The okra itself is still producing larger quantities than anyone wants at this point.  Enough is enough.  I'm letting many of the pods go to maturity in order to have seed for next year.

'Jing Orange'

I've pulled out tomato plants that were no longer doing very well, and that weren't producing tomatoes to care for in the first place:  'Black Beauty' and 'Gold Medal'.  The good ones - 'Missouri Pink Love Apple' - still have lots of tomatoes on them, but they don't seem to be ripening.  The same thing occurred at the beginning of the season, but I don't know if they still have time to ripen at this end of things if they don't get to it.

The cucumbers have been finished for about a week.  This one got stuck early on and I couldn't get it out so just left it.

I've been harvesting what little fall lettuce came up, and it looks like time to start considering a lima bean harvest, but I just haven't had the urge to do it.  I think it's all that okra I'm sick of that makes me not care about harvesting.  The peppers that I planted later than usual are now ripening.  Now, THOSE, I will get.  They're easy to pick and very tasty. The yellow mini bells are doing great.  They're thick-walled and juicy.  The last couple of years they've been so thin-walled that they weren't very good.  I don't know what variety they are because I plant seed from peppers I get in the produce section of the grocery store.

'Gold Medal' tomatoes and yellow mini bell peppers

Otherwise, things are coming to a halt, and I'm clearing them out as they do.  A few pictures then is all I have left to offer.

 'Gold Medal'  - pretty but pretty much tasteless

 Okra is still going strong

Still looks good from this view: peppers in foreground

'Cardinal' basil

tomato plants about to be pulled

Japanese beetles make a mess of my beautiful roses.  They especially like 'Pink Enchantment'.

Which means they generally leave 'Shazam!' alone.  Unless there are no pale pink blooms available.

'Shazam!' and lavender

These guys are showing up in numbers on the okra.  I had a feeling they're assassin bugs after Japenese beetles, so I've been leaving them alone.  Unfotunately, they're a relative that feeds on plants - leaf-footed bugs.  Fortunately, at this point, I don't care.  

The next flush of volunteer cilantro is coming up in the area where I pulled mature plants that had gone to seed several weeks ago.

The dahlias are still merrily pumping out blooms in the cut flower garden.

ornamental pepper

hyacinth bean vine

Hooray!  The creeping orange thyme has recovered.  I thought it was a goner during the heavy rains.  I really should move it to a higher spot, though.

See that rain gauge at the bottom of the picture?  It's catching Japanese beetles.  I use it to capture them from the plants.  The shape of it prevents them from escaping, and I realized that if I leave it uncovered, it will also attract others, acting like a trap.  Unfortunately, it doesn't attract them ALL.

I'm so happy to see that the butterfly milkweed I planted this year is not only lovely, but it's already doing what I hoped for: attracting and feeding Monarchs.  I counted eleven of the colorful caterpillars on the plants yesterday, which means they'll pupate here and hatch out....???....some time.

It's also attracting and feeding jillions of aphids.  I guess I'll just leave them alone.  I don't want to risk harming the Monarch caterpillars with anything I might do to rid it of aphids.  

The aphid colonies look like a treasure trove for lady bugs, but I haven't seen any feeding on them yet.

I was hoping that the Japanese beetles would be gone before the roses quit blooming, but I'm beginning to lose that hope.  I keep thinking of that advice I read in an online article a while back that said to just leave the beetles alone, because they'd be gone in a short while.  I've been battling them since the second week of June.  And if I hadn't been giving battle, I wouldn't have any rhubarb, okra, or roses left.  I don't know what they would have moved on to after that.  I guess the soybean field .

I have to cut the rose blooms and bring them in if I want to enjoy them.  Unfortunately, the two David Austin roses ('Charles Darwin' and 'Pat Austin') don't last more than a day once they're cut.  

'Pat Austin'

Thinking of my Texas friends in the devasting wake of Hurricane Harvey this week.