Photo dump

Words to live by in custom made bricks from my dear friend Rich. 

'Supersweet 100' cherry tomatoes ready for roasting

'Omero' purple cabbage

'Supersweet 100' cherry tomatoes

'Carmine Splendor' okra going to seed

At the beginning of the season, I needed a cucumber trellis, so I built one meant to last just the one season...

It looked good for a while.  

But some volunteer cantaloupe got heavy on it late in the season, and...

Still, it served its purpose, since the cucumbers are all gone.

'Shazam!'  the prettiest it's looked all year

'South Africa' - always the most prolific and healthy rose in the garden

Yellow 'South Africa', light pink 'Mother of Pearl', 

and dark pink 'Acropolis'

Late, late summer

I'm still harvesting a few things from the garden while waiting for the new peas and salad greens to be ready.  Mostly what I have to offer in this post are flowers, but I'll be gone for a couple weeks, and I imagine the garden will have changed quite a bit in that time, so I'm posting what I have now.

My sundial never got calibrated this year.

That was like a police report, wasn't it?  "A bullet struck and killed..." Passive voice.  More accurately, I should have said:  I never calibrated my sun dial this year.

The volunteer melons that came up with the cucumbers on the trellis performed better than the plants I set out on cages intentionally.  There are still a couple growing that I hope are ripe when I return in a couple weeks.  Or at least still there.

My poor 'Fall Gold' raspberries are struggling, but I can't let them die out.  They're so unique.  They taste like they're dipped in honey.  And they're hard to find without ordering. Ordering live plants is kind of hit and miss in my experience.  I found the one I have at an end-of-the-year sale at Orscheln farm supply. I once found a pot of them at a nursery for $75.  They're good, but not THAT good if you're not made of money, which I most definitely am not.  

While 'Profusion Apricot' zinnias (Zinnia marylandica) are short growing (12-18" high), they're cheerful, rapidly going through a series of color changes as each bloom progresses.  They produce lots of blooms and don't need to be deadheaded, which is another plus.

Even though it's been a very dry year this year, it's been a good year for the roses.  I've not watered them much at all.  I AM battling aphids again this year, but I'm more successful than last year.  Possibly because I caught them early and have been spraying them with Sevin every single day for the past week or so.  (Frowny face.)

left: 'South Africa', right: 'Shazam!'

'Shazam!'

'Shazam!'

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