"How does your garden grow?"

Uh, well, ours is a complete disaster. Thanks for asking. 

I guess we had other things going on this summer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Here is our garden jungle: 

I can hear Ray Stevens in my head, "embarrassing." So let's have a closer look at things.

Here are the tomatoes:

We planted Cherokee Purples and either Big Boys or Beefsteaks, but I haven't seen anything other than teeny cherry ones come up...

The strawberries are still doing their thing:

And we have a humungous basil:

The borage I planted for the bees is hanging in there:

Heh. That would be the purply blue flowers in that mess. As ever, you can click on any photo to have it open in a more eyeball-friendly page to better investigate.

I have no idea what these adorable yellow flowers are, but they have carroty-looking tops/stems so I purposely didn't weed them as I wanted to see what would happen. Anyone have a name for them?

Cilantro has gone all to coriander:

Butterflies are visiting the apple trees:

Spiders are everywhere:

This particular one is either brave or crazy, having built a web just outside our back door. I can't tell you how many times I've opened the door just a few inches to holler out to the boys and/or the dog, remembered the spider too late, and have had to apologize. It's a good thing I have no hair, or this poor thing would have to redo the web several times a day. And it's right at face height, so it's usually, *door opens, I take a big breath to begin to holler, pull head back a little bit as spider takes cover, apologize to spider, commence hollering while keeping door as closed as possible lest any bugs make it past the web and into the house, slam door shut* The spider is doing a good job as I've only seen one stink bug make it in so far...

The zinnias and marigolds did well! I even saw a hummingbird enjoying the zinnias.

And this, my friends, was lettuce in its former life:

The back "garden" was overtaken by the ghosts of last year's veggies. Apparently we'd tossed zucchini out to die and they reincarnated, took over, and had to be chopped back by PaPa during his last visit:

We did get a few zucchini out of the deal except they were so huge by the time we found them that they were really seedy and not much fun. I guess that's why Aldi sells little skinny ones, haha.

And it's almost apple season already! Eeeep!

Dada bought some fun shades for the deck this summer, which give a whole new resort-ish feel to the place:

Yes, that would be Virginia Creeper, creeper-ing along. There's also poison ivy in there, which all the menfolk currently have as they just can't stay away from machetes and chopping vine-covered branches and oy vey...

And my lovely, tough, good thing they take care of themselves hostas. Hosta? Hmm.

Those poor guys were completely dug up and tossed aside when the geothermal install happened. The guys doing the digging asked what they were and then shrugged, "well, they'll probably figure out how to come back." And they did! Yay!

I sure hope nobody was depending on us for tomatoes (unless they're cherry ones) or cucumbers or anything this year. None of my cucumbers tasted like anything much, and I can't tell if it was just because of chemo affecting taste buds or if it was the ridiculous wet spell followed by months of hot and dry without being watered or what, and nobody else in my family eats them to compare notes with. If nothing else, we helped birds and bees and butterflies, which is half the fun anyway. Uh, I mean, sorry I didn't get out there to weed very much, honey...

Nature post

 

I will get back to the beach vacation pictures eventually, but these guys were just too pretty to not share. I've turned them into my cover photo on Facebook, but since not all of you are on there, check out our gorgeous hostas. Hosta? Hosti?

 

 

Disclaimer: Carrie took the rest of these photos. I did some slight editing, including text.

 

We've really enjoyed our feathered friends this year. Our wrens out from have several different songs and lots of energy. And now, new babies. We're being scolded when we're weeding too close to the wren houses, but it is so much fun to watch them flitting and feeding and singing their hearts out. Biiiig vocal chords for such tiny birds!

 

Okay, that one is not a wren. He may be one of our super naughty piggies squirrels who dismantle birdfeeders and sneak our suet. We do get a kick out of watching them scamper, though!

 

Yes, these are not wrens either, I know. Carrie has developed an affinity for frogs this summer. She's caught them and named them and tried to band their legs with blades of grass. Apparently the smart, best hider is Einstein, but there is also Bleep, Beep, and Bounce. Our frogs don't say "ribbit" or "kneedeep"... they definitely "bleep" and "beep!"

 

I think she wanted to show you that we have trees? We have lots of trees, and the apple/buckeye/walnut/pinecone/leaves mess is already starting to commence. Yellow leaves from locust trees are drifting across the driveway. 

 

Our butterfly garden is doing its job- we saw several friends gathering within it yesterday. I weeded some of the jungle courtyard yesterday before it got hot, but there's more work to be done there. The apple trees' branches are so weighted down that backing out the mower is a two person job. One to drive and the other to attempt to lift the branches out of the way so they don't lose all their apples. We are already looking forward to applesauce.

 

The garden is a bit pitiful this year. After swimming for so much of early summer, the weeds moved in and proceeded to choke off just about everything. We've had not even a dozen of our cherry tomatoes- so sad- and the regular sized ones aren't nearly as tall or as numerous as they should be. The melons look okay, even growing their way out of the fence; my pepper plant is a disaster, as someone or something got into the fence (or leaned over it) and nibbled most of it. I should probably go check it and see who needs rescued before it's incredibly hot today and tomorrow...

 

This is the last weekend before school starts, and we're as ready as we'll ever be. Things One and Three can't wait to start. Thing Two is asking to be homeschooled. Happy end of summer vacation and happy first days to all y'all!