Around The Garden

   Temperatures mid-month have been in the mid-20s with a few days above 30 degrees C.  This week has brought smoke from the wildfires in the region.  There was a brief respite from it yesterday afternoon and evening, but this morning we are back to hazy skies and the smell of smoke permeating everything.  Two days ago, it spit rain for about 60 seconds.  We have had little precipitation this summer (the norm in recent years, worryingly) and could dearly use a day or two of steady rain.

   Earlier this month, we had a furry visitor who I am tempted to nickname, "Snackeroonie".   We spotted her as she was munching on the kale plant in the strawberry bed.  (Click to enlarge pictures.)

 

 

 

   We tried gently shooing her away, but she stopped upon spotting something equally delicious (pepper plant leaves) on the other side of the strawberry bed.

 

  

 What was left of the kale she enjoyed...!

 Dahliettas 

 Dill and cabbage

 

 Along the fence: tomatoes, potatoes, and a few asters.

 A little volunteer sunflower and Early Charm asters.

 

Another little volunteer sunflower.

Pink Blush lavatera

The first pink zinnia in the garden to bloom.

 

The Gold Harvest cooking peas are drying down.  An early variety!

Along the driveway. 

 

Sweet Meat squash (C. maxima)

 

Dry bush beans, sunflowers, lavatera, and dwarf tomato plants in the back of the raised bed.

   Coco Jaune de Chine dry bush beans (with short runners, apparently.  The runners didn't appear the first two times, but maybe that was because this variety didn't do well those years).

Copenhagen Market cabbage (the ones that escaped the early-summer visits by deer).

The cucumber bed...

...with Dwarf Firebird Sweet tomato plants at the back.

 

The first cucumber (Dragon's Egg).

Cucumber Curlicue

 

 

Little Firebirds nasturtium

 

 

Bon Bon calendula, Unwin's Mix dahlias (dahliettas), Yer Fasal dry bush beans, and a pepper plant.

Dahliettas and alyssum (the honey scent is divine!)

A fuzzy bee investigates the lavatera... 

One of my loyal helpers.

 

   The East garden and raised beds.  A bit of everything: Green Arrow peas, tomatoes (Ropreco, Velmozha, Manitoba, and one Dwarf Audrey's Love), sunflowers, a North Georgia Candy Roaster plant, some volunteer potatoes, and the corner of the (recovering) raspberry patch.

 

   The North garden, mostly obscured by sunflowers from this angle.  All but two of the sunflowers were volunteers.  Also in this garden: Gold Harvest dry cooking peas, Ireland Creek Annie dry bush beans, Provider snap beans, Roma II beans (very few, unfortunately), a smattering of Cosmos (Sensation Mix) and pink zinnias, zucchini, Green Beauty Snow Peas (on it's last legs but still producing the occasional pod), Copenhagen Market cabbage, and tomatoes (Mrs. Bot's Italian Giant, Japanese Black Trifele, and Striped German).

 

Oregano

Sunflowers - the bees love them!

Rozovyi Myod tomatoes

Reinhard's Chocolate Heart tomatoes.  

 

White aster ('Early Charm')

Pink Bachelor Buttons