So… bring on the deep freeze and get these bugs out of here!!!!

I really like the Morning Glory a lot, but this one only seems to bloom about once a week for about 24 hours. I’ll have to investigate better conditions for next year, and maybe plant a few more so I have lots more pretty blue flowers!

On the Shepherd’s Hook

Morning Glory Close Up

As you can see on the last picture, the ‘good’ bugs like to hang out there, too! Praying mantis is on the most top flower to the right. The butterfly is a bit harder to see on the bottom left in a bit from the last flower.

Zinnias on the table!

Zinnia ‘Bush’

Zinnias with Praying Mantis & Butterfly

“Busy as a bee” on a sunflower

Between the business trip to Germany, work, vacation to Vermont, (mini) vacation to Ocean City, NJ / Atlantic City, turning 30 (Holy crap! still not ready to accept it!) surrounded by my loved ones, cleaning the house,  actually tending to the garden/yard, and, finally, just enjoying the summer, I just didn’t get a chance to fire up the computer and sit down and write some posts.

I have (kind of surprisingly) been thinking a lot about what I really want out of the site, ideas for posts, etc. However, now I just need to start actually doing some of them — unfortunately, I have the problem in other areas of my life that I do too much thinking and not enough doing, too! (My sister made me get pinterest… and there are so many awesome ideas on there! More on that later.)

All in all, the garden has been quite productive, even though there have been quite a bit of challenges as well. Full disclosure: the sunflower above is not actually from our garden, it was from another plot in the community garden. Our sunflowers are actually doing phenomenal, but there wasn’t a good image of a bee on them.

Here is the veggie count to date:

Unfortunately, these are the final numbers for the squash and cukes. The squash had a good run (except for the golden squash, I really think we sprouted those way too early), and although the numbers aren’t super high on the others, we had a single squash (Greyzini) weigh in at 7lbs 4 oz, and the rest of them weren’t far behind in sizes. We really like our squash on the grill, so we let them grow quite large. I was really excited for a good year of cukes, picking 10 the first harvest! Then earlier last week, they just crapped out and the vine died in a matter of 48 hours (same thing happened with our garden neighbors – consensus is some sort of fungus got to them). At least we got a good bunch out of the 3 plants I had, and I have a few more that are holding on in the fridge I’ll eat this week.

As for the rest, we’ll just have to wait for more posts. I don’t want to overdo it the first time back in about a month!

Anyway, so much has been going on in the garden (no thanks to me, thank Mother Nature!), so I needed to post. I showed a few weeks ago that our first sunflower was blooming. This one we had sprouted indoors, and I think came out a bit stunted in the terracotta pot while it waited to be transplanted, and now it is happily creating seeds (albeit stunted, too).

Once we got the rest of the garden cleaned up, I planted some seeds direct in the ground — and WHOA have they taken off! They are seriously living up to the “Mammoth” name and are like trees growing out of the ground. The “trunks” are about 2.5 inches in diameter, and are currently standing a little over 5′.  I have 3 regular “Mammoth” growing — which are the kind with edible seeds which we hope to harvest, and 3 “Evening Sun” that will be a deep red or orange. I’m planning on having a fabulous vase at some point in the early fall with the Evening Sun! I’m pretty sure next year we will just plant direct in the ground.

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this, is because I wanted to have some flowers this year that I could cut and bring in to my table basically for free (cost of seeds is negligible, I think). When I looked up recommendations for the best flowers to do this with, zinnias seemed to provide the best results. In fact, the seeds I found are “Cut & Come Back” Zinnias, which means you are supposed to cut them and enjoy their beauty inside!

I should have started these babies inside before the frost, but I just didn’t get to it. I planted these from seed in the beginning of June in the garden (I don’t think they are deer resistant), and the first is already blooming! Can’t wait to have my first vase full of zinnias from my own garden!

This year, we noticed sword shaped leaves popping up in an arc pattern that neither me or my husband remember from previous years. We let it go, partly out of laziness, partly out of curiosity, and I’m sure glad we did.

Look what popped up! A gorgeous yellow flower that I have no clue of its identity!

We would have DEFINITELY noticed this flower before!

Can bulbs go dormant? Has the unusually warm year brought this gorgeous flower back to life? Is it really some mutant weed that looks amazing? Did a squirrel steal this from someone else’s garden and plant it in ours? What is this mystery flower? I must find out!

Sehr schön.

Mine are such a pretty blue, right?!