Late Summer Flowers and Food

My yellow Dwarf Dahlias are enjoying the summer heat. With any luck, they will still be around late into the fall.

These roses in the back just keep going. I haven't watered them once this summer. I'm saving the water for the veggies and more tender flowers. The roses are doing fine on their own.

Green onions, lettuce and carrots. This row of lettuce is still around because of the zucchini leaves overhead providing protection from the sun. I have since cut off a few large zucchini leaves to let the carrots get some sun. I enjoy having lots of green onions ready to harvest at any time. It seems like I green onions almost every day when I am putting together lunch or dinner.

The first red Roma tomato! The plants are weighted down heavily with fruit. So much so that I have lost a branch off of one. The fruit on the lost branch will have to ripen up inside on the kitchen counter.

I planted sunflowers and cosmos seeds a little late this year, so I'm still waiting on them. I know to plant them sooner next year, but hopefully we'll get some color out of them soon.

Oh look! There is one cosmos out front flowering! Can't wait for more.

One of our blueberry bushes. It's nice to have the garden rounding out to incude some more berries.

Proudly Grown

Kentucky Blue Pole green beans. I have these growing on a 6 foot high section of fence, and they are now trying to grow over a foot past that up into the sky. We had record-breaking temperatures last week up to 102 degrees, so I'm a little worried that the blossoms might fall off. But it looks like we have a few beans to start with. Just keeping them well-watered.

Miniature bell peppers. I'm very happy so far with the amount of peppers that the plants are producing. They should get up to about 2 1/2 inches wide and 1 inch tall, then start to ripen to red. The plants look really great with green leaves all around.

Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes are beginning to ripen. I've eaten a few, and toddler loves to eat them off the plant. Something about fresh produce that even gets a toddler to try some veggies. I am a little worried about my cherry tomatoes though. To my untrained eye, it looks like they all have some sort of blight. Early or late I don't know, but the leaves are turning yellow with brown spots. Hopefully I'll get a good harvest before the plants succumb to the illness. The Roma VF tomatoes seem absolutely untouched by the infection, even though they are right next door. I'm working hard to keep them from touching. Why my tomatoes would have blight, I can't figure. I used store-bought potting soil, brand new buckets, and always water at the base making sure the leaves don't get wet. We've only had one or two rain showers since I put them outside.

Another problem with my cherry tomatoes is they are falling apart! Several times a week I have found a branch snapped off and this week the whole growing top of one plant fell over and snapped. I salvaged whatever tomatoes were growing and brought them inside to ripen. Right now I am thinking that next year I will only grow determinate varieties of tomatoes. The Romas are determinate and it's not such a pain trying to keep them under control. The indeterminate cherries are just growing like crazy and I am having a hard time keeping them properly staked. I've been reading my Territorial catalog and thinking about which determinate cherry I will try next year.

SMR 58 Cucumber

Cucumbers on the trellis fence next to the green beans. Dill is growing right in front of them, just in case I decide to can dill pickles. In the meantime, we've enjoyed the fresh dill over salmon and it is so delicious! My plan is to plant more dill just in case it has time to grow. I'd love to dry it to have for the winter and not buy any at the store.

The Alpine Strawberries I started from seed this spring are blossoming and growing some berries. How exciting to be growing my own strawberries FROM SEED.