Getting ready for autumn

and ultimately the next spring and summer. I have spent the last couple of nights out in my garden cleaning out the weeds. My biggest road block have been the bees that are enjoying some of my biggest plants. I don't feel like upsetting 30 some odd bees. Last night I decided to start moving around some of my plants. I moved one of the lavender plants to the front of the garden; there were other plants that were basically growing on top of it and it no longer had the sunlight or air circulation it needed. Although it is now one day later and the lavender, anise, lemon balm and rudbekia I moved all look very sad and I am very sad because I don't want to move plants to kill them. So the rest of the plants I want to move I'll move in the spring. Most of those plants are in their prime now and the bees are going nutty enjoying all of the flowers on them. Hopefully those I have moved will bounce back, I am crossing my fingers but not entirely hopeful.

Garden

So I have not been "out" in my garden in a few days. Sometimes the bees and unfortunately the couple of wasps we have prevent my foray through it. Today was a harvesting day and I picked 1/2 a bowl of two different kinds of hot peppers, 2.5 bowls of green and yellow beans, my biggest summer squash so far, a small zucchini (unfortunately I uprooted the whole plant when I picked it) and to my great surprise I found a big-ass cucumber. I didn't even think any of them were growing. I hope I have white vinegar, because I also grow fresh dill so I would like to make cucumber and dill.

UPDATE:
Made the cucumber and dill salad. It was soooo good. The cucumber was firm and juicy and the dill had a great flavor.

With dinner I ate one of the skinny eggplants I picked and the small zucchini. I am learning a lot about geographic spacing and time spacing in my garden. I have corn ears growing right now and carrots. I am very excited about those. My white crepe myrtle bloomed and it is so striking. It is pure white and is such a contrast to every other color in the garden. The hydrangea finally bloomed (I was getting worried), my tall yellow flowers (don't know what they are) bloomed and one of my 8ft high sunflowers looks ready to bloom. I have gourds all along one of my fences. I wrote to the company and they said I should not eat any of them, some might be poisonous. There are so many hanging on the fence. I was so eager to plant in the spring, I planted everything at once, again I am learning how to space my plantings. I planted a clematis vine and I might be regretting it. The gourds are attacking plants, but I can get them off easily and train them back on the fence and they are only annuals, the clematis are perennials and tie onto everything, I might have to cut them back or get rid of them, they might be poising too much of a threat to my other plants.

I want to plant more flowers, but I am out of room in our backyard, I even have pots everywhere too and we have no more capacity. My neighbor has two planters with nothing in them so I think I am going to go to Home Depot tomorrow and grab some cheap flowers and plant them in his planters.

I hate to see neglected gardens and I hate to see areas that are never tended or loved. I told Frank one of my life's ambitions is too plant flowers everywhere. Some bushes and flowers are so much easier to maintain than grass (which is a water sucking crap-ass plant). Just think of how many people have yards and never use them. They have a yard because in suburbia you are supposed to. Fuck that! Plant a wild garden that will need little maintenance, less water (the first year of planting is when flowers and bushes need the most water) and is beautiful, eye-catching and beneficial for bumblebees, honeybees, and butterflies (the good bugs).

I volunteered for the Wissahickon Restoration Volunteers (http://wissahickon.patrails.org/) through Greater Philadelphia Cares (www.gpcares.com) today. I learned about some invasive species to PA and got to let my aggression out on them. I didn't know how far in the woods we would be so I wish they "required" that you wear pants, I was in 3/4 yoga pants, and was worried about ticks (one guy pulled one off of himself) and poison ivy (which was in many places). Overall it was a good experience. I learned a new park area where we can hike or mountain bike. There was a "creek" but it was fed by stormwater runoff (yuck!).

Garden

So last night we ate a lot of fresh veggies from the garden. We ate the best eggplant ever (a very skinny, long eggplant), summer squash (very good) and hot peppers. We also had a ton of string beans and yellow beans and I need to go out today and pick some more. The are very prolific. All in all, very delicious. It looks like I will have more eggplant, summer squash, hot peppers, zucchini and peas this weekend. The corn stalks are looking healthy and I am eager for the sunflowers to bloom. I have been putting branches of the mint plant in vases (mint is very invasive and needs to be cut regularly to be controlled) and they last forever in the vases. I have had some mint in vases for two weeks now and it still looks freshly cut. At the moment I have two favorite parts of my garden: the corner with tons of orange flowers and echinacea (such an eye catcher) and the corner with the crepe myrtles, lavender and butterfly bushes. Only my pink crepe myrtle has bloomed so far and it is stunning. The white still has yet to bloom. The butterfly bushes started blooming and they are so striking and fragrant. My gourds are a little annoying. I didn't realize they would try and strangle everything in their wake. But some parts of them have moved onto the fence, so that's fine. My hollyhocks have trouble staying up so I have staked them. But now the flowers are dying off and it doesn't look that nice. I also have a problem weeding because I also planted a bunch of seeds and I don't know what I planted and what are weeds. Oh well. My garden kicks ass!

Flowers

Herbs and Potted plants

Roses

Vegetables