Garden Friday

 Welcome to Garden Friday!

The garden is in transition mode,

with summer crops being very late to produce,

while new seedlings are being started for the fall garden.

It's all one big experiment!

The cucumbers have done well in the straw bales,

and I think I will grow them this way next season.

Today I hope to make some homemade pickles using our harvest.

I was surprised to see the Red Ripper beans starting to form on the vines.

These are great dried right in the shells, 

as well as shelled and sprouted.

 The eggplant displayed its lovely lavender flowers this week.

That means that fruit isn't far behind!

There are some okra plants growing in the straw bales.

We've been harvesting okra bit by bit elsewhere,

but have yet to pick from these two crops.

 

I can't tell you how thrilled I am with the white sweet potatoes.

They are growing like nobody's business!

A neighbor gave me the potatoes

(they were too big for her to eat),

and they were cut up and placed in this bed.

 The arches are starting to fill in with beans and melons.

It's late in the season, 

so we don't know if we'll get to harvest.

There's always next year.

 Some of the melon leaves are mottled.

Possibly powdery mildew?

So far, I'm still getting flowers and the fruit is still growing,

so I will just keep a wait-and-see attitude.

After spending a good morning seeding beans, beets, broccoli, 

cabbage, chard, kale and lettuce, 

it took only 3 days for much of it to germinate.

I so look forward to cooler temperatures

and a fresh round of home grown veggies.

 Looks like we might be in luck with a fall crop of broccoli.

 Look at what one of our neighbor's dogs found underneath one of our trees.

It was munching on some wild strawberry vines.

Have you ever seen such a creature?

 We have been consistently visited by a number of pollinators all summer long,

who just can't seem to get enough of the available nectar.

We're happy to oblige them.

Check out this lil' guy trying to burrow into the head of this beauty.

This amazing sunflower must be over 12 feet tall!

I'm not sure where he's going...

 The black-eyed Susan vine is starting to cover some of the straw bales.

Change is in the air.

It's palpable.

While the thermometer says otherwise,

a cool breeze will start blowing in any day now.

And we'll be ready...