Garden Friday

 Welcome to Garden Friday!

By the time this posts,

summer will officially be on Her way out!

This thermometer measures the temperature (top number)

on the north side of our house,

which is mostly shade.

I think we actually hit 100 degrees yesterday.

The weekend is supposed to gift us with 

daytime highs in the 70's.

We are SO ready for fall!

Without much ambition due to the heat,

not much has been done in the garden of late.

The okra and eggplant were torn out

to make room for our new raised beds.

 This area will be reworked and amended

so that we can place three new raised beds in the space.

 

 The supplies were purchased this week

to create two of the three beds,

using the concrete corners seen here.

We'll document the process,

so that we can show how simple it really is.

 Beans are still coming in and I'm hoping that this weekend

I can get our sugar snap peas planted.

We are using the direct sow method,

as snap peas do best this way.

They will be placed to the right of the bean vines,

all along the arches.

 The loofah is turning all kinds of colors,

from lime green, to mustard, to a rich, coppery hue.

 With the cooler weather looming,

I'm hoping to have abundant time on the front porch,

shaking out seeds to reserve for next year's planting,

and a mess to share with friends.

The trellis created for the sweet potatoes 

didn't quite contain them.

The foliage is so bountiful that it is falling over.

sweet potato blooms

 The cooler temperatures this weekend

should help this crop along its way.

I'm ready to harvest, even if the plant isn't.

I will need the bed to plant beets.

 One crop that isn't dependent on the weather is sprouts.

These Red Ripper beans are ready in a matter of days,

greening up on the kitchen windowsill.

I collected these Hyacinth Bean pods

from one of my jobs.

It's a gorgeous climbing vine

with delicate purple blooms.

I can see this ascending trees and trellises 

in our garden next season.

These sweet pansies haven't stopped blooming

since being added to the veggie garden months ago.

The heat and lack of rain haven't bothered them one bit.

Aren't sunflowers just stunning?

In all stages.

I find them fascinating and absolutely breath-taking.

Just look at this one seed head that droops after having its glory in the summer sun.

Each seed is the promise of sunflowers next year in our garden.

These will be harvested and saved for planting early next summer.

A gal has to have some motivation to face another scorching garden season!

Will you be planting a fall garden?