I can’t believe it is the end of July already. This month absolutely flew by. I’m disappointed because I wanted to have so many more photos posted, but they are trapped on my camera, since we’ve been experiencing problems with our computer at home. Now the hard drive has been reformatted, but the installations aren’t all complete, and I don’t have Administrator privileges to install the EasyShare software. Hopefully in a few days all will be up and running again and it will be time to take more pictures as an update!
It’s not really news, but the raccoons continue their veggie feasting in the yard. They have been eating the beefsteak tomatoes. Fortunately they’re staying away from the other tomatoes, especially the plant I grew from seed (it’s about three feet tall now!). The currant tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and I ate the first one yesterday. So yummy. They are just little, about the size of a marble.
The new garden beside the garage, I’ve decided, is more suited toward shade-loving plants. I thought more sun would reach the spot but that’s not the case. I’ll probably hold the container hostas in there for the winter and move the sun-loving herbs out into the main veggie patch. The lemon thyme drowned in there after a week of heavy rain. Thinking ahead to next summer…
Our house has recently been rid of termites, but the landlords want to tear down and rebuild the planter out front so they can place a barrier between the soil and the wall of the house (why this wasn’t done in the first place is beyond me). So I will have to move all of my perennials out of there in the fall. Hopefully the job is done quickly and everything will recover after over-wintering in the back yard.
The echinacea didn’t bloom. It got eaten alive by some mystery bugs (earwigs? slugs?) out front so I cut it back and hope it will bloom next year. The white swan echinacea is in bloom, though, and so are the black-eyed susans I got from the next door neighbour last year. The clematis is doing very well, and I’m most concerned about having to move it out of that front planter.
The annual cosmos I got from Loblaws are doing amazing. They are almost two feet tall and bloom over and over, just beautifully, some of the blooms about the size of the palm of my hand. I would definitely get them again. I haven’t even fertilized this year. Yesterday is the first day I applied any fertilizer to anything, and that is because I moved two tomato plants out of containers into the bed, to the spot recently vacated by the last of the lettuce, which we enjoyed through June and part of July.
The sweet peas are in bloom, scrambling up the fence behind the veggies. The cucumber vine is tied up to a bamboo pole and the yellow blooms are just lovely. Hopefully the raccoons will leave a few “cukes” (as my Grampa Perron used to call them) for us humans to enjoy. Alas, the zucchini wasn’t as lucky.
I’ve put a few houseplants outside and they’re doing really well. The two umbrella plants are continually producing new leaves, and even my Christmas cactus is doing the same. The banana plant is happier now that I’ve put it and its tasty leaves up out of raccoons’-arms-reach. It produces a new leaf every two or three weeks. I hope it will overwinter indoors alright.
The nasturtiums and purple basil I started a few weeks ago are doing quite nicely. I have to get out there and get my pesto made…the “regular” basil is flowering (I keep pinching off the flowers). Oh yes, and the mint is flowering, too. I’ve never seen it do that, probably because I tend to hack it back before it gets to that point, but the bloom is pretty.
Well, this has been quite a mouthful!
It’s been such a damp, cool summer…I can only hope that August will bring the heat that the veggies so crave.
