garden bloggers' bloom day

 Cooler weather but precious little rain has led me to water my vegetable garden and a few potted plants but allow the rest of the yard to fend for itself. So I don't have a big bloom showing this month. You can find other garden bloggers' blooms at Carol's May Dreams Gardens blog. Also blooming are blue and white plumbago, lavender, trailing lantana, a few blackfoot daisies, and ruellia.

Alyssum

Pentas

Snapdragon with loropetalum

Marigolds with chard and shallots

This Torenia has been blooming since early April. It's my favorite summer annual.

"Diamond Frost" Euphorbia: curious to see if it's too tender to make it through a predicted mild winter.

Halloween weekend greens and grasshoppers

Husband Kurt and I finally put up a few Halloween decorations today and will celebrate our 11th anniversary tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've been harvesting (all from seed) several quarts of kale and chard, one big bowl of baby lettuces, a couple of handfuls of green beans ("Contender" and "Royal Burgundy"), the last few cherry tomatoes, and a few banana peppers. Tonight I'll make a big pot of curried sweet potato kale soup.

But I'm having a major battle with grasshoppers, who have decimated one of my cauliflower plants and chewed big holes in the kale. I'm also battling these fuzzy black caterpillars.

I don't know what they are, and I can't yet bring myself to kill them because, well, I just have trouble killing anything except mosquitoes and fleas. Must be the Quaker side of my ancestry. I have relocated a few of them, but that hasn't helped, and now they're all over the place. I've got some research to do!

tardy garden bloggers' bloom day

marigolds in the potato patch

Not much new to report this month except that the delicious cooler weather has helped lift my spirits, as well as those of several almost-dead plants. It's still dry, though, so my hoses and watering cans are getting quite a workout. You can see blooms from all over the place at Carol's May Dreams Gardens.

blackfoot daisies don't mind the lack of rain

resurrected diamond frost euphorbia

fall aster

Mexican bush sage

snapdragons and phlox

Also blooming: Turks Cap, blue plumbago, purple and white ruellia, rosemary, abelia, confetti lantana, indigo spires, white gaura, leadwort plumbago, and pavonia.

not another vegetable update

Gregg's Mistflower with Monarch butterfly

I actually have been doing some gardening that does not involve obsessing over vegetable seedlings. I potted some cool-weather annuals, transplanted some perennials, and sowed my first Larkspur, Sweet Pea, Bachelor Button, Viola, Nigella, Flax, and Scabiosa (ugly name, no wonder it's also called Pincushion Flower) seeds.

new Gregg's Mistflowers

As much as I love blue-purple flowers, I had somehow overlooked Gregg's Mistflower, a great butterfly magnet, until now.

Sweet Pea seedlings ("White Elegance" and "Singing the Blues")

I expect the Sweet Peas to eventually get fairly vine-like, so I planted them close to the fence to make it easier to rig something for them.

My first kalanchoe (in front pot) is a gift from MSS, who really likes that chair.

We transplanted some artemisia ("Silver King"?) to help camouflage the ugly Grande fiber optic utility box.

Did I mention that box is ugly? And that we don't even subscribe to Grande? And that it's crooked?

newly potted white snapdragons and phlox

Just a teensy vegetable update: look at these pretty baby Romaine lettuces.

baby Romaine lettuces, to be thinned next weekend

The end.

Fall Treats

red spider lilies--first time (in 21 years) appearance, I think

My first time growing beans, "Contender" variety

I'm so grateful for Austin's recent much cooler temperatures. Being able to sleep with the bedroom window slightly open and still needing a blanket is fabulous! But, still I must remind myself to water the oregano and plumbago we relocated last weekend because they're now in full sun. And I continue to give all my seeds and seedlings a decent spritz once or twice a day: so far it's paid off.

Yep, I've diligently watered these "Early Wonder" beet seedlings, but I really need to thin them now.

Seeded these carrots in August but had to water them 2-3 times a day for quite awhile. They look okay so far.

Have also been diligent about watering these leaf lettuce seedlings.

Cauliflower in front of "Royal Burgundy" green beans. 

Seeded this kale in August, and it's really grown fast! Need to eat some.

late garden bloggers' bloom day

white gaura

I don't really have a good excuse for being a day late for the bloom day party, but I do have lots of blooms to show, thanks to the recent heavy rains from tropical storm Hermine last week. Make sure to check out other garden bloggers' blooms at Carol's May Dreams Gardens. Thanks for hosting, Carol!

leadwort plumbago

my huge plumbago

appeared out of nowhere, Scarlet spiderling (Boerhaavia coccinea) Thanks to MSS for the I.D.

indigo spires salvia finally makes an appearance

first-ever green bean (Contender) flowers

exploding trailing lantana with some white verbena in the back

society garlic

sparkly white ruellia

I cheated and took this photo of my waning oxblood lilies two days ago.

make room for lettuce: saving basil

I'm not even sure how many basil transplants I planted last spring--at least 11. Convinced tomatoes would be a pain, I was determined to successfully grow lots of basil. However, now I needed raised-bed room for lettuce and chard seeds, so yesterday I harvested the basil from nine plants, yanked those plants out, and added them to a compost pile.

former basil bed before weeding/prepping for lettuce seeds

former basil bed after (today): lettuces, kale, and chard

I washed all the basil and began freezing it three different ways. Last year, we rolled the leaves and stuffed them into ice cube trays, added water, froze them, then saved the basil ice cubes in freezer bags so we could reclaim our ice cube trays.

We also tried stuffing whole leaves in a freezer bag and filling the bag with water (squeezing out the air bubbles) before freezing. Both methods worked okay for winter cooking but sometimes contributed too much water, especially to sauces.

This time around, we did both previous methods but also tried freezing little chiffonades in the ice cube trays. I'm not sure if cutting the basil before freezing will make it bitter in the end, but I'm willing to experiment.

The whole-leaf freezing seems to have worked, too.

Once again, husband Kurt did the hardest work today by turning the compost piles and mixing his "brown gold" into the old beds to revive them for their new seeds.