Ah the garden, such goodness. BUT SO HOT! I’m having a trouble finding time to work out there. The girls are not able to spend long periods of time out in the heat and it makes it hard for me to weed and stuff, I don’t really want to go out in the heat of the day when they are resting. So a few things have gotten out of control, you’ve been warned.

I think I know what is going on with some of my plants, like my super small beets. Turns out you have to fertilize stuff. I’ve never really done that before, just bits of organic stuff when I put in transplants. I went to a Master Gardener’s Mini Collage this last weekend and learned so much! Also I read my seed packets while organizing (I need to get my stuff together to plant the winter garden – hence the empty bed) and I planted over wintering 220 day carrots, oops. Well you live and learn. We’ve harvested lots of raspberries and marionberries. We ate a lot of snap peas before I pulled them, and the celery was an interesting experiment, I chopped most and saved for winter soups. The herbs in the back I’m letting go to seed (some) to see if they’ll re-seed themselves next year.

The new bed to the left has five tomato plants, a butternut squash, four peppers and some basil crammed in it. So far it’s working. The cucumbers to the left are coming on, and very yummy.

To the left scarlet runner beans are blooming, and so pretty. The little potato bin maybe has potatoes in it, we’ll see in a few weeks. The other new box Bj built is growing melons and peppers. I put too many in, and we’ll see what happens. Once the fruit set is a little better I think I’ll start pinching off new blossoms. Speaking of thinning fruit… I swear I did thin my apples! But I guess not as much as I was supposed to. So propping up these honey crisps is a must!

Another view of the bed, so that you can see my pumpkin vines! I pulled out half my strawberry patch and I’m so glad I’m giving these things some room. My goal is three big Jarrandales pumpkins and some little pie pumpkins.

This back bed, still hoping some of those beans will come on and a few poppies, but we’ll see, all were planted late and in partial shade.

These little bush beans (planted only slight before and in full shade) are doing great. I’ll wait until I taste them but I love that I can stick these beans in anywhere. Cosmos are great, I love the pops of color, I’m going to try them from seed next year I think.

More tomatoes tucked in above the rock wall, and the little ground cover I planted blooming (wish I could figure out what it is!).  Here you can see some of my clover problem. It. Is. EVERYWHERE. Not quite sure what to do about it.

The front yard is looking better. I’m still so sad we only got these piddly little sunflowers after about a hundred seeds!

Remember the trellis we had built a few years ago? Well the jasmine we planted (one of them a day after Bennie was born, thanks to my man), is loving it. Oh these smell so good.

So good!

And underfoot, besides these weeds, I have this sweet ground cover growing between the stepping stones.

And in the, we can do better area, is this section. I have to chop my clematis down to the ground because of a persistent fungus. The willow is CA-RAZY! It’s on the chopping block this fall. If I learned one thing at the mini-college it’s “right plant, right place” and this is the wrong place for this gigantic thing.

The big news is that our arbor is done! I LOVE it! I can’t wait until grapes are growing all over it!

The Asian pears are growing, though scabby, but I think they’ll still be edible. My bean tee pee is growing and I love it.

Yes the summer garden is a good place to be, especially with friends!