This is the time of year when EVERYTHING starts to look pretty tired and bedraggled. I went around the house this morning and some things are looking really bad–so bad that I will have to pull them up.
This garden in the front with the strawberries and fig trees is doing well. The strawberries have really filled in (and I have had a lot of runners to cut off so the plants wouldn’t runners all over the sidewalk.) The second fig tree still hasn’t caught up to the first, but if you look in the second picture you’ll see that we have figs! And that one is on the smaller tree.
The herb garden is hanging in there but the wall baskets have some unhappy campers. I have cut them back and put some fertilizer on them so maybe they will perk up a little.
The perennial bed on the north side of the house looks pretty good still. The only things blooming are the hostas, but they have really put on a show.
I have two pots besides the ferns on the porch and one is doing great, and the other is NOT. Apparently zinnias do not like to be in pots and sunpatiens do.
When the weather gets really hot and humid here we have a big problem with fungus in the yard. We treated it, but it was too late for right here. I have already purchased the grass seed for overseeding the lawn next month.
The cutting garden has produced an abundance of flowers this year, but next year I think that I am going to stick with only zinnias and lots of varieties of them. The pink/purple/white cosmos have only produced a few flowers, and the yellow/orange cosmos don’t hold up well as cut flowers. The dahlias are pretty much over this whole summer.
We are going to make the vegetable garden on the south side of the house bigger for next year, so we have already outlined the new size and killed the grass. We are going to need 4 scoops of planting mix to bring this up and then mulch on top. I’m sure I will post about that horrible project when it happens.
These peppers are all the same variety and all planted at the same time…. I don’t have an explanation except there must be a significant difference in the soil. We’ll have to work on that.
These are the two varieties of jalapenos and poblanos that I planted about 6 weeks ago. I am not sure that we will get any peppers from these. One is starting to bloom, but nothing on the rest. (One of the Cherokee Purple tomatoes is invading the pepper patch.)
Our Cherokee Purple tomatoes are holding up pretty well. We have gotten loads of tomatoes this summer and they have been delicious.
My basil started looking terrible so I cut it back hard and it’s looking better.
My Gerbera daisies in this metal pot haven’t done much all summer, but they are starting to wake up now.
I put down some dill seeds a few weeks ago. They are off to a slow start, but it has been in the 90’s and NOBODY is happy about that.
I had some cilantro seeds from last year, so I sprinkled those too. I need to use it quick because it bolts so fast.
Our raised beds behind the shed…. What can I say? We’ve had two batches of squash plants. The first batch was killed by vine borers. Our second batch looks fantastic but they have little worms in the squashes themselves. These got pulled up right after I took the picture.
This is our second batch of tomatoes. These are Cherokee Purple that I planted about 5 weeks ago. I hope we have enough growing season left to get some tomatoes. Again, I may have been a few weeks too late.
This is our second batch of cucumbers. The first batch gave me TONS of cucumbers and I have the pickles to prove it. This second batch has struggled all along and I found little worms in the cucumbers this morning, so these also got pulled up right after I took the picture.
So, we’ve had mixed results, but overall I am satisfied with how things have done. How’s your garden?
Cathy At Home on the River 
And so it goes. The spring for qrowing the summer for fruiting and the fall for going back into the earth.
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