The garden in August is a lesson in survival and non-survival. Miss a day’s watering and your three year old spirea is toast. (Not a hypothetical example). It’s cut to the ground and is starting to leaf back out- that was touch and go though, it was in no way a given that it would survive. But, here’s what is going on out there right now…
You can’t see all the bees in this picture… there were at least 4. Pickings are slim for pollinators these days so we’re all happy to have the flowers we do.
Tithonia (the Mexican Sunflower) is over 4′ tall now
Orange, Red, and Purple… I may pass on recreating that in an ice dyed scarf…
Mexican Olive Tree- gotta be close to 6′ tall now. The Mexican Redbud is doing great too. If I had Mexican Oregano I’m sure it’d be thriving.
So the days are past that we sit over here for the aesthetic.
The tomatoes are really struggling. Turns out the curled leaves I was concerned about on the Bobcat and HM 1823 is just the tomato response to extreme heat, so NOT a disease as I originally thought. The cherry tomatoes are still producing- though Sweet 100 is doing better on the volume of crop we’re collecting in the middle of this summer, but the Sungold has set lots of new fruit after a couple of week’s lull.
I’m already needing a stepladder to harvest- gotta be 12′ these days, but it’s starting to curve back down.
My buddies- the caterpillars for black swallowtail butterflies. We have 7 right now- how I love them!
Lord it’s so hot. We’re all just hanging in there for fall… which usually hits right around late November ’round these parts…
the something garden 