Ahh August. The month of crickets, tomatoes, sweet corn, and cooler nights. Today I spent a bit of time in the vegetable garden picking for tonight’s supper.
Green beans, beets, and my very first potatoes! Butter, salt and pepper, and diced raw onions!!
I tore out some overgrown arugula ( rocket) and gave it to the hens. By the time I’d taken this picture, most had lost interest since they had already been fed the beet greens.
Now, a question. After I took as much compost as I needed earlier in the season, I just let things grow out of it and called it my compost garden ( it gets regular feeding of chicken manure and shavings, too). A vine began growing and now this is the result. It is not yet mature but I have NO idea what these “ fruits” are. I can guarantee you that there were no hard squash seeds, pumpkin seeds or gourd seeds in my compost ( maybe some spaghetti squash from a one time meal). If you have any thoughts , let me know. My hand gives you an idea of size.
And to finish, here is what is blooming right now: day lilies, purple cone flowers ( echinacea), phlox, and a showy hydrangea that I forget the name of which will turn a gorgeous rosy shade later. Of course black eyed Susan, too, but I have a love hate relationship with those so didn’t bother photographing.
Have a beautiful weekend everyone and great long weekend fellow Canadians!
Beautiful veggies and flowers? Why the love/hate relationship with Black Eyed Susans?
ReplyDeleteThey provide vibrant colour in the second half of summer but they self- seed profusely and are really invasive and I’m constantly digging them out of my gardens.
DeleteI wish my black eyed susans would proliferate. They're barely hanging in, too much competition from pachysandra.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous flowers! I've no idea what the mystery squash would be. Tenacious veg.
ReplyDeleteI bet the chickens appreciate the greens.
Their favourite is rutabaga leaves.
DeleteIt does look like some kind of squash - the truth will be in the cutting! This is a great time of year for perennials, yours seem to be doing well.
ReplyDeleteF wishes black-eyed susans would try to proliferate here. Your garden is looking great and very colourful.
ReplyDeleteI had the same problem with black eyed Susan's. They would own the entire garden, given the chance. Every fall we would dig out a large number of "ditch Susans" and pitch them into the ditch. Our only consideration was sending them roots first, but I doubt that mattered much.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that is a spaghetti squash. Right shape and color.
Time will tell. It’s in the squash family…
DeleteYour garden looks fabulous and full of beautiful color. I also suspect the mystery veg is a squash. Squash seems to grow well in compost piles. One year I had 6 butternut squash growing in my compost.
ReplyDeleteLooks similar to a spaghetti squash. Which are absolutely lovely.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Do you have enough fruit, vegetable, herbs etc to be self sufficient? Then you would only have to shop for exotica like fish, eggs, crumpets.
ReplyDeleteNot really. I eat a lot of berries and I don’t grow any berries anymore. My onions didn’t grow much this summer and I don’t grow cucumbers. But I’m always very happy with what I do grow and I freeze some things like beans and I can tomatoes.
DeleteOr maybe the mystery veggie (yep, looks like a squash) was planted (okay, pooped) by a low flying bird!
ReplyDeleteOMG - the beets. What a garden treat. Very, very cool.
ReplyDeleteWish we could find fresh sweet corn here. Some years we find it briefly at the market but so far nothing. It's not well known here and they only way they know to use it is to bbq it.
ReplyDeleteI taught my family how delish it is boiled with loads of salt and butter!!
Yep, looks like a spaghetti squash to me too. Lovely veggies! There is nothing like picking dinner from the garden. Your flowers are gorgeous. Down here they are struggling with the heat and no rain for 10 days. I call this the endurance race season for my poor flowers--- bedraggled but hanging on! This ridge is a tough environment , only the strong survive. Sure wish I had your problem with Black-eyed Susans!
ReplyDeleteI am still waiting for the cooler nights.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the cooler nights cool the pool off a lot. I marvel when I read your blog and your talk about your pool being like bath water! I wish!
DeleteWe have had some odd volunteer squash from our compost too. Sometimes when we get squash that’s a hybrid and any of the seeds go into the compost, the stuff that pops up in the compost is sort of a devolved squash of what we bought. It still tastes good too. We have something growing right now that hasn’t yet produced any fruit.
ReplyDelete-Katie c.
Your potatoes look great! My guess is your mystery veggie is a pumpkin. I can't wait to see. The red daylililies are fantastic. I have orange ones.
ReplyDeleteHa! I just went back and looked at my blog and noticed that day lily picture is sideways! Oh well, not changing it now. I'm pretty sure it can't be a pumpkin. Maybe it is like Katie, in the above comment said, some sort of hybrid?
DeleteYour garden rocks! You'll have to let us now the mystery veggie! Love the veg you showed (well, not the beets but that's just me!). And the chickens!
ReplyDeleteOne of the joys of summer is that pre-dinner garden wander to harvest a bit of this and a bit of that. Your blooms are gorgeous. I am hoping to have a "blooming marvellous" perennial garden next summer with my new bed. As for your mystery fruit...no idea, but hope you will enlighten us all when you know!
ReplyDeleteSuch lovely pictures. That combined with cooler weather is a winning combination for August.
ReplyDeleteI just have to say, pretty belatedly, that your coneflowers are stellar! They are just what I hope mine might look like one day... so far I think they are not getting enough water or something. But yours are inspiring. And I enjoy all of your garden scenes.
ReplyDeleteThank you!! My garden is a tribute to survival of the fittest! I don’t do anything special.
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