Garden 2020 - First Half of September

 The first half of September brings beautiful dry sunny days.  We can spend a lot of time enjoying sitting in the gardens.

In the front yard, the calendula is taking over!  The zinnias are putting forth a valiant effort, to the delight of the Monarch butterfly.

In the back yard, the zinnias dwarf the sundial.

The bumblebees enjoy the zinnias, too.

. .

We have flowers all over!  This bouquet is in the computer room.

This decorates the bathroom sink:

The tomatoes are seriously ramping up!

This one is trying to increase our harvest weight.

24.83 ounces!

Three have been productive this year.

The three tomatoes shown here are Azoychka, Cherokee Purple, and Bloody Butcher (we think).

We picked 135 pounds of tomatoes in August.  By the 15th of September, we have picked 57 pounds.

This year's experiment was brugmansia.

It was not expected to bloom this first year.  Here is a tiny bud.

A larger bud on the same plant.

And a lovely flower.  

This plant is often confused with Datura.

The Datura flowers point up, and the brugmansia point down.

We found this celosia at a farm stand on an end-of-seedlings sale.

It took a while to get moving, but it is lovely in the sun.

And the dahlias have been so delightful.

To see other garden pics:

This page.

Second Half of August

First half of August.

2nd half of July.

First half of July garden.

Garden at the End of June

And the first half of June is here.

You can see the end of May, 2020, here.

Here is the first week of May

Daffodils 2020

The middle of April is here.

First week of April.

Garden - August 2020 - second half of August

 

The second half of August brings an abundance of flowers and tomatoes.

The zinnias are almost as tall as he is!  We have as many as 7 bouquets in the house.

The front yard zinnias are in front of three rows of tomatoes.

In the foreground, the orangey-yellow flowers are calendula.

We had planted a few there last year, and these have self-seeded.

We have found calendula in all the gardens in front, back and beside the house.

I assume the birds have helped with seeding.

In the previous garden blogpost, in the first half of August,

the dahlia cage picture shows the flowers above the chest-high wire.

Here, you can see that more support, in the form of string, needed to be added, and the flowers are above his head.

The brugmansia now dwarfs the gazing ball.

We expected zero flowers this first year, so it was a pleasant surprise when several plants bloomed.

This is the only red daylily blooming this year.  We have bought more for next year and have divided some of our larger clumps.  I think we are looking forward to 83 plants for 2021 if they survive the winter.

And the joy of August is tomatoes!  

We planted four kinds, and three are shown here:

Cherokee Purple

San Marzano (a paste tomato)

Azoychka (an orange, early tomato)

Time to get going making sauce.

This tomato weighs 26.27 ounces!

And we are getting our fill of fresh tomato sauce on buttered linguini with cheddar cheese.

The sauce is simply tomato chunks, minced fresh garlic, basil, parsley, olive oil.

We found some excellent black olives on Amazon, and they go well with this.

. ~.

In the dog-days of August, Tommy finds shade under the rhododendron.

To see other garden pics:

This page.

First half of August.

2nd half of July.

First half of July garden.

Garden at the End of June

And the first half of June is here.

You can see the end of May, 2020, here.

Here is the first week of May

Daffodils 2020

The middle of April is here.

First week of April.