Winding Down - August on the Way Out

 It is beginning to feel a bit fall-like out there.  The nights are cool again.  The daytime skies are full of high, cumulous clouds.  The garden is winding down.  I am starting to mulch the empty beds with compost in preparation for winter.

The tomato plants are getting a good pruning.  At this point I am not looking for any new set fruit.  I just want the large tomatoes to ripen on the vine.

Things are starting to look a little tired.  

The cantaloupes continue to be outstanding.  Each one is sweeter than the last.

This is the time of year when the Marigolds really shine.

They keep me from wanting to buy Mums.

Strawberry Blonde

Disco Mix

Vanilla

At this point I have three beds completely put to bed.  Two beds half done half producing.  Four beds in Buckwheat ready to trim.  I have the pole beans that could be pulled but I am picking a meal from them now and then.  One corn bed is drying in preparation for the chipper shredder and one bed of corn is ready to start picking.

Charlotte's Web

 My Golden Orb Spinner is back and she's taken over the fire-pit.  Do you see her? 

My phone didn't focus on the spider because there is so much more glorious detail to be had.

The Right Plant in the Right Place

As a gardener I can tell you that the most important concept in landscape design is getting the right plant in the right place.  If you do that, you can just stand back and watch things grow and make you look like a genius.  If you get it wrong, no amount of effort will cover for you.  It just won't work.  You can have the most fool proof plant and if you stick it in a bad spot it will languish and make you look like a fool.  So, much like Doctor's are always "practicing", so are gardeners.

Over the years I have destroyed a lot of plants.  I wish I had the money back on all of the plants I've mistreated and killed.  The most recent "problem area" has been the portion of the riverbed which is shaded by the maple tree.  I underestimated the depth of the shade cast by that tree.  And it only gets deeper as the tree grows.  This is compounded by the fact that the tree creeps in and steals water and nutrients much further out than its drip line.  Almost all of the riverbed gets shade for a portion of the day, but the closer you get the the tree, the bigger the problem.  I have replaced almost everything with Hosta at this point.  One last problem was this Morning Light Miscanthus.  It did OK for the first couple of years, but in this drier year it can't keep up.

It should be as high as my head.  This one pictured below is about 20 feet away and gets plenty of sun.  So the shaded one had to move.  I didn't decide to do this until last night as I was trying to fall asleep.  There are two other grasses I want to move and I have spots picked out for them but all of a sudden I realized I wanted to move this grass and I knew where it belonged.

It belongs over here.

Problem solved.

I was already planning to divide and transplant a big Hosta I have.  This Hosta gets full sun and normally it is happy, but it needed to be divided, and this dry year has made it look worse than usual. It really looked quite nice up until about three weeks ago.

Dividing and transplanting Hosta is so easy.  You just attack it with a shovel, hack it to pieces...

Rip it out by the roots, and plunk it in a hole somewhere else.  Heck you don't even have to plunk it in a hole.  Like Daylilies, you could kick it into a corner and ignore it for awhile and it wouldn't mind.  That's the thing about Hosta.  It never gives up, never pouts, and seldom wilts.

After you get done hacking at the original plant, fill the hole you created with the dirt you dug out of the holes where you are transplanting it to...

Fluff it out a bit.

And walk away.  Below is one of the two chunks I moved.  The Morning Light is just to its South West and that will provide even more shade for the Hosta

I have one more Hosta to add to this area.  The other day when I was dividing some other Hostas, I broke off one section on the edge with almost no roots.  

As you can see, it hasn't wilted a bit.  I stuck it in some compost and placed it in the shade of the sweet corn where I will remember to water it daily.  In a couple of weeks it will be ready to transplant into its permanent spot and won't mind if I forget to water it for a few days. 

Cantaloupe!

I picked our first cantaloupe 8/21.  It required a tug, but it was in the warmth of the afternoon and fixin' to rain so I picked it.  It was very good.  Not the sweetest I've ever grown, but a lot of depth of flavor.  I think it was a Hannah's Choice.  It is a little hard to tell in the tangle of vines.   Yesterday morning I saw that this next one had already slipped so I brought it in out of the rain.  This cantaloupe is good in that "I just can't stop eating it" kind of way.  The best I've ever grown.  I think it is a Napoli.

 

Texture

 I have a texture problem.  And now is the time of year to brainstorm changes for next year.  My front garden bed has too many Daylilies.  Too much grassy texture. I need to change out the one in the middle.  For one thing, it is a very late bloomer and it doesn't do anything deserving centerpiece billing until too late.  

These are all divisions from the next bed so #1 they coordinate, and #2 they were free.  The center is an almost white lily.  I have it in a couple of front locations and background locations elsewhere.  It is fine as a background plant, but it is starting to bore me as a front line plant and it is definitely NOT a centerpiece plant.

The bed not ALL grassy texture.  The blue circles (below) are Geum that have round leaves and grow in a tight mound, and the yellow circles are Clematis bush which has a really nice texture and more twiggy structure.  .....when you are standing close.  Its way too subtle to even show up in a photo.  Its more noticeable in person.  The Clematis will eventually be taller, close to three feet, once it has been established a few years.

Next spring I want to dig that center lily out and replace it with something else.  Something not too tall.  Something that has form and presence.  A big, bold Hosta would look perfect but this is full sun and almost any Hosta will bleach in this much sun.  It needs to be something that isn't medium green.  I was thinking a Tiny Wine Ninebark or maybe a dwarf Birch.  But I'm not sure I want something shrubby.

The reason for this is that this bed can get dumped on with snow.  It would have to have one of those wooden teepees to protect it.  Which isn't a deal breaker, but maybe I can find a perennial that can be cut down like the lilies.  And another thing about shrubs is that despite pruning they tend to eventually outgrow their spot and cannot be divided. The Clematis "shrub" is actually a perennial and can be divided.  It doesn't have to be deer resistant because I spray the daylilies and clematis anyway.  

A butterfly bush would be a possibility, but they can be so finicky and decide to die without warning.  Maybe a Summersweet.  I don't know much about those but it looks like it would fit the bill.  In short, it has to be something cool that I don't already have and have no experience with because I've thought about everything I already use, and none of it will do what I want here.  

Any ideas?  Something that will be hardy in zone 4/5  

The Rain Makes a Mess of Things

 Rain is wonderful stuff, I've had to water a lot less, and my water tank is full.  But with rain you get rain related maintenance that has to be done.  

Can you see the two Bumble Bees embedded in this flower?
They are sheltering from the all night rain.

The ornamental grasses are just now "flowering" and any rain can lay them out flat in every direction.

A quick tie with some twine will straighten things up until they dry.

This big grass below (five feet tall) was over flat on its side yesterday.  I hurried to get a pitchfork and shook all of the water out.  Then I bear-hugged it into a piece of twine.

I wish I had trimmed the Buckwheat before this happened but I was waiting on the next bed to come into full bloom.

I went ahead and trimmed it today.  The pollinators simply moved on but they weren't as happy with the little flowers as they had been with the mature ones.

The monster tomato plant is now a weeping tomato plant.  It won't hurt it much.  There wasn't much to be done.  I could have put a tie around it at seven feet, but the support isn't that tall and if the top started to lean it could have pulled the whole thing over.

Harvest time again.  Just in time for the next rainstorm.

This corn is absolutely gorgeous.  We have picked 28 ears so far.  I'm expecting to get four dozen from this one bed.  These went straight to the freezer.

Perfect pollination!

Random Trip Thru the Garden

It's beginning to be that time of year again when you can move things around and correct location problems that are developing.  Usually, by August I am totally burned out and waiting for fall so the pace will change.  But this year I had my overload meltdown in back July with the dry weather and spraying deer repellent almost every night and all the food coming out of the garden.  With the daylilies being over and some rain now and then I've recovered and gotten back on top of the pile.  The whole garden is very well ordered and I am enjoying the process every day.

So now I am working on things that need to be changed for next year.  In this row of Linden trees that defines the end of our backyard I originally had all daylilies.  As the trees mature and the shade closes in, the lilies have slowly stopped blooming.  So it is time to transition them out and replace them with Hostas that are getting too much sun elsewhere.  And I have plenty of those.

Earlier this week I removed and transplanted the daylilies and yesterday I started moving the Hostas.  Hostas that are not happy will practically jump out of the ground for me and they are very easy to divide up.  They usually take right off in their new spots.  I put some grids over them to stop inquisitive deer who will be drawn to the area of upheaval and will not be able to resist mowing them to the ground.  Even with repellent.  Bumping their face on a grid deters them every time.

In fact, when I get tired of continually spraying, I relocate any grids I can spare to the Hostas.  Yesterday when my husband got done mowing the lawn he said "you know you left a big crater behind those Hosta you moved."  Yes, I know.  I am going to fill it with more Hosta.  Just not today.  These projects need to be taken in small bites so they don't overwhelm.

August is the time when you get to enjoy all those things you planned for and worked on all spring.

This Karley Rose grass below was mail order last fall.  It was tiny!  This spring there was only one little green spear that came up.  I almost replaced it.  But sometimes you just gotta let it ride.

I am also enjoying this Black Eyed Susan below.  In years past I had so darn many BES.  I got sick of them.  I pulled them out.  I relocated them.  I got tired of supporting and spraying and deadheading them.  Two years ago I ripped out the last big area of them.  For some reason, I must have had a really nice green clump and I stuck them into a fiber pot and put them along the compost pile with other refugees and forgot about it.  This spring when I was looking for things to fill in bare spots in the dry creek I stuck that little clump in.  I'm really enjoying it as a stand alone plant.  It can't spread there.  It can be just a tame little bright spot.

Another mail order plant that is thriving.  Echinacea Cheyenne Spirit.  I got a dozen of these in these spring and planted them in trios in several spots.

Do you have any plants that you love but Can Not Grow?  Here that's ground sedums.  I've tried various varieties a dozen times and no matter where I put them they fizzle pretty quick.  This sedum has decided to buck the trend.  It is super happy in its spot.  I just try to ignore it and pretend I don't see it so I don't mess it up.

The replacement strawberries are looking awesome.  Why didn't I just ditch the old ones weeks earlier and plant these where they belong?

I have been transplanting them in batches of 2 or 4 back into the strawberry bed and they are doing fine.  The four to the right are the most recent.  In a few days I will trim the older leaves that start to get stressed and the new leaves will take hold and flourish.

This week has been a mad flurry of butterflies.  We enjoy sitting back at the fire pit watching them in the dry creek bed with all of the pollinator friendly flowers, especially the two butterfly bushes.  Its tough to get good pictures of butterflies.  But Bumblebees are easy.  The Vanilla Marigolds have been full of dozens of bumblebees every day.

The Dahlia bed is flourishing.  The whole center row is Cafe Au Lait which is a super prolific dinner plate size.

Here is a back view of the pepper pot.  The front view showed some of the Sweet Bananas.  These are a hotter variety that are just now starting to turn orange and develop some taste.  The plants are loaded!

The second planting of sweet corn is maturing fast.  We are still eating out of the first planting and I am starting to freeze the excess.  But I have my eye on this big ear in the direct south sun of the second bed.

The second planting is in the first bed next to the fence.  Squeezing in here every day to water is like legit walking thru a big cornfield. 

And the harvest keeps on going.

For Supper Tonight

 This year the blog has been short on beautiful harvest pictures.  The only excuse or explanation I have is that perfectly gorgeous, bountiful harvests have become commonplace.

Gotta Have It Sweetcorn

Clarimore Summer Squash

Cue Ball Summer Squash

Seychelles Pole Bean

Monte Gusto Pole Beans

Barlow Jap Tomatoes

Know When to Say "When" - Succession Planting

 Succession planting is something I strongly believe in.  I almost always plant more than one variety/source of seed in more than one place at more than one time.  When you do that you increase you chances exponentially that one of those combinations will work. That way when the bush beans are a disappointment, the pole beans make up for it.  And maybe one kind of cauliflower tastes too strong but the other is sweet.  Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

To take advantage of all of the benefits of succession planting you have to go ahead and tear out a crop when it has run its course.  Before it starts to look shabby and comes down with some disease and stops producing.  That can be hard to do especially if you have been looking forward to something that isn't doing well and you feel the need to limp it along no matter how bad it looks just so you get that one special tomato.  I got over that a few years ago.  It took a decade, but I got there. I don't know if you can see the change in green tone from the plant at the bottom of the photo to the plant in the middle of the bed.

The older cucumber vines are starting to peter out.  The blossoms are smaller and fewer and are not being fully pollinated as the bees move on to greener pastures.  The leaves are bleaching out.  There are few dead leaves at the base.   They are ready to come out before they begin to succumb to disease and spread it to the neighbors.  The plant at the bottom of the photo is a few weeks younger, in the prime of production and deserves a chance to stand on its own.

Out they go.  There are plenty of fresh cucumbers waiting.

I also got rid of this miserable looking patio tomato plant.  I picked all of the fruit and tossed it.  I have a second, later variety just now starting to produce and those tomatoes (Isis Candy) are much tastier anyway.  This plant was very productive but never looked happy.  I had the same variety on the same pot last year and it was happy.  But this was an awful dry year and watering was a challenge.

I don't think the garden has ever looked nicer in August than it does this year.

The sweet corn is a huge presence and we are enjoying wonderful, sweet, large eared corn which is all we could have hoped for and more.

Gotta Have It grows eight feet tall!

The pole beans are also a huge presence along with the zucchini jungle.  The vacant beds have been seeded with Buckwheat cover crop which keeps them green and protected from the harsh sun.

Elsewhere in the garden, it's butterfly season.  Yesterday I saw seven different varieties.  Two blacks, one was a Red Spotted Purple and the other was pretty battered appeared to be a Spicebush Swallowtail.  Its hard to tell the blacks apart.  There was also a Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a couple of Monarchs, a large Fritillary and various White Cabbage and Yellow Sulphurs.  Then I spotted a Viceroy.

Monarch (left) and Viceroy (right)

I only learned about the Viceroys a few years ago when I told my neighbor who raises Monarchs that "I saw a pony sized Monarch".  She set me straight.  These are Viceroys.  They look almost like a Monarch but are only about three quarters the size.  They also have fewer white spots and an extra black line on their lower wing.  The photo above shows the difference in size.  I cut the center out to put them side by side for size comparison.

This is the original photo, Monarch, Fritillary White Cabbage and Viceroy.