August Beauties

It’s too soon to call summer over, but there has been a shift in the garden lately.  You can see the end to the vigorous production of new fruit on the tomato vines.  Old spent cucumber vines have been taken down and we are picking now from the latest succession of cucumber vines and the same is true of our delicate French Filet bush beans.

Of course, summer is far from over and we will still enjoy many of the summer favorites for a while to come, especially as we have succession plantings of tomatoes as well as those mentioned above, but our thoughts and actions are already turning to the leafy greens of fall.  The first of the broccoli and kale transplants are in the ground and sowing of leaf lettuce is in the process.

The Currey family celebrated the first birthday of grandson Will last weekend with a small family celebration on the back porch and the celebrant gloriously smeared with self-applied chocolate crumbs and frosting.   Just as it should be. 

The family birthday celebration meant that Uncle Brownlee came and photographed not only the birthday festivities, but also ranged the garden with his new camera.  So here is our ode to August captured in Brownlee’s pictures of the last of summer’s glories.   

The muscadine arbor is a mound of green, but there are ripening muscadines now too.  The old vine was flat on the ground when we first got to Sparta but we cleared the underbrush and raised the vine which we know to be at least fifty years old and raised it to its current trellis.  Now we have a cool shady spot to sit on a hot summer's day.

This Yellow Explosion Day Lily is still blooming in August.

We have plenty of sunflowers this summer.  Somehow they
make me happy just looking at them.

Here is a fresh new row of haricot verts beginning to
bloom and make delightful  green beans.

Fairy Tale Eggplant look as if they are regal jewels.  They will get just a bit
bigger and then they are ready to pick,  cook and eat.  

"Harris" kitty knows a good resting place when he
finds it.  Here he is in the bonsai garden adorning a plant.

Sweet basil.  It is really plentiful in August and now is the time to
make pesto for the freezer to get us through the winter.

This is not exactly a garden picture, but a nice shot of our tomboys on
one of their favorite vantage points for overseeing what is happening in the garden.

So thank you, Brownlee, for sharing your pictures!

Suzy