More Garden Shots

September is generally beautiful weather here. The days warm up into the upper 70s (Fahrenheit) with the occasional foray into the 80s, but usually with little humidity. The cool, crisp nights make you want to reach for a blanket and bring down the windows. On nice days, the afternoon sky is clear azure, often studded with puffy white clouds from the dews and mist rising in the morning sun. Lee thought the cloud below looked like a dragon. I am thinking a saxophone...




September is harvest time even outside the garden. This is a young shagbark hickory tree in the scrub near the garden that is loaded with nuts. I couldn't get a picture but an industrious gray squirrel was in there harvesting. The green husks were raining down as the squirrel stripped them off the shell and either ate the nuts inside or ran off to store them somewhere. That may be how the three hickories in that area got planted, the nearest mature tree is across the road.




Canada thistle is considered a weed, but I find it beautiful and interesting in bloom, the pale fuschia colored fuzzy blossoms are well set off by the spiky blue green foliage. This honeybee was making a 'beeline' for the plant. Getting late in the season for these guys, they are in a hurry to fill the hives with food for those lucky enough to overwinter, and so bees and wasps of all descriptions are everywhere. They move slowly until the sun warms them enough, so their workday hours are now getting limited. When the pods reopen, they will be filled with fluffy down attached to little black seeds. Wild finches love thistle seed and will pluck the pods clean for them. The thistle seed you buy for birds is Niger thistle, imported from India I believe, and heated to become sterile so it doesn't get a toehold as an invasive foreign plant.




Still getting some bell peppers on my plants. They have not done too badly considering all the cold, wet weather this summer.




Frying peppers have been fantastic. A few marigolds are still in bloom too.




We're still getting crookneck summer squash.




Be time to pick butternut squash soon, they are coloring up nicely.




This is grandson Ben's pumpkin, and it is decent sized. He talks about it all that time, that and the pole beans he planted. Everyone is suprised at how interested he has become in gardening. I just smile and remember two other little boys following me around asking questions and wanting to be involved.




My only zinnias this year, a small clump bravely thrusting up through the weeds near an abandoned bed. A favorite with the butterflies. There is a single cosmos plant to the right of them, you can see the feathery foliage, though it hasn't bloomed yet.




Watching a blossom unfold reminds me of unwrapping a gift. Amazing on the outside, and a big surprise within.




I see a caterpillar found this one. I didn't see it until after I viewed the picture.




That red just seems to glow, doesn't it?




The pole beans are still producing well. We've been picking over 15 lbs at a time. I see an enterprising goldfinch has found my sunflowers.




A lovely vignette, don't you think? To me it screams "home in the country". The corn in the background is about done for the year. It was good, if a bit stunted with the way the weather has been.




I love sunflowers, their height and warm colors make them so showy. Fairly dependable flowers in this climate. It's nice that so many of them now have multiple blossoms.

Sunflower buds are interesting too.

Don't you feel warmer looking at this small one? Like the flames of a good wood fire.

I love that dark center. It makes the gold look richer. Another small one with somewhat more delicate stems and foliage.

Hard to get a picture of them without the bumblebees. They are all over the sunflowers.

C'mon, you know it makes you smile!

Same goldfinch, down where he can get to the goodies, the seeds. He spent some time stripping away the outer petals so he could pluck the seeds out one at a time. I must have taken 40 pictures of him out there. He let me get pretty close without spooking.

Ah success. Sunflower seed in beak, just before rubbing off the seed coat and gulping down the oil rich kernel within. We feed sunflowers and other mixed seed to the birds all winter up by the house. I grow them for their beauty and let the birds take what they want. You'd need a field full to make a dent in the seed bill every year.

Hope you enjoyed another garden walk. Unfortunately I did some damage to myself, and I've been laid up with some back problems since the day I took these pictures; most shot in between picking veggies. Today they are saying we could get a frost by morning, so a lot of this stuff will be gone... Oh well, all things must end, and it has been a decent gardening year in spite of the summer that almost didn't happen. No complaints, I had my share of gardening, and next year I can start over again. I love living in an area that has four distinct seasons. You never get bored here.