As the Garden Grows

It looks like my garden is beginning to get it’s fall colours. I believe my roses are starting to go through their last bloom of the year … wait, what am I talking about – my roses often bloom right up until Christmas!

Nah … well my Browned Eyed Susans and Phlox David are certainly on the way out, however, just as those plants are winding down, others are beginning to shine.

For example, my Toad Lilies are covered in buds and I expect I’ll have blooms next week. I’ll also have blooms on my three Monkshood in the next week or two as well.

My Sedum are already changing color and looking lovely:

The large potted Chrysanthemums that I purchased at Costco at the end of August are blooming away too:

Aren’t they lovely?

My Cosmos have been blooming all summer, but this one looked so pretty the other day and it happened to have a bug on one of it’s petals as well – can you spot it?

How is your garden doing this month? Is it changing as the temperatures change? Tell me what’s blooming.

We’re at the height of summer and I find that almost every day we’re having a meal in the garden on the patio. It’s lovely to sit outdoors enjoying the beauty of the garden and when we’re lucky it’s bounty as well.

As I mentioned in my last post, our tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and very soon we’ll have cucumbers and beans. We’ve already been enjoying strawberries and raspberries from the garden and I expect that we’ll continue to enjoy them for another month or so.

It’s at this time of year when I most enjoy entertaining. I love inviting a few friends or some family members over for an informal visit. We’ll get together and have a barbecue or just a snack and a few drinks. Just a chance to get together – but of course it’s always in the garden surrounded by my lovely flowers and all the lovely scents they produce.

One quick and simple treat that I whip up when guests come over is cheese and crackers. I almost always have both cheddar cheese and a soft cheese on hand like Boursin Cheese and of course a variety of tasty crackers is always handy.

Do you do a lot of entertaining in the summertime? Do you keep supplies on hand for “drop in” guests? Supplies such as tasty spreadable cheeses like the Boursin cheeses discussed above or other quick foods?

My garden is growing beautifully as usual this summer. It’s been quite hot, especially in July so the plants seem to have stopped growing, but that’s ok, they all seem to be healthy.

My tomatoes are growing like weeds. I have four Sweet 100′s tomato plants that are covered in tiny green tomatoes. I can’t wait for them to ripen so that we can have a taste.

I also have five regular sized tomato plants – a variety of patio tomatoes and Early Girl Tomatoes and each of them have several large tomatoes on them in various shades ranging from green to almost red. We’ve already had about four ripe red tomatoes from one of the plants already and they were lovely. Yum.

Unfortunately earlier this evening I seem to have had a reaction to the large tomato plants. I noticed that the tomato plant vines were flopping over so I got some bamboo stakes and some plastic green tape and started staking the tomato plants and within seconds my hands and arms were on fire – burning and itching.

I’ve never had a reaction like that to tomato plants before. I knew that the leaves and plants could be irritating to the skin but I’d never experienced any problems. I had been working with my roses earlier and I had some scratches on my hands and arms so maybe that’s why the reaction was so bad … but man … I can still feel some burning! I had to go inside and take a Benadryl in the hopes that it would calm the reaction down. If I’m still feeling the itching and burning on my skin at bedtime I’ll put some hydracortizone cream on my hands and arms. Luckily I happen to have some prescription cream.

Have any of you ever had a problem with touching tomato plants in the past? Is it an allergy or just a bad irritation? I have had tomatoes come up in allergy tests but I can still eat them most of the time.

BTW Don’t forget to also check out my other gardening blog Organic Gardening Tips. I’d love to have you come visit me over there too!