Spooky Garden Stuff

It's hard to believe Halloween is only a couple months away. It's been a typically hot and humid August here and consequently we are buried up to our eyeballs in fresh tomatoes - not that I'm complaining, but it will be nice to have a change of seasons.

Burt, on the other hand, is always happy with whatever season it is.

Between the heat, torrential downpours and voracious mosquitoes, our garden has been left on its own for most of the summer. It's kind of a shame because puttering away among the flowers and veggies is a lot of fun. At least it doesn't need much assistance at this stage of the growing season just the occasional grab and run with whatever is ripe. I actually planted these cabbages just for the butterflies but they even seem to be doing okay without any extra care.

The spiders are back in force and have taken over the backyard, as usual. It's creepy to walk face first into their giant webs. Ugh! Fortunately, the little buggers are only half their normal size this year, or could it be that the weeds are taller? In the past, they have been these huge, hairy whoppers, the size of a cherry tomato. Even the wasps avoided them. Maybe, with all the extra bugs around to gorge themselves on, the next generation will be back to their former girth. Would that be a good thing though?

So far we have two Ghost pumpkins from a volunteer vine. It's still too early to pick them so Burt decided peppers might be fun to try to carve into a jack-o'-lanterns instead.

Obviously, these Ghost Peppers, Habaneros and whatever that large thing that I don't remember planting is called, aren't suitable candidates for carving. Too small, too hot and way too weird. 

 

So Burt went to the grocery store and picked up an assortment of bell peppers.

It's funny how almost everything is easier to carve into a jack-o-lantern than a pumpkin.

The carving went surprisingly fast. 

Lighting was sort of a challenge and took some experimenting but Kibitz was very proud of his handiwork. So what will they decide to carve up next? Any ideas?

Thanks for stopping by, have a great week!

An Afternoon In Another Garden

Our son Andy and his wife, Kristin were visiting recently and while they were in town they decided to test out some lawn furniture. They look pretty happy with this chair, too bad it won't fit in their luggage.

Even though we are all fully vaccinated, finding something to do in our town - that doesn't require a boat - is pretty tough. So we opted for a visit to an old stand-by, The Paine Gallery and Gardens. 

It was open only by appointment during the pandemic. That took way more advance planning than His Madness and I are capable of so, we haven't had a good look around in ages. 

I have been avoiding any outdoor spaces that are regularly maintained so I wouldn't feel so bad about my poor out of control garden. As luck would have it, there was a wedding that afternoon, so of course the whole place was absolutely pristine, ha! Somehow, maybe because it was so spectacular, I completely forgot to feel guilty.

You could hear the bees buzzing in these alliums from ten feet away but somehow only one showed up in the photo! Next time I'll have to take a video. Maybe No Mow May was a success after all?

After not seeing the gardens for such a long time, they seemed very different, but then I guess we've all changed a lot in the last year and a half, ha!

As the afternoon wore on and the heat and humidity increased, even the sound from the fountain wasn't enough to keep us cool.  

 

We headed for the deeper shade and Andy played us a tune on one of the Tongue Drums, cleverly disguised as mushrooms.

 

I was intrigued by these very tall lilies growing straight out of the gravel, in some pretty deep shade.

Eventually it was time to admit defeat, mask up and visit the galleries to cool off in the AC.

We had also headed inside to avoid a brewing storm, which turned out to be just a little rain, ha! It was enough to raise the misery level of the humidity but wasn't so bad that it ruined the wedding. Is it just my perception or are those globe things on either side of the bench a little weird?    

That evening turned out to be very pleasant, it even cooled off enough so we could have dinner on the patio. There was a pretty sunset (that I didn't quite capture in this photo) and by some miracle, not too many mosquitoes made it through the screens. The garden wasn't looking too bad either, especially after it got dark!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks to Andy, Kristin and HM for being such good sports!

A Hand with the Roses

This summer, as usual, we got way behind on the garden chores. Now its August and these roses really need to be planted! In early 2014 a polar vortex wiped out most of my hybrid roses and nearly all of their replacements have been total failures, until this year! 

One day, I accidentally looked up and noticed there were roses blooming on the arbor!

It was a complete surprise! There weren't a lot and they were sticking out in all directions (because I hadn't bothered to prune it, thinking it was probably dead), but they looked great!

This photo was taken a month earlier. At the time I was just happy to see it had survived the winter!

Who knew it had so much potential?

Hoping for similar success next year, the Skeleton Crew got to work planting the new roses.

   

Ivy started digging while Kibitz supervised.

 

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Rounding the final turn Burt heard a scream!

Ivy had dug up a surprise!

How did that get there? Could it be real?

Upon a closer inspection, it turned out to be plastic, just like them!

So they finished planting the roses and then unearthed the appendage because it's always good to have an extra hand in the garden.

Spenser thought the idea of a spare hand was silly until he realized it might be useful for petting cats.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great week!