the main garden is holding up under the intense heat. the outlying beds are showing signs of heat damage with the exception of the grass garden-it loves the heat. we need volunteers to come on out and help us with the various beds if we will be ready for the festival.
there is a small group of volunteers coming out to help and i really wish they wouldn't-look at my sunflowers! the branches are broken and the flowers are gone.
just look at what they did to this poor tomato bush. they also removed all of the leaves from the okra plants (sorry, no photo). who are these knuckleheads-DEER!!!
they don't like long beans because they are all looking good. we picked a bunch and ate them for dinner!
obviously, they do not like
climbing spinach either. these plants are right next to the okra so they must not like the taste.
the poor little pot fellow is blanketed in spiderwebs.
occasionally, someone will offer to dead head the coneflowers. i always ask them to just leave the dead heads right where they are and this is why.
goldfinches love coneflower seeds. anne and i watched two of them make repeated trips to this flower to eat the seeds.
every now and then, i get a great shot with my crappy little camera. this one is so clear that you can see the little skippers antennae and tongue-he was sampling the nectar.
in the bee garden there were many bees in the mountain mint. here is a honeybee-left and some sort of black bee on the upper right.
today, i picked peppers, long beans and squash. i also trimmed the flower heads off the basil plants. we had a half basket of basil and we washed it, picked the leaves and darry made a quart of fresh pesto with it. one of the perks of working in this garden. darry also took vegetables from this garden and ours at home to make a coconut curry vegetable stirfry with rice. he added sprigs of the fresh basil and it was wonderful! come on out and join us, you may just go home with the makings of a great dinner-besides having cake for breakfast.
two beautiful butterflies; on the top right, a silvery checkerspot and on the bottom left, a buckeye butterfly.
in the spring, darry relocated the hibiscus bushes to the leaf pile to keep them alive until they could be permanently relocated. well, they have made themselves right at home here and are forming a nice little screen to hide the pile. we may just leave them there.
