My Haven #2: Blooms, fruit and herbs everywhere! (picture happy)

What a great day to be out in the garden for pictures and a strole through the rows! Lots of sights and sounds and wonderful smells :D. As Always I saw the resident finches in and amungst the sunflowers, which have started to bloom (each finch seams to be laying claim to a new head hehe). Too bad they’re so quick to take a pic of :( But I was able to snap some of the sunflowers, sorry only yellow talls and giants so far;

The flower row was looking particularlly happy today:

This year its a mix of petunias, lobillia, dhalias, snapdragons, tithonia (sp?), Dragon wing begonias and new guinea impatients. But currently the Dhalias and petunias are out shining all others:

The herb row has also filled in nicely though I must admit it all needs a hair cut big time! I particularlly like how the different sages have grown together:

As for the veggie end of things well the plants are loaded! Peppers have been thinned once but are over cluttered again :S These pale sweet peppers are even starting to turn colours which is nice as there is little flavour to them before that :(

Same story for all of the green pepper plants also, too many developing pepers at the heart of the plants as they swell the pressure can break the plants and you can loose alot more then just the 1 pepper.

The tomatoes are heavily set most of them, would have had a fair amount so far but the darn guineas and chickens keep getting them as soon as they show the slightest bit of colour! Finally some are colouring up higher on the plants. Good range in size too from larger golf ball to grapefruit. The cherry toms have been steady in comming and have yet to make it to the house, too tempting hehe.

The yellow bush beans have been very prolific and apparently much appreciated. I’ve just planted a second crop although this batch is showing no signs of slowing down. I always hear the horror stories about zuchini how when people go to bed its the size of a pickle and the next day its a log. Well I have to say that these beans are my zucchini! This picture was taken THE NEXT DAY after a full picking, which for us is everything that is remotely close to looking ready. Almost has to be picked daily, not that my co-workers mind hehe.

Cucumbers are comming stedily now. I can see leaf damage at the bases of the plants already so I don’t know how long they will go before cucmber blight gets them. So far though the growth has been vigorous and flowering is very consistant and abundant with lots of young cukes out there and some to be picked tomorrow. Is there anything better then fresh cucumber?!

Eggplant and squash are comming along well. I have been having quite some problems with real potatoe bugs on the eggplant this year grrr! I may have to resort to a dust of some sort as hand picking them and squishing eggs and bugs as seen dosen’t seam to be stemming the flow or saving the plants. I for whatever reason decided to buy zucchini plants this spring instead of starting from seed as usual… well thats not a mistake I’ll make again. I bought a 9 pack of yellow zucchini (complete with lables and pictures), what I got wasa some form of straight neck squash with warty skin :S Not happy at all with them but dad sees no reason to can them. So a bit ago I planted some of my seeds, have nice little plantletts, shouldn’t be too long before i get fruit. afterall, the garden tends to be productive into october.

And as with any day out there, the butterflies, dragonflies and birds were abundant. Was able to snap these pictures with a great many out takes, thank god for digital!

Pearly crescent

Duskey wing skipper

Thanks for reading!
Sib ;)