This is a view of our backyard vegetable/herb garden from about a month ago. Everything is bigger now and the tomatoes are finally ripening. My husband is the vegetable "farmer" having this large area plus two plots in a nearby church grounds garden.
Same view, better camera.
His community garden plots - with a view. There seems to be a trend here of fewer people caring for community garden plots as some were never used this summer. Anyone else seeing that in your towns?
The garlic harvest.
A huge head of cabbage. I've noticed that you can't buy corned beef during garden cabbage season, so this year I bought two corned beefs for the freezer around St. Patrick's Day. This head was put into the crockpot with one of them... so easy and good.
One son gave these heirloom bean seeds to my husband for Christmas this year. Purple beans turn green when cooked which demands an interesting chemistry explanation. My grandmother loved yellow wax beans. I didn't like them as a child but now, they are my favorite.
A photo taken during a hail storm.
This is a favorite potted plant that I purchased in Lincoln, Nebraska. I do nothing to it and it overwinters in this pot, too, as it has for 15 years. It blooms nicely in the early summer. If I recall correctly, it is a Sandhills cactus from Bluebird Nursery back when Harlan Hamernick was still alive.
The Stargazer Lily is one of my top 10 favorite (ornamental) plants. I've planted more bulbs this year because it's the best cut flower!
This miniature rose was a star this year, with so many blooms as a result of timely rains for a June bloom. I'm not a huge rose gardener, but I'm getting rid of the ones I have all except for two favorites because of Japanese beetles. This one is a keeper.
I used to have major envy when visiting the Pacific Northwest and other charming places for hummingbirds and blue hydrangeas. This is one of the newer hardy hydrangeas, and it was pretty blue all summer. I believe the variety is "Endless Summer". The hummingbirds nest close-by here, but in our yard they are seasonal. They love my red blooming yuccas which line the driveway.
This is a very unusual bright orange fungi that grew for about 48 hours on an old tree stump under my clothesline back in June. Can anyone here identify it??
A substantial sized space in the vegetable garden is allotted to a couple volunteer catnip plants for the very spoiled grand-kitty who is seriously addicted.
This is the bark of the 60-year-old Ponderosa Pine in the middle of the backyard which shades the hostas and hydrangea. The grand kitty is addicted to catnip. I'm addicted to the butterscotch smell this bark gives off... heavenly. It is such a wise old soul with what it knows how to do both above and below the ground.
One evening my husband took this shot of venus and the moon and titled it "the moon ate venus".
It has suddenly turned coolish recently, after a very hot and dry summer. There is very little snow in the high mountains. And our air quality has been very bad on some days, and less bad on many from the California fires. This must have some dimming effect for how widespread it's been. Backyard food production was mostly normal with a lot of watering and some late setting tomatoes - not sure why. The frost will be here before we know it.