Early August

 This has been a big year for walnuts...maybe too big.  We lost two very big branches due to the weight.  We were lucky that neither did any damage to the house, although the one above left a few marks as it slid down the corner of the house.

 As much as I hated to lose any of our big shade tree, it does look nice now that it's all cleaned up.

In other garden news, the tomato plant is growing taller and has lots of small tomatoes.  Hoping they'll ripen before the critters get to them!

 The cucumbers are doing great!  We'll soon have more than we know what to do with and will have some to share.

 I'm a big fan of the ivy geranium this year!  It will be a repeat performer next year and may even try to winter this one.

 Here's the a view of our yard from the fence.

How Does Your Galvanized Garden Grow?

We picked up some galvanized treasures this weekend at an auction, so I'm contemplating what to grow in them next year.  I think I'd like to expand the tomatoes to include a few varieties, and maybe try lettuce or spinach.  I haven't done bell peppers for a few years, so maybe a red and a green pepper too.  In the meantime, we're enjoying our first two cucumbers with our dinner tonight, and have had two edible tomatoes!  That may be a record for me in the tomato department. ;)

What's Growin' in the Garden

 The cucumbers are doing well.  I harvested our first cucumber tonight!

 I've picked one tomato and there are few more ripening.

 The drought seems to be over, and everything (except the grass) is still nice and green.

 Here's our little tomato!  I love this lantana.  It does great in the heat of summer.

 This is my favorite combination for the front.  A red impatien, a white one, and a Caladium.  This one grew from bulbs that I saved from last year.  I'm hoping to preserve them again.

It's Blooming Hot!

Looks like I missed winter on Fremont (oh, how I wish!) and most of spring!  Yesterday was the first full day of summer, and it really felt like it - hot and humid!  It's been a nice rainy, mostly cool spring though and the plants have loved it.  I don't think I watered more than once or twice from mid-May through mid-June.

 I planted a little later than I like to this year, and considered waiting until we were back from vacation.  I couldn't wait though, so took a couple of plants to Monett with Gracie for my mom to water for me (thanks, Mom!) and my friend Christina took care of the rest while we were gone (thanks, Christina!)

 We have two cucumber plants which have already grown a lot and have some baby cukes growing.

 We've also got one tomato plant, which I am notoriously bad at growing, planted with basil as I read that would give the tomatoes good flavor.  It's unlikely that we'll get to eat a tomato off our plant, but it should have an extra good flavor for the birds or squirrels or whatever usually gets to my tomatoes before me. :)

 This is my new favorite this year.  It's an ivy geranium, so it hangs over the pot nicely and has the prettiest red blooms with streaks of white.

 This is the hosta bed in mid-May.  The hostas and the ferns have really loved the cool and rainy spring!

Fall on Fremont

We spent some time this weekend getting the yard cleaned up and ready for winter.  We raked the front yard,

 trimmed stray branches on Amos the Amur Maple,
                                     
 admired the fall decorations (okay, that was just me),

 trimmed the crazy bush under the kitchen window,

 and admired the volunteer pumpkin vine.  It came up from a tossed pumpkin.  Though we've had no pumpkins from it, it's still been fun to see how big it will get.  It's had quite a few blooms, but I think something is eating them.

 I cleaned out the shed so you can actually step into it now.

I've tried to save caladium bulbs before and it didn't work too well, but I thought I'd try it again.  It would be nice not to have to buy any next spring.  We'll see!

Harvest Time

 It was a pretty good year for flowers at our house, but not such a great year for vegetables.

 This was by far the best crop of cucumbers we got all season.  They were strange shapes this year, and some had skinny places in the middle.

The jalapenos did pretty well, but I never got around to doing much with them.  We had some delicious homemade jalapeno poppers when we camped, so I'll have to get that recipe if we grow them again next year.

Into Every Life, A Little Rain Must Fall

The past few summers, our yard and plants have suffered due to drought.  We've had much more rain this year and things were looking pretty good.  Until last Saturday that is.  

 While we were driving to St. Louis and enjoying a lovely outside lunch in St. Charles, part of our town was getting 9-10 inches of rain in 3 hours.  It was just a very small part of town, but it happened to be our part of town.

 When we got home on Sunday, the plants were looking a little rough.  We were thankful for a dry house and no limbs down, but a little bummed about the state of affairs of the green things that grow.

 A week later, and things are already looking better - especially the hydrangea.  Despite a few broken branches, the cucumbers, tomatoes, and pepper seemed to have survived.

 The hostas look a little worse for the wear, but a few of them have already grown new leaves, and others are beginning to bloom.

Just like Gilda Radner wrote, it's always something!