A beautiful day for a harvest and a re-organization

I plan to harvest some veggies today. A few tomatoes, a few green beans, some side shoots of broccoli since all the main heads are gone, and maybe a cucumber and an eggplant. The okra doesn't seem to want to get higher despite the warmer days now. I guess I need to try some fertilizer. I am into organic, so I'll give them some fish fertilizer. The pumpkin vines are bearing lots of flowers, but only two pumpkin fruits are showing so far.

My lame perennial bed is going to get things dug up today even though it is "too early". I will also put other things in the ground. The strawberries have never done much, so I'm thinking of just removing them -- they don't bear much fruit.

The lavender at the back needs to be moved forward, and the chamomile with the metallic tasting flowers could be thinned, since it's only ornamental. I'll also greatly thin the fast spreading campanula that I planted a few years ago...it is too aggressive. I like the flowers but not at the sacrifice of everything else. Some of the pinks haven't bloomed in a few years either, so they might need more compost and maybe dividing. Not sure. Anyway, this is a multiple day project and I need compost to really fix the soil. One small compost pile with a pumpkin growing in it won't do the trick for me.

That's the plan at this point. I'll post what I actually do later.

Ken-Ton garden tour compared to my garden.

While the Buffalo Garden walk is the most amazing in terms of what people can do with small lots, and I saw some of the best flowers there, I did not see many vegetable gardens. The Ken-Ton walk had a number of modest victory gardens. One home had a row of raspberry bushes in raised beds and another row of currant bushes in raised beds -- not a bad idea. The rest of the gardens were similar to what I have seen before in other years. ONE garden though was particularly incredible -- on Delaware Road near where it meets Delaware Ave. The front and house are modest, but the back yard goes deeper, deeper, and deeper. They had lots of nice flower beds, corn patches, veggie patches, and several ponds/water features. The lady across the street had the biggest container garden I've seen to date -- but all were flowers.

It makes me happy about my front and side to see what others do, but not so thrilled with the perennial bed in the back, and the herb garden I have is a bit messy. My castor bean plants are still only 8 inches tall, but the ones on Delaware were over 5 feet tall and wide. No flowers though. I think they (Delaware gardens) have really rich soil, which I know I don't in our back. However, my veggie garden is satisfactory. There I think I am doing something right. The okra are the only things not growing, and I think it hasn't been hot enough in July. Now it is warmer. So we'll see if they grow.

I planted a button bush and a seven son flower tree yesterday. We'll see how they do in the exposed front. Looking forward to the flowers for the seven son tree in a few weeks.

Thoughts on what to put in a horticultural design in August

Today was the first really warm and sunny day. Plants were actually droopy. I haven't had to do much watering beyond the containers this year -- due to all the rain. I'm going through the garden trying to come up with the names of 15 genera Katherine and I can request for our horticultural mass design. Yeah, that's right....not even different cultivars or related species, but totally different genera.

Annuals -- (they need to really be able to stand being in oasis and bloom for at least 3-4 days before pooping out) marigolds, snapdragons, bells-of-Ireland, cosmos, celosia, amaranth, salvias, lantana, zinnia.
(not petunias, impatiences, or delicate hanging things) maybe nemesia, torentia, lycanthia.

Perrenials in bloom now -- echinicia, rubeckia, Queen Anne's Lace, Russian Sage, some mallow, late blooming astible, some early blooming chrysanthemum, perhaps some speedwell/veronicas. Add obedience plant, gaillarda/blanket flower, sea holly and globe thistle.
The catch for all of this is that they have to horticulturally perfect. So that rules out my zinnias. But maybe my hydrangeas. Otherwise, I don't know what can come from my garden. Gladiolas are too tall and you'd have to pick them before much of it was open.
Next week we collect what we can and put something together. Fun but challenging!!!