Something About the Light

You may need to get a cup of tea or a glass of wine. The light was so amazing tonight that pretty well every picture was one I wanted to keep.

This spring we were running out of garden space, so rather than making the gardens bigger, I just looked for creative spots to plant things. Like this melon which is planted at the foot of the grapevine pergola.

In the vegetable garden, the yellow zucchini were playing shadow games with their leaves.

Salvia grow very quickly and bloom all summer. Every Wednesday, I cut around ½ of whatever stems are ready and more pop up each week. They are very prolific.

The white flowers below that look like Queen Anne's lace are Ammi. They are almost as prolific as the salvias are.

Some of the second planting of beets are ready to pick. I've planted marigolds throughout the garden to fend off bugs.

Below are the beets that seeded themselves down from last year and were transplanted into a tidy row. They are just beautiful.

And, whadda ya know! Our first ripe tomatoes!

The basil plants are responding very well to being trimmed each week......

.... and dill plants are at their peak. Dill always seed themselves too. Handy. Saves time and money.

I had an extra cucumber plant in the early spring and stuck it in between some yellow zucchini plants. I almost missed it! It already has 3 large cucumbers. It's very far ahead of the ones I planted on the same day in a less fertile part of the property.

And, I almost forgot to look for blueberries. That would be a tragedy.

Aren't they huge???? We have not watered them. They live in a wetter part of the property.

And, speaking of wet....tonight must be the let's-balance-a-stick-on-our-eyebrow night in the pond.

This little guy lives in the second pond where the duckweed is more established. You can tell how small he is if you know how small duckweed is. He's pretty small.

On Thursday, I dug out all of our mesclun salad plants that had bolted in the heat. They did very well next to the greenhouse, but greens and heat don't mesh well. If you look closely, you can see green beans coming out that were planted 4 days ago.

Because the greenhouse gets so hot in the summer and we haven't got around to installing shade cloth, I've been experimenting with heat loving plants there now that the greens are finished. Cucumbers and eggplants and, insane person that I am.... a pumpkin! It may be coming out the door in a week or so.

Some of our dahlias are being eaten. I made little head coverings for 8 of them as an experiment. We'll see if it was worth the time.

This variety doesn't seem to be bothered by bugs this year.

Bunny Tails are at their best this week. I've been putting them in the bouquets for Fare Share neighbours so they can have a sensory experience.

This is the part of the garden that has poor soil. Not the poorest, that is by the road, but still pretty poor. It's a newer garden and doesn't have the years of organic fertility that the main gardens have had. Hence the poorer cucumber plants.

Liatris have just started to bloom.

I think this is my favourite picture of the day.

In the past few years, we've made the worthwhile trek to Kawartha Family Farm and I have treated myself to a few new cone flowers. Aren't they stunning?

Here are some more. Oops! They are being eaten! I need to dust them with diatomaceous earth.

I really wonder if the smokey skies have diffused the light so that everything looks more saturated this evening. I don't know enough about light to know for sure. Just a guess.

Tomorrow, I'll make some black currant jam.....

.... and pick the rest of the red....

.... and champagne currants.

In the morning, when it's still somewhat cool.

But, probably still smokey.