Only three days left in the month of August. August, the hardest month of my flower growing year. Almost…over. I find August always hard. The light really starts to change, not that that is a bad thing because I think the colors of the flowers glow more because the sun is lower in the sky, and I am allowing myself to stay in bed till 5:30 which is a treat, but the insect pressure is greater, the dryness is particularly difficult, and my body is just plain weary. But then I get huge a huge uplift looking at the flowers that I am harvesting and your excitement over the flowers that I have, and that just makes it all so worthwhile.
Things are still busy here at the farm. Besides doing my daily rain dance, (to no avail) I am still busy watering, thank god for drip irrigation and lots of mulch; fertilizing weekly, weeding still and harvesting. Never a dull moment. The cover crop in the garden has been mowed
and it will die down during the winter adding biomass to the garden.
Like every fall, this is when I assess what will happen next year in the flower garden. So far, I know what will be leaving. Sunflowers will be way reduced in numbers. More perennials will be added, fewer cosmos. Actually it isn’t that I will be eliminating either sunflowers and cosmos completely, it is just that they will be planted on the sides where the narcissus are because the bees just love them, and if I need to cut a stem I can, but they won’t be taking up flower space. The rest of the flowers and their numbers will probably stay. I might be getting too old to plant more peonies but I just can’t resist. In the new empty space I thought I would do pumpkins and gourds again. They were loved by all when I did them a few years back, but all things are up for change, but that is where my mind is going now. Any thoughts and or suggestions?
If you could walk through the garden with me in the evenings you would be able to hear how alive the garden is right now. The garden is just humming with bees, if you could only see the bees on this sedum. It was quivering, and if you know sedum, you would know it takes a lot to make it quiver because the stems are so think and succulent.
The finches, sparrows and chickadees are all taking the seeds from the unpicked sunflower heads and the gone to seed cosmos. See why I want to plant them on the verges of the garden? And the butterflies just add more amazing living color to the mix. It is truly and amazing thing to see and hear.
I am trying my hand at drying flowers this year. Nothing fancy, but I hope to be able to give each of you, my regular people, a small posy at the end of the season to keep you excited about the next season. That and I thought I would try my hand at wreath making this winter. It has been a long time since I have done them, but what the heck. So stay tuned as they say. I could have some very interesting ones. Very me.
I will hand this off to Steve now for editing, (checking my spelling and that I don’t have too many run on sentences) and then he, not me, writes the little ditty at the beginning of the email, that send all you so gleefully to the blog. I just thought I should give him credit for that entertainment.
Until next week. Allie
