I shared my new gardening overalls earlier in the summer. They’ve been put to good use this year.
The vegetable garden is in full force, harvesting zucchini and tomatoes each day. The zucchini, well, it’s starting to pile up. Time for more zucchini bread and noodles. The tomatoes will be stored in the freezer until we have enough to can. (Oh! I got a new canner. An electric Nesco pressure canner. So far, I’ve only water bathed jam. Strawberry, cherry, and rhubarb orange. Looking forward to dipping our toes into pressure canning with tomato products.)
I removed a corner of hosta in our backyard and planted a cut flower garden. For most of the summer, I’ve been wondering if it was a mistake. Fighting with deer and rabbits, and my own dogs to keep them out. Slow growth due to colder temperatures this close to Lake Michigan. It just felt like a failed effort.
Until August showed up. All of a sudden, I have dahlias. Dahlias! My first time growing dahlias and, my goodness, they’re impressive. Zinnias. Bachelor buttons. Calendulas. Cosmos. A Shasta daisy plant that grew bigger but never bloomed. (Sigh.) It’s been a joy to cut flowers and have a vase on the kitchen counter.
Our other big gardening project this year was to take four metal file cabinets, turn them onto their backs, add wheels, remove drawers, paint and plant them. Our “patio” is on our driveway and we sought to have some sort of division. The file cabinets of wildflowers and sunflowers have done the trick.
there's no place like gnome. 