It is a cooler Sunday morning, with the heat finally abating in the area. I was out this morning filling the hummingbird feeder and checking on the status of the garden. The tomatoes are making a valiant attempt at a comeback, but it seems now the stink bugs may be winning, and also the weeds and the morning glories.
The hummingbird feeder is a simple design that uses wine bottles, and as we all seem to know around here, I certainly empty my share to make their feeders. I keep them in the small refrigerator in the laundry room after I make a quart of nectar. Hopefully, no one goes in there and mistakes them for wine.
Hummingbird nectar ready to use
The nice thing about this feeder is the ability to just recycle the empty bottles and minimize what needs cleaning. The birds love it and one came up immediately after I went back in the house. Of course, the camera wasn’t near me. Trying to photograph our hummingbirds is difficult.
I wandered out and checked on the herb garden, which now has marigolds all around it. They didn’t bloom in time for the fair, but are putting out a nice amount of flowers that I can cut and use on the table.
Now, the garden. The garden is a mess. I found that weeds are growing rampant between the backs of the cages and the deer fence. I can’t easily get to them to pull them out. Only weed whack them from outside or try cutting them off by reaching through the fence. Not working. And, the morning glories are out of control. At least the bees love them.
Morning glories
I have three different colors growing all around the fence. I like the delicate blue ones best. They are also finding a way to climb my husband’s ropes that anchor antenna wires.
On the back side of the garden, I did find one of my wandering cucumber vines trying valiantly to make a comeback. We shall see if these slicing cucumbers make it to an edible size.
I did find another of those monster pickling ones hidden deep down between the bunny fence and the deer fence last week. Another one of the same size as this one photographed earlier.
As for the tomatoes, I am still getting lots of the little ones, and the larger varieties have small green tomatoes all over them. But now, the stink bugs are out in force. They dig into the small crevices and pretty much destroy the fruit.
I wish we could find a reliable way to erase these pests from our gardens. Every year there are more of them here. We need to find a natural predator to release that will feast on all the eggs laid by the bugs, before they hatch and crawl everywhere in our plants.
But, thankfully, they don’t seem to like the blue basil, like the batch I harvested last week to make pesto.
African blue basil
I got six cups of basil last week. There is at least enough out there to do this again sometime this week. I need to buy pine nuts, or maybe use the walnuts left from the rhubarb walnut bread I made. The basil is now creeping in all directions around the bird bath and under the wildflowers in the back of the herb garden. As for the rosemary, I may need to trim it back. I am going to be drying rosemary this fall, as it has reached a point where the three bushes are becoming small trees.
Rosemary
The rosemary, basil and cotton lavender were the three herbs that got my first blue ribbon in the fair. The cotton lavender is in a planter, but the others are in the garden. I want to dry some of the lavender too.
Cotton Lavender
Enough wandering in the garden. I think it’s time to wander somewhere in west county, like maybe to Larriland to pick peaches.
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AnnieRie Unplugged 