The wait is over......

Finally, we picked our first tomato, a Pink Grapefruit (plus a few Snow White cherries). We sliced it and ate it right away, even though it was slightly green. It was luscious!!! There is nothing like the first juicy tomato of the summer. Of course, in my case, it's usually almost fall before I get my first tomato. We have lots of jalapeno peppers, seen above in various stages of green, purple, and red. This is my mutant jalapeno; it isn't supposed to look like this. Next year my pepper plants will be isolated from each other.

It is official; the garden is out of control. The squash and cucumber plants are taking over the back yard, even as some of them are slowly dying. At least, I thought they were dying, but they are getting new leaves. I almost wish the cucumbers would die. I am so sick of cucumbers. I have four plants this year; next year I may only plant two. But we are still enjoying the squash, especially the lemon squash, and I will still plant several kinds again next year; maybe I'll get some more mutants.

The herb garden's glory days seem to be over for the summer. I cut back the spent flowers from the lamb's ear and the lavender cotton a long time ago. The anise hyssop and the yarrow seem to be finished blooming. I need to dead-head the purple cone flowers, but a couple of days ago we saw a little yellow finch perched on a flower head eating the seeds. I guess I don't have to dead-head just yet. The only thing left to bloom are the roses, which should still do well for quite a while, now that the Japanese beetles have moved on. The germander still looks good, even though it isn't blooming anymore. At least now I can walk in the garden without the continual humming of bumble bees. I leaned to co-exist with them but they still made me nervous.

I have killed six sage plants. Tricolor, bicolor, every color of sage you can imagine, I have killed it. Why???