August is a make it or break it, go big or go home kind of month in my garden. The tomato harvest comes on strong, the phlox and blackeyed susans are blooming, the ironweed are inevitably reaching the roof and tipping over because I forgot to stake them, and T and I ask once again, WHY DIDN’T WE PRUNE THE TOMATO VINES WHEN WE HAD THE CHANCE?
It was a hot July, lots of 100 degree days, and some of my annuals have perished. But what has survived has bloomed with gusto:
I harvested about a pint of cherry and grape tomatoes today, plus 2 big tomatoes. The girls will be home to harvest tomorrow, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they pick closer to a quart. That is, if D doesn’t eat them all straight out of the harvest basket.
More photos after the jump:
So. Delicious.
If you have never tasted a stripey heirloom tomato, your life is incomplete. They are the most beautiful green color (yes, green when ripe, this is not a fried green tomatoes situation) and the flavor is intense. This is not your grocery store tomato. This is the tomato your grandma grew in the garden next to the porch and sliced up to eat fresh, with the tiniest sprinkle of salt. Foodies, you can update grandma’s recipe with fresh mozzarella and the tiniest drizzle of balsamic.
Hops are forming cones. I admit I was doubtful, but the hops garden has turned out to be beautiful, and the sprinkling of cones over the vines is lovely.
Every year, I am determined to either find a better way to stake the ironweed or move it so it can lean on the fence. As always, I have failed to do this, and it is now taller than the house and blooming precariously over the driveway.
I love the structure of the buds and blossoms.
Sunchokes are taking off–they don’t need water, and they love the heat. Weirdly, since I planted these a few years ago, my yard has been full of grasshoppers. At any given moment, you could gather a small bucket full of grasshoppers off these plants.
Fairy garden has exploded with blossoms. D actually shrieked with joy when we came home from the cottage and saw how much it had grown.
