Harvest Waning

Indeed, the season of plenty in my garden is drawing to a close. The corn died an unhappy death as we had another year of 'not-quiet-enough-rain' to keep it going. Of course I could have watered it, but I prefer nature to take it's course.
I did enjoy a couple of peppers from my plants, but the tomatoes were just not happy campers this year!

In spite of that, we have been observing in the garden.
First there were the ants. Indeed, we did not have to go to the garden for this, as they were quite happy there in our house for a while, but we stopped that.
A day or two later, DH discovered these ant 'volcanoes' in the garden... a veritable city of them!

Then there are the baby birds which have been visiting the feeders. I managed to capture this mother and baby on top of our feeders... but excuse the blur, I had to do it through the window without disturbing her!
There were pawpaws ripening on our pawpaw trees this year.
See... I even have proof! But unfortunately, some bandit animal took them. Again. We never have yet managed to eat the pawpaws ourselves!
And the hummingbirds have been visiting, I swear. They often get close to us, they are very friendly... BUT they are SUPERFAST and I never have had my camera ready!
Soon the autumn season will be on us, and I have different plans this year... including the nature table. More about that another time... once I have started!

Some other Peoples Gardens

Some of the ladies on the 4 Real Forum had fun this year, following along with Susan Lovejoy's Book Sunflower Houses. This is a great inspiration for parents who want to garden with their kids!

Maria had great success growing HUGE sunflowers with her kids! I was definitely impressed with the size of them!

Joann managed to actually get a house out of her sunflowers... but they aren't done growing yet!

If you'd like to make your own sunflower house next year, check out this page for instructions and some fantastic pictures of sunflower houses in action!

Garden Fun

I have been gardening... sort of. Now the dog days of summer have come, I have formed opinions.
1. Store bough seeds suck. The varieties suck. The crop sucks. Next year I will have heirloom tomatoes... and the cherokee purples (the ones I had such luck with last year) and sungold (the ones I discovered I LOVE at the farmer's market) are top of my list!
2. Zucchini/Courgettes suck. Stupid bugs love them. However, their cousins the yellow squash are great. I will look at heirloom varieties of them too!
3. Cucumbers hide. While looking for the fruit you thought didn't come, you will suddenly notice the mother of all cucumbers. It will be huge. And for some reason the store where you bought them, had PRICKLES on the cucumbers. For a girl from England, used to LONG, SMOOTH cukes, that is just gross.
4. Why were my plants so late in fruiting? Not enough sun? Planted too late? They will go out earlier next year, even if I have to build special 'mini-greenhouses' for them.
5. Panicking over the neighbour putting up a fence BEFORE he does it, is premature. It will not actually shade your garden at all! PLUS you will discover you have more yard than you thought, because you forgot you over-estimated the amount of space on the other side ;)
6. Time to sign up for seed catalogues to buy REAL seeds.
7. Cats (specificallt neighbour cats) suck. They will go to the toilet in the square in which you planted your pumpkin seeds at the very last possible minute >:.

And that, dear friends is why I have not blogged about my garden for a while ;) Heat and humidity, are NOT friends to me... but I do wonder if the dog in the neighbours yard will scare away the bad cat (whom the kids and DH nicknamed 'GreySkull')

The Mysterious Garden

What a wonderful post I discovered online... a REAL homeschooling moment for a Mother, as they let the mystery plant grow!