After the heat of July, we've had unseasonably cool nights for a week this month. While that meant the lettuce continued to be edible long past expectation, and we did get quite a nice group of chilies (that's two relleno dinners so far, yum!), the tomatoes are still waiting on the vines, lots and lots of different kinds and sizes but none ripe. As I've been delivering the overflow cucumbers to our neighbor monks for a few weeks now, they too are eagerly awaiting what will certainly be an impressive number of tomatoes ready all at once. Since there are about 20 nuns and monks in full time residence at the monastery now, I'm sure every one will be eaten.
The coneflowers are now really tall, almost all are pink with just a very few off-white stands here and there, even though I thought I put more white seed out last year. The goldfinches are gathering around as I hoped, to snack on the seeds as the plants die back - at least those I don't cut to bring inside. The marigolds are just huge this year, and after a slow start, have filled in quite nicely and nod their not so little faces in the sun in such cheerful, busy clusters, I can't help but smile back. While I was checking yet again to see if any tomatoes were getting soft to the touch, I was accompanied by two little hummingbirds. Amazing little creatures, they hovered a plant or two down from the ones I was checking as we all three moved down the row. I welcome the company, and am always delighted anew at their speed and delicacy.
We are still fighting with the moles (or voles) for possession of the hydrangea. They make new tunnels that drain it's water basin; we fill the holes; they make new tunnels; and so it goes. There's what Brian and I had planned, what the land wants to do, and then the random things that happen because of the other critters living here or passing through. We can't imagine how minnows got into the pond, since it has an outtake pipe that reason tells me should deposit them all on the ferns every time the rains lift the water level, but there they are, clearly not tadpoles (though there are dozens of them too). And plants coming up in unexpected places, thoughtfully planted by the chipmunks or squirrels or birds - like the sunflower that just appeared in the rock wall. Or, my favorite find, stands of wildflowers like the purple "strife" that is starting to flower in the back jungle, or the really lovely stand of Queen Anne's Lace lining up along the edge of the flat mowed grassy area next to the vegetable cage. When I walk along the road in the morning it's quite a sight, white Queen Anne's Lace, purple strife and clover, yellow ragweed, blue chicory, and smaller little wildflower blooms on vining stems that are orange.
I've already dried quite a bit of mint for tea this winter, replanted the onion sets I still hope may grow large enough to eat next year, have been harvesting the Italian basil and grinding and freezing pesto cubes, and this week will start dividing the ornamental allium bulbs and digging them in for the winter. I'm encouraged to see some small columbine, bleeding hearts, and coneflowers popping up in the front terracing, too. Plans for repositioning some of the perennials in the lower terraces will wait for a few weeks, but as we've now mapped it out, by next year the plantings will actually go all the way down the hillside to the pond. What an achievement! as the last vestiges of the former garbage dump is reclaimed as a flower garden.
