Scenes from my garden today

A gardener can always find something to talk about on the weather topic. And without trying to bore the non-gardeners, this has been a weird weather summer so far. July was really really hot with day after day in the 90's F and loads of humidity. August, by contrast, has been much cooler with many overcast or rainy days. As a result garden items that need sunshine to ripen have been impacted.

 The butterfly bushes around the garden have been successful this year, as usual, in attracting butterflies. Look for the swallowtail in the top right area of the bush. The yellow finch are having a banquet every day as they flit from the black eyed susans to the coneflowers - but they are less enthusiastic about pausing for the camera.

 The tomato plant with the best crop currently is this one - but it is a volunteer so I don't know what it is.

 Next to it is this yellow pear tomato - this is also a volunteer albeit one I would really not bother to keep growing if I could identify it better as a seedling. The fruit splits very easily and it does not have very much of a taste.

 Now this one was a plant I paid money for. But something is not quite right. It says "black cherry" on the label but the fruit is neither a cherry shape nor black. H'mm.

 Usually by the third week in August I am picking this dish full every day. But not this year. I left more plants to grown this year but some of them barely have any fruit on at all. And the ones that do are not exactly loaded or fast to ripen. Guess the weather is to blame.

 The hummingbirds are enjoying my garden however. They seem to have slowed down a little today but in the past ten days it has been a really strong competition to get to the feeder with birds swooping around and driving the others off.

Out front is another of my volunteers from the compost heap. I thought the idea was that the heat buildup in the heap was enough to kill off weeds and seeds. But no. Earlier this season I dug in a few wheelbarrow loads of compost before I planted new bushes in this front garden. I got a number of tomato seedlings which I quickly removed but then there was this one plant that I was intrigued by so I left it alone. At first I thought it was a summer squash - maybe zucchini or yellow squash I hoped. This plant grew like Jacks beanstalk for a while and finally I had to go to google to see what I had growing. And the answer is a butternut squash plant. You can see one in the near foreground and there are three or more that I have been able to easily find and still loads of the big yellow flowers.

Fortunately I don't get a lot of people walking along my front walk. But those who do are quite amused by seeing my garden surprises.