Putting the gardens to bed.

We haven't gotten our first frost this year, but things are pretty much asleep, outside. Leaves are coming off the trees, a few tomatoes are lingering on, and my bulbs haven't completely gone dormant, so I'm just itching to do a major cleaning. I haven't had a lot of time or energy to do the regular maintenance stuff this year, so I really need to get on top of that.

It looks like my glads are finally starting to shrivel up. I need to lift them, divide them, and figure out what to do with the corms this year. They've started to overpopulate the area that they are in and struggled a bit this year before it started raining like crazy. I may list some of the corms in my shop, but I'm not sure yet. Gotta see if anyone wants them, before I do that!

Nothing terribly new and exciting, though. I think this is going to be a nice day in front of the fire with my knitting and books.

Whoops! Slacked off on the blog!

I'm about as flighty as the big, white butterflies that are all over my gardens, these days, and completely forgot about adding to my blog. It's been so hot outside that I don't even have the excuse of being outside!

My glads are in full bloom, and they're blooming in sequence again. When we moved into this house, I had a bunch of mixed gladiolus that I dug and transplanted. Well, I don't quite know what I grabbed and didn't have them labeled, so now I have an assortment of varieties that bloom all summer. It starts out with the white and magenta flowers, then come the vibrant orange (just starting now), and then the pale, pale peach and pale pink, finishing up in the autumn with a bright red. There's genius in my forgetfulness, apparently, and I get a season of beautiful flowers that I can take inside or give to my MIL.



And, for the weekly tomato, report, here's a greeny off of one of my plants (can't remember which one) that's about the size of a tennis ball. I'll have to see if I can't get a picture of the white calf's heart -- very cool to look at.