Her Own Affairs

It appears that my timing in rearranging the morning glories was quite good. Today was the heaviest blooming I've yet seen from them.

As you can see, it was delightful, and probably just a prelude of things to come. I also noticed that one of the several strands of three vines I'd untangled from around the bigger flag had already re-wrapped itself, loosely, around the flag again.

But just look at these guys. How can you fault that kind of enthusiasm?
(Oh, Java love, it occurs to me I forgot to mention not to fertilize those morning glories we were discussing. That'll actually give you tons of beautiful leaves, but fewer blossoms.)

I'm a little sorry that I never got around to picking up one or two of those pale blue morning glory vines this spring, only because their flowers are, I think, a little bigger, and it would've been fun to see that color cavorting with some of these others.

Ah, well...there's always room for a few more morning glory seedlings in the garden budget for next year! And while I'm at it, I have always wanted to try those red Scarlett O'Haras, which would be fun, too, I'm sure.

Fiddle dee dee.


Moonflowers would've been fun, too...especially if they were blooming alongside the Casa Blanca lilies, which are gleaming in the moonless night tonight, their seductive scent wafting amongst the many vines and stems all along the fence.


In the Three Sisters garden, all of the zucchini plants began flowering heavily today. I swear, I like the vegetable well enough (especially in tomato sauce with gooey Mozzarella cheese...), but damn, I just love growing the vines for their fantastic blossoms.

One year we had a pumpkin vine (the off-spring of the previous autumn's jack-o-lantern, actually), which joined a vineful of blue morning glories to climb up the front of the house and over the front door. It was quite a site.

This is the first year I've grow so many of them, and I can finally allow myself to imagine this concept of fried squash blossoms (With fewer plants in the past, I've always hesitated to sacrifice the fruit.). I'll have to look around for a recipe. I imagine a simple light batter would do the trick...but of course, I know little of those, except where cookies and cake are concerned.

The Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes are also ripening up en masse now. I'm sure it'd be nice to clip the whole little vine branch when they are ripe...but I've already munched up half of them. They are delightfully sweet...and I just couldn't resist a few as I examined the rest of the garden's offerings for the day.
All things in mode ration, of course. I've heard tell of stomach acid imbal ances from too many all at once. It's easy to see how that could happen, really, they are so tasty. But there's only the two plants here, so the danger is not so great.

I just love the gradation of color on these guys, from the dark green of the newly formed to the perfectly red of the fabulously-ready.

Heh...of course, since uploading the pic from my camera onto the computer...they are all green and yellow to me, as the monitor is still, as they say, uncooperative. As they also say, dying.

Hey, but check out this newly-opened sunflower, ready to welcome the first day of August.

It's funny how it seems to happen all at once, but it's August 1st and the roads around here today were suddenly JAMMED with cars full of impatient people who have appointments with the beach. Hey buddy, you honkin the horn like that isn't gonna make the sun shine.

Patrick, is there anyone else left in Manhattan besides you, or have you been charged with shutting the door and turning down the lights when you wing off for home?

But August also brings the sulphur cosmos and today, the wind had subsided enough to allow me to catch this nice cosmos porn shot.

More of them are appearing all along the fence, since I also planted these guys in two successive waves. They should bloom merrily well into September, unless Mother Nature has other plans.

Their cosmos cousins, the seashell blossom variety, grow taller by the minute, but have yet to begun producing flower buds. I continue to expect them any moment. I haven't grown this variety, so you may note with assurance I'm a little eager to see how they turn out.

The zinnia seedlings are substantial enough to mention now, and only a little shorter than the ones I saw beginning to bloom in a roadside garden on the way to the bank this morning.

These are the California Giants, and really get to growing quite tall and flowering abundantly as August comes and goes. I very much look forward to that.



The bachelor buttons continue to charm and delight me, as they flower a little more heavily each day or so.

Daisies are reblooming, the Queen Anne's lace holds forth, embracing all of its neighbors in its elegantly wild chaos.



"Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way, she better understands her own affairs than we."

-- Michel Evquem de Montaigne