This has been a warm dry year. Everything has done well… if it has gotten water. We just can not keep up watering especially since we do not have anything on drip. G spends about 2-3 hours watering almost everyday. The vegetables definitely are getting watered everyday. They seem to be drying out fast in the pots. Some of the areas look absolutely horrible. But the fall bloomers are starting to come on strong especially the Salvias. We still have a lot of Salvias from when G sold at the local plant sales as ‘Smartyplants’.

We have been harvesting lots of tomatoes. I canned my first batch today. The zucchini is starting to finish. We have harvested the potatoes. The two yellow ones – yukon gold and satina did well. Carmine the red variety – so-so. But not too bad for first time and a 20 gallon pot. We are a little disappointed with the green beans. I think it got too hot. The bush beans were great. The Goldmarie Romanos – some good some tough. But the Blue Lake pole beans – another year of tough tough beans. Maybe now that it is a little cooler they will be better. We haven’t had gone pole beans in 3 years.

Here’s a few photos of around the yard,

Zucchini is finally starting to finish

Kale

Some huge tomatoes on the Oregon Star

The peppers have done extremely well – these are Gypsy peppers

Yukon Gold potatoes

Nice harvest of Siletz tomatoes

The Salvias

Salvia dombeyi

Salvia ‘John Whittlesey’

Salvia – unknown species from Szechuan China

Salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish’

Salvia fulgens

Crocosmia Solfatare and Severn Seas

Crocosmia Solfatare

Crocosmia Severn Seas

The horrible dry front area – it faces south and gets really hot.

Cotinus ‘Golden Spirit’ and Cordaderia richardii – they take the heat a bit better but look how washed out the yellow smoke tree is.

Our never ending summer project – painting