• about home, garden, life

home, garden, life

~ home, garden, life ~ sharing a sustainable lifestyle

home, garden, life

Tag Archives: summer harvest

what blooms this week

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by home, garden, life in Charlottesville, Garden Lessons, summer, sustainable lifestyle, Virginia

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Charlottesville, garden, home, life, summer flowers, summer harvest, Virginia

Despite challenging August temperatures and humidity here in central Virginia, these beauties are awash with blooms and deliver a lovely scent. Enjoy!

P1060670

This is the second year for these hostas. They were shared by a garden friend who has spectacular specimens in her town landscape.

P1060220

Hosta close up. Pudgy bumblebees straddle these blooms while gathering nectar at the base of each flower, providing food for them and daily entertainment for moi.

P1060676

Hostas and clematis create a WOW! factor in an otherwise quiet August landscape.

P1060667

Second year for this clematis. It appears to like this thirty-foot long split rail fence. Although it was recently attacked by hordes of Blister Beetles, I managed to send these chewers to the “swim to eternity pool” (AKA bucket of soapy water) where they will reproduce no more.

P1060671

Twice-blooming Huldine clematis will soon cover the cattle panel arbor above one raised bed. Pretty, yes?

P1060666

Gifted hostas live well here at Swallowtail Cottage and stems sway at 48″ tall. WOWZA!

Formosa lily from Tufton

And I cannot omit the Formosa lily here at Swallowtail Cottage…the seed came from Tufton, a property once owned by Thomas Jefferson. The fall pods below make a splendid winter show…the seeds are stacked like plates within these shimmering jackets.

P1000361

Formosa lily self sows, is easily established and becomes a perennial. Care for seeds?

P1050189

Lastly, I must show off my Sakata (a Japanese seed company) Lilliput melons. This year proved to be a banner year, despite fungal issues on the leaves.  These personal-sized melons take their time, yet I eat half of one per day now and smile with every juicy bite. I will spare you the image of the silly looking chicken wire circled melon patch. Hopefully I will harvest melons up to frost. Thanks to P. Allen Smith for the trip and the seeds. www.pallensmith.com

As a steamy Virginia summer wanes, this was a decent growing season, despite my weekly grumbling whenever I headed out to mow turf, or pulled relentless weeds, or captured those Blister Beetles and Red Velvet Ants (AKA cow killer, ouch!).

P1010836

Charlottesville, yes Charlottesville, Virginia, USA is my town, population 150 thousand (town and county), and both she and her residents are resilient, despite recent controversy, hostility, loss of life, and world-wide news coverage. Fortunately, I find sanctuary here at Swallowtail Cottage, merely eight miles from town.

Which reminds me:
The enduring wonders of nature assure me that peace is found when I take notice. Many years ago I coined a phrase:

there is a fine line between order and chaos.

May you all be safe in the world, walk that fine line, and take notice of beauty while feeling her embrace.

Copyright © 2017 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

 

end of july ~ morning garden stroll

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by home, garden, life in environment, healthy food, Lifestyle, photography, summer harvest

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Central Virginia, critters in the garden, summer harvest, sustainable gardens

Temperatures are unprecedented of late.
Cool, mild weather creates the perfect scenario for early garden strolls.
Join me on this morning’s meander and garden finds…

indeterminate cherry tomatoes ~ plumb and tasty

Sugar Sweet indeterminate cherry tomatoes ~ plump and tasty and first time to grow them here. Two volunteers appear to be a Rutgers and a red, tasty cherry with hundreds on the vine! Could it be Jobes Organics?

many more to come...

many more to come…

have I mentioned that zinnias are my favorite annual?

have I mentioned that zinnias are one of my favorite annuals?

baby bumblebee works at pollinating...

baby bumblebee works at pollinating…

this coloration reminds me of mardi gras!

this coloration reminds me of Mardi Gras!

raised bed arbors really function well...

raised bed arbors function well…

let's not forget the hardy yet delicate hosta bed

let’s not forget the hardy yet delicate hosta bed

What are you harvesting in your gardens today?

Copyright © 2014 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

 

Check out HGTV where two of my garden designs are featured…

I was featured on HGTVGardens.com!

Search this blog

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

G2B13

G2B15

DO NOT COPY ANY PART OF THIS BLOG

Protected by Copyscape Web Plagiarism Detector

Essay Titles

  • During my absence…
  • What a summer ~ what a year!
  • Soon to be summer cooler
  • Another blueberry spring
  • Spring garden projects
  • Chocolate Ginger Molasses wafers
  • Winter warmer when we pause
  • The twilight zone is real
  • Projects keep coming…
  • Feeling it
  • the journey continues
  • My food journey
  • Brownies, Keto Style
  • Keto almond crackers
  • If you are climbing the walls…
  • Three hours of sun
  • “this too shall pass”
  • there is no place like home…
  • the perfect Tiny House
  • Miracles everywhere
  • And so it goes…
  • Transform, transition, resilience
  • An Artist’s Way
  • Sunday’s monster project
  • Meanwhile
  • how fragile we are
  • what I learned about Keto
  • small steps
  • do no harm…
  • will this convince you?
  • Plastics…a soapbox tale
  • Let’s clean up our act
  • 2020…are we ready?
  • All I want for Christmas
  • Thanksgiving…remembering love
  • At last
  • Keto “potatoes”
  • When critters call
  • Keto bread revisited
  • My report on Keto
  • for the love of rock, II
  • give a gardener a cool summer day…
  • Oh July, July
  • Kale, the ultimate chip
  • gone Keto
  • she’s baaaack!
  • Perhaps missed
  • for the love of rock
  • the anatomy of a popover
  • the garden visitor

Seasonal Topics by Month

More to explore

Protected by Copyscape

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • home, garden, life
    • Join 548 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • home, garden, life
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...