Late Season in the Garden

I haven't really posted many pictures of my garden this year. Which means, to me, that I haven't really taken many. And I need to rectify that, because I like keeping pictures of our garden (meaning vegetable garden, flowers, yards & beds - all of it) by year. It's always nice to be able to go back and see how much a certain tree or shrub has grown, or how things were arranged in the past. In the old days, many gardeners did this through a written journal supplemented with occasional drawings or snapshots. I'm taking the digital way out, LOL, consistent with today's lifestyle. However, those tomatoes still taste just as sweet!

Every year we plant some pumpkins. Sometimes they're regular pumpkins, other times they're miniatures or other hybrids. This year we have our Jack-be-Little's. My favorites. In the past we've enjoyed inviting neighbor kids to our pumpkin patch. Now we save them for children in our extended family (and someday our own grandkids will be old enough!).

I love the way the pumpkin vine got tangled up in the corn; the pumpkin has grown suspended above the ground!

Some tomatoes....

Below is some of the last of the corn. DH plants them in circles (like the Indians did). Sometimes he plants beans around them (after the corn has had a couple-week head start) and then the beans grow up and around the supporting corn stalks. He didn't do that this year, though. You can see part of the grape arbor behind the corn, and behind the grapes is the patio. The arbor provides us lots of shade from the afternoon sun, making evenings out on the patio very pleasant.

The grape plant on the north end of the arbor always seems to wrap around and grow into the patio, practically hiding the bird feeder. It'll all get cut back in another month or so.

We've got a bumper crop of juicy green seedless (Himrod) grapes this year. We've been sharing them with family, neighbors, and co-workers. And I've really got to get out there and pick another basketful or two! You can see lots more bunches hiding in the shadows if you look closely.

And then there are the Concord grapes ripening. They're so fragrant, and almost ready! We'll probably share some and juice the rest.

Corner of the yard under an apricot tree...

And a fuzzy visitor to the hollyhocks, below....

I love the angle and intensity of the bright sunlight in September and October here in the Salt Lake Valley. It creates lots of interesting shadows and infuses garden growth with a sort of luminescence.

And last, but not least, a sad note. Aretha died. Not Ms. Franklin, thank goodness, but my tree that was named for her (it was a Golden chay-chay-Chain tree, LOL).

It was a healthy, thriving tree through last year. But earlier this year we had the huge pine tree in our front yard taken out (which you can read about here), and we think that perhaps in digging out some of the major roots of the larger tree, it affected the roots of this lovely ornamental tree. We'll be on the lookout for her replacement, Aretha II, during the fall sales.