As mentioned earlier, on Saturday, Dave and I were up early, headed to Long Point.

For those don’t know, Long Point, is a little spit of land that just out into Lake Erie.

The majority of it is a nature preserve, but a small portion of it is covered in small cottages. One of those cottages belongs to Dave’s uncle. And, after many years, he has finally decided to start renting it on Airbnb. Dave’s uncle is now in his late 70s, so Dave’s been handling the computer side of things for him – and I’ve been contracted periodically to help out with marketing and other digital assets (photos, write ups etc.)

He finally has his first booking arriving this Friday, so I put together a small cottage “manual” for him

This trip was to drop off a hard copy (ie, binder) to leave in the cottage for guests. It was a short visit, but he was thrilled with what I put together. And now we’re waiting to hear how the first guests enjoyed their visit!

It’s a two-hour drive there, and two-hours back… but with Dave, those trips are always longer! We stopped at not one, but two garage sales on the way home.

Where I got several new pots for my plant collection.

And this very charming cross stitch! I think it’s going to look great in the studio. We also got some farm-fresh eggs!

Complete with straw and a little bit of chicken muck! That’s how you know they are authentic! 😉

Then… went we were a little more than half-way home, Dave saw a small road-side sign that said “Vendor Market Today!”. We started following it. It took us down some dark and twisty backroads… and I was starting to wonder if we were about to end up on a Netflix documentary, when we finally got to a long driveway filled with cars

We parked, walked down the drive rounded a corner, and came upon a large yard filled with vendors.

Dave had a wonderful time as we wandered around. He chatted with each and every vendor, and while we didn’t buy something from every single vendor, it felt like we did!.

Most things were small… a notepad, fancy taco seasoning, homemade cat treats, a small planter for me to paint (more rage craft), and a hilarious lens cleaner.

But a few were a little bigger

There was a young lady who did painting on scrap wood. Dave could not resist this one of Pingu!

He’s already put it up in his garage.

We also got this pretty little towel to use as a hand towel in his bathroom. (You may recall that Dave has a thing for crabs), and some fancy hot sauce.

I also got a beautiful pair of wire-wrapped earrings, and a garnet tree of life pendant.

But the coolest piece?

A 3-D printed black cat yarn bowl!

While the flower beds are thriving, I do feel like the veg beds are somewhat behind.

I cleared out the last of the lettuce, so the cucumbers should start picking up now that they’ll get more light.

The pumpkin/squash bed is another story. You’ll recall I started out with some decent white pumpkin and buttercup squash seedlings…. well not one of them made it.

So I bought a “jackolantern” seedling (on the far left) and a couple of bird house gourd seedlings (two middle). As you can see, the two goourds are doing great, but that pumpkin is barely hanging on. The other week, I got some acorn squash seedlings on clearance – there were three in the pack…. and that one on the right was the weakest of them. And it’s the only one that survived.

Raspberries have been surprisingly sparse this year. This was the biggest harvest – normally I’m lucky if I get a couple a day. The fall crop is always bigger, so there’s more coming.. but the summer round has been a little dissapointing.

This is all I have to show for swiss chard! Pretty darn pitiful – last year this pot was overflowing!

But it’s not all bad news. (Thankfully)

The laundry basket potato experiment may be coming to an end soon – those plants are starting to look fairly yellow. I’ll give it at least another week though. I’m not optimistic that there’s going to be TONNES of potatoes in there though… I made the mistake of not using straw around the sides, so it’s been hard to keep it well watered with out the soil just running out those holes…. a note for next year.

Both carrot beds are looking nice and robust – even the ones that I planted from starts!

The peas have become too much for the poor boxes to handle! I’m enjoying a bowl full of fresh peas daily!

But the most exciting thing in the garden right now is my melons!

This is the same melon… the first picture taken on Monday, the second on Friday! They do grow fast once they get growing!

And we have a second one on the step above! Mr. Toad is probably going to have to move over soon!

And I’m counting the days until these beauties ripen! I’ve got a pile of jam jars with their name on it!

July is coming to a close. And as predicted, I will be up early this morning, headed off to Long Point. So I’ll leave you with the very best of the garden this month.

Despite the unrelenting sun, lack of rain, and bout of intense smoke… it’s been a pretty fabulous month out there.

Furby certainly knows how to while away the hours on a lazy, hazy summer day…

I was coming up the street after picking up the mail the other day, and I couldn’t help but stop and admire the front gardens as I approached

While we haven’t had a lot of rain, I have been watering enough to keep the beds from drying out completely like they did last year.

And while it does look good, I, of course, mostly see all the things I need to find time to do…

Like some major weeding! I managed to tackle the backyard and catio yard on Sunday, but the front beds are terribly overdue!

And while the squashes and pumpkins are struggling in the vegs beds (more on that this weekend)… out front they are THRIVING! Right where I absolutely don’t want them! And the kicker… these are from decorative gourds that rotted away over winter… TWO YEARS ago!

And I really need to get the beds cleaned up, because like an idiot…

I went and bought more plants, and I need to find spaces to put them in! Picture are new (annual) salvias, hyssop, coreopsis, blanket flower and that amazing fringed shasta daisy!

And that doesn’t include the plants that I already have that need to be planted out…

Like the Bachelor Buttons, Zinnias, and Cosmos I started from seed!

Let’s not forget the Asiatic Lilies, Day Lilies, Joe Pye Weed, Pearly Everlasting and St. Johns Wort…. all started in Spring and way overdue to be planted out!

Now don’t get me wrong…I’m not complaining about the amount of work I’d have to do in the gardens. I love doing it, it doesn’t feel like work to me. What I need is TIME! Hopefully I can get to it this weekend… though I did hear something about a possible trip to Long Point to see Dave’s uncle….. so don’t hold me to it!

Because I don’t have enough on my plate already.. I’ve committed myself to making at least two quilts for Christmas. They for the kids of the couple I made a quilt for last year… apparently that quilt keeps getting purloined, so I guess they need their own.

One is for the young man who Dave chauffered to his grade 8 grad last month.

So classic cars seemed appropriate for a theme. The line is called American Muscle by Studio E fabrics.

His sister is going into his last year of highschool in September, so for her I dug into the stash and came up with this layer cake

It’s one I bought on sale ages ago. A digital print that looks batikish but isn’t.

Here’s a look at the prints it contains.

I haven’t landed on a design for either of them yet – but it will be something quick and simple. I certainly don’t have a tonne of time to get finnicky with them!

Despite all the excitement of Saturday, I did managed to do a little stitching on Sunday night.

In fact, Burton insisted!

As you can see, I moved the hoop back up. I finished up a good chunk of the purple ribbon. There’s still another piece that goes over her head, but it’s disconnected from the piece I finished. It’s broken by her wing and it was just too many stitches to count from the places I had done, and I didn’t want to risk messing it up. So instead, I decided to get a start on her arm. From there, I’ll probably do her head, which will be me a better place to count from for the rest of the ribbon.

Part of the reason I’ve been so busy lately is because, in addition to a large workload, and and over-extended garden, I’ve been party planning.

You see… Dave’s been fast approaching a pretty big milestone. The big 5-0. It still feels very strange to me – we started dating when he was just a young, cocky 26-year-old. But it’s true!

Now Dave normally doesn’t like a big deal made about his birthday, but he does love a good party. And I figure 50 years of not dying is something to celebrate! So on Saturday, we had a pile of friend over for a BBQ. The hot disgusting weather meant we kept the festivities indoors (except for me outside at the grill), but thankfully we have a large house that’s laid out well for entertaining.

I let Dave kick back and enjoy his guests while I managed food, drinks, and making sure he and all the guests were attended to. As such, I didn’t get a chance to take many pictures.

I did get one of him blowing out his candles, so at least there’s that!

I was absoutely beat by the time everyone left. But the big smile on that guy’s face was worth it. 10/10 would celebrate him again!

The time had comes to pull the garlic

And I’m happy to say it’s another decent harvest. At least for the regular garlic. I doesn’t look like any of the Elephant Garlic made it. It’s supposed to be MUCH bigger than the regular garlic

The biggest one I have is only slightly bigger than all the other bulbs, so I’m not 100% sure it’s Elephant garlic. Either way I got 15 bulbs (two were pulled earlier and taken to Mom’s) so it’s right on par with my usual harvest.

While I was out there, I also pulled the shallots.

They technally weren’t “done” (ie greens flopping) but some of the stems were starting to rot so I figured it was best to pull them before the rot spread and I lost too many.

Normally, shallots split into two or three separate bulbs, but this year I didn’t get any triplets, and only ended up with a handful of twins. Most of them stayed single, though they are a good size. I think the cooler spring, and up and down weather had something to do with it. This was the first year I’ve ever had to cut scapes off my shallots. In the end, I only got about 1/3 of what I got last year.

These (and the garlic) are now all laid out on the catio porch to cure for a few weeks. Along with these little guys

I bought a tray of pickling onions back when I bought the bird house gourds etc – I needed to buy 10 trays to get each for $1. Some of you may remember my pickled onion adventure from way back. We can actually by Dad’s pickled onions again, but I figured these would be fun to do up a home made jar for him. Like the shallots and garlic – these are on the porch curing. Because I’m pickling, them, they don’t really need it – but I don’t have the time to pickle them just yet – so it won’t hurt them to hang out for a bit.

And I was so excited about my tiny peppers…. only to discover this…

Three of them had these brown mushy spots. Google tells me it might be sunburn. There’s more flowers on the plants, so there’s still a chance for peppers… but I think I may need to rig up some sort of sun shade.

The hot weather has been hard on my peas too. They are still producing well, but the pods are a bit curly! They taste just fine though and I love my daily garden snack as I make my rounds.

The melons, at least, are enjoying the heat! We’ve already got blooms, so fruit shouldn’t be too far behind (though it takes almost all summer to ripen!)

And last…

It’s bean harvest time! This makes me so happy after the bean debacle of last year. And unlike previous years – I didn’t go crazy and plant up a whole 4×4 bed. These are in a large container and there’s probably five or six plants. If I’ve calculated correctly – it should be just enough to keep us in beans for fresh eating for most of the summer, without too much, if any, overflow!

While I haven’t won the war on the Japanese beetle… I am winning many small skirmishes. I try to get out there every day – ideally twice a day, morning and evening – picking beetles of my plants.

As a result, I am seeing a reduction. Where they normally demolish the raspberries and willows, I’m seeing fewer and fewer there. They are still being very hard on the roses, and the weeping pussywillow out front, but even there I feel like I’m seeing their numbers lower. The stupid, mind melting heat is making it hard to get out there though – but I’m doing my best.

I’ve managed to mostly keep them off the Hollyhocks and have been enjoying these beautiful blooms. The double blooms also seem to be a little harder for the beetles to as opposed to the single ones, which they could destroy in just a couple hours.

Most of the roses are pretty munched right now, but Chicago Peace managed to bloom. The heat is pretty hard on the roses too, so we wont’ really see them shine again until September.

I think I’m once again winning the lily beetle battle too. I pick them off and put them in the bucket right alongside the Japanese Beetles. These two are the most recent bloomers.

These two are both Stargazers. Most people are familiar with the Pink Stargazer, but don’t realize there’s a yellow one too. They are the most robust, and resistant to the lily beetle in my collection.

Happily, there are no pests that really seem to bother the daylilies. These three are Night Embers, Catherine Woodbury and Crimson Pirate.

On the left we have Frans Hals, middle is Children’s Festival, and right is Bonanza

But these two…

while pretty… are a bit of a disappointment. They were part of that “Purple and White” daylily mix I bought. Now, I’ve banged on before about how purple isn’t always purple in the horticultural world.. but this is how the grower advertised them…

Certainly more purple than what I got. And not even the same petal type – these are more “spider” like.

Onto better things…

My Native purple bee balm (which is ACTUALLY purple) is blooming! Normally, it is subject to powdery mildew. But despite the humidity, it’s been a pretty dry summer so far, so the leaves are green and happy.

My Grandma always called these Red Hot Pokers. I’ve since learned they are called Kniphofia, and they come in a range of colours. At the townhouse, I had one called Traffic light, that blended from yellow on the bottom to red on the top. They didn’t make the move, and I planted a mixed bag when we moved here. But I only got one colour – this cheery orange.

The first sunflower has bloomed

I honestly can’t tell you if this is a volunteer or one of the ones I started from seed. It’s over on the back fence, so my guess it that it’s a volunteer. They did much better than most of the ones I started. I am debating on even starting any next year, and just redistributing the volunteers as they pop up!

Over in the catio, the Culver’s Root is in full bloom. It’s hard to get a a picture of just how magnificent they are. They reach the top of the catio fence which is almost 9 feet. And they branch out all over the place. They’ve gotten quite bushy so I might try to split them up in the fall. I think they’d look great along the fence. They are a native plant too (though this is a hybrid cultivar).

The whole catio is looking pretty darn amazing! Though I have to get out, stake some things up, and do some weeding. (Don’t I always?)

I’m trying to spend as much time as I can in the garden, but the heat (and now wildfire smoke) is making it hard. But I have to at least make sure this one gets some time on the garden swing with me each day.