September is my favourite time in the garden. The mornings and evenings are cool, but the days are generally sunny and warm.

The garden just thrives in September.

The Sneezeweed, also known as Heleniums, have started to bloom. They are one of my favourite fall flowers. On the left is the native version, on the right is a hybrid I bought this year. I thought flower had more red, but it turns out, it’s just the centres that are reddish. Still, it has those cute button flowers.

The fall asters are set to explode into colour – probably another day or two.

Meanwhile, the mums are already doing that!

The sedums are also exploding. I have two HUGE clumps in the catio.

This year they flopped quite a bit, so I think I’ll have to split them up come spring.

Other fall favourites include the purple coneflowers, black-eyed susans, and Obedient plant. Sadly, the Obedient plant isn’t as lush as it has been in past years – Lemmy has been pretty hard on that corner of the catio. I think in the spring I’ll dig some up and move it to safer spots.

Several of my large houseplants have been enoying a nice vaction in the back (shady ) corner of the Woodland garden – and they seem quite happy about it. I’ll have to bring them in in the next few weeks.

The sunflowers continue to shine! They’ve been a testament to starting seeds in seed snails. Though I lost over half of the seedlings to squirrels after I planted them out, the ones that survived have done amazing!

The cosmos will be started that way next year – it’s seeds snails from here on out!

I hope everything is beautiful and lush in your life!

We’re a week into our visit with Miss Freya

She pretty much took over the house the first night.

But the thing she’s loving the most is the Catio yard.

She’s the first one out in the morning. And the last one in at night.

I think Bronson is going to have to build her one when he comes home. If not, there may be hell to pay!

She did give me quite the fright yesterday though. It had been raining in the morning (that didn’t stop her from going out and getting soaked though). It had stopped by noon – but I guess she decided that the wet garden was no place for her afternoon nap. She came in, got a little attention (and a good drying off by me) and then dissapeared!

I mean, I couldn’t find her ANYWHERE! Thankfully, we have cameras on the cat doors, so I was able to determine she hadn’t returned to the catio (and thus somehow escaped from there). And we hadn’t gone out any doors – so she was SOMEWHERE in the house.

I searched for a solid hour. I shook the treat bag several times but all I got were my greedy boys! I was frantic, having visions of having to tell Bronson we somehow lost his cat, but I had no idea how!

I was poking around in the laundry room for a third time, when I spotted some movement on top of the dryer.

Dave keeps this bin on top of the dryer to collect rags for washing. And there’s a random bit of foam in there for some reason. Well for Miss Freya, it was the perfect spot for a nap – she crawled under the foam and curled up on top of the rags! Practically invisible!

One more week to go!

I’ve got one more quilt on my Christmas to make list. I plan to head to Mom’s for a quilting weekend in late September, so that means I’ve got to get the top together by then. With that in mind, on the weekend, Burton and I sat down and started playing with fabric.

We have this lovely layer cake in a line called Chantrell. I needed something quick and dirty like the last top… and there’s just one such block I’ve been wanting to make for a while. It starts with a simple four patch.

Then you slice it up a bit…

Then you swap the sides out and turn the centre one turn

And sew it all back together!

And you have a disappearing four-patch!

Now… I love it, but it isn’t as quick and dirty as I hoped. Those four patches go quick, but slicing, dicing, and sewing the blocks back together is a fair bit slower. That said, I should be able to get them done in time. I have all the four patches together, so I’m going to try to do a block or two each night.

The other day, Dave remarked to a neighbour that he’s never seen so many hummingbirds in the yard as he has this year. And he’s right, they have been super plentiful. But it helps that I have so many plants they love to visit.

That said, I haven’t been able to get a decent shot of them.

I got lucky the other day when I was out front taking pics of the monarchs (which have also been plentiful this year).

They aren’t the best shots, but I think they are the best I’m going to get this year.

Now that it’s September, these little beauties will start heading south soon.

Now as for these little hummers….

…it’s been a banner year.

I see them at least a couple times a week, and sometimes multiple at a time.

They are certainly welcome visitors any day of the week!

When I started this project, I was lamenting to Mom that none of my needle minders were jiving with the spooky them. So of course, when she showed up, she had a new one for me!

That’s much more on theme!

We both did a fair amount of stitching while she was here. (She’s working on the cross stitch version of the quilt she made me.) Because of that, I was able to finish up the first section – with the exception of the few orange bits. I may just finish them up during the week so I can start the weekend with a fresh section!

Just because I can make my own quilts, doesn’t mean I don’t love receiving one as a gift. Especially when it looks like this.

This pattern is called Flea Market Flowers. I saw a picture of a heavily quilted version on Facebook a while back and just fell in love with it. I showed to to Mom… and she took it as a challenge, lol!

She came for a visit this weekend and brought the finish quilt along with her! I told her she should have saved it as my Christmas gift, but she didn’t want to wait!

And it is amazing! Just look at those blocks! And that quilting!

She even hid a little butterfly in the quilting!

I just love the whole thing!

And naturally, it’s been Bearbottom approved!

Today is last day of August… and the garden is just as beautiful as ever.

The sunflowers are still going strong. Mine are looking beautiful, but they aren’t as tall as my neighbours.

They peek over the fence at me every day.

The Black-Eyed Susans are amazing this year. I split one of the big clumps up so I have them all through-out the garden.

The perennial chrysanthemums are blooming nicely.

I got some more annual ones from the front boxes and pots. Normally, I do a couple colours, but I decided to just stick with the rusty orange this time.

And last…

Two of my favourite roses. Left is Chicago Peace. It hasn’t done great because it was shaded by the white Butterfly bush. But it died off this spring, and I didn’t put the new one in the same spot. Since then Chicago has gotten more sun and she’s thriving. Right is Koko Loko – new this year, but a rose that had been on my wish list for a long time. I’m so glad I finally got my hands on her – isn’t she stunning?

It’s the time of the year when the basket in the kitchen is almost always full of fresh produce.

When I started growing the peppers, I wasn’t quite sure when to pick them. I was actually waiting to see if they would get any bigger…

They didn’t grow more, but they did start to turn red. I thought they were all green peppers… so that was fun!

And look at this!

We finally got a zucchini! I added some bone meal to the pot and it seemed to help. More rain has probably made a difference too. Either way, I’ll be grilling this up for Dave in a day or two.

Like wise the beans have perked up:

We won’t get a tonne of beans, but we might enough for a meal or two.

The fall berries are ripening nicely! I’ll probably do a batch of raspberry jam soon. The blackberries don’t make it in the house unfortunately.

We even have the odd strawberry, though they are small.

What’s good for eating in your garden.

Hey… Guess what Lemmy???

“What?????”

We’ve got a visitor for a couple of weeks….

That’s right! Freya is back!!! Today her dad is jetting off to Portugal so she’s vacationing with us while he’s gone!

It’s going to be a busy two weeks, I think!!!

Today, I was going to post about our trip to the lake on the weekend, but I haven’t had a chance to download my pictures from my camera yet.

Instead, I’m going to share with you a little recipe…

15-minute Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce

This came from one of my fave gardening shows, and added a few things last night when I made it for Dave. (I don’t eat pasta… or tomatoes)

Ingredients

• Pile of tomatoes (I used my Yellow Pear Tomatoes)
• One small shallot
• Cloves of Garlic (measure with your heart)
• Fresh herbs from the garden – I used thyme, oregano and parsley
• A glug of olive oil
• A knob of butter

Chop all your veggies and herbs fairly finely and throw in a frying pan (you can use a pot too – whatever works). Throw in oil and butter. Simmer on medium high heat until everything is cooked and sauce-like…

Toss it on top of some freshly cooked pasta and enjoy!

(Dave likes hamburger on his pasta so I fried some of that up too and put it on but that’s totally optional). He declared it was “Good” and when I asked it I could make it again he said “Yeah.” So in Dave speak – that means it was really, really good.

It certainly smelled amazing! And I took great satisfaction that all the veggies and herbs came directly from my garden. Even if it’s not something I’d ever eat!