It was a busy weekend over here. Friday good friend Aneesha arrived by train. We were up early Saturday morning… making a whole pile of food!

Best Friend Samantha, her daughter Lily, and another friend Sarah joined us in the afternoon for a day of girl chat and eating! Sadly, the above picture was the only picture I took! We were too busy enjoying each other’s company.

And don’t worry – Dave was kept busy too.

He and neighbour Bronson were busy adding lattice to the top of the the fence! (We did let them join us for snacks and dinner.) I think it looks fabulous!

But with all that activity, there wasn’t much time for crafting. Thankfully, I’m on vacation this week, so I should be able to sneak some in. All the gardens do need a good weeding though!

We are coming into the season of garden abundance. At least when it comes to the eating

The summer raspberries are almost done (we will get more in autumn), but the Blackberries are just getting started. The berries are quite small, but it’s the bush’s first year so I’m hoping they get bigger. The blackberries I had at the townhouse were HUGE!

I feel like the cucumbers are slow this year, but they are coming. If you compare the garden to last year, we’re a week or two behind this year. We did have a much colder spring.

I have decided that I’m 95% sure that squash bred with the star-shaped gourds.

It’s darkened to a deeper shade of yellow-orange that matches the gourds. Sadly that also means it’s most likely inedible (and quite possibly toxic). Despite the fact that it’s grown exponentially in the last week, I’ve decided I’m going to pull this particular vine. No point wasting good nutrients on something I won’t eat.

Sadly, none of the pumpkin or gourd plants seem to be producing female flowers. Same with the zucchini. That means no fruit… I’m going to have to do some research to see what’s up.

What is going well in the garden…

are the potatoes!!!! I went out the other night and dug them all up. Harvesting potatoes is like an edible treasure hunt! It was so much fun watching that basket fill up. I didn’t actually weigh it, but I’d say I got around 10 lbs of potatoes from my little 3′ x 3′ x 11″ raised bed.

The biggest ones were about the size of my palm – making these just perfect for boiling and roasting. I got them all washed, dried and put away in our potato bin.

Since I harvested the potatoes for me, and Dave doesn’t love them, I pulled a few carrots for him. (The caterpillars have moved on so no worries about disturbing them)

I’m always thrilled with my carrots, and this year is no exception. Dave prefers to snack on these raw, so I’ll probably pull a few every couple days for him. And maybe some extras for a nice roast dinner with some of those potatoes!

August is here and though the heat and humidity get to me, it doesn’t really seem to bother the garden. The daylilies are in peak form

The asiatic and oriental lilies are almost done. All but this one.

It’s called Big Smile and that’s just what it gives me when I see it.

Yellow becomes a pretty dominant colour in the August Garden

I’m just loving that last sunflower. It’s called Cherry Rose and I’ll definitely be saving seeds to plant it again next year.

Speaking of seeds…

The zinnia mix that I started in the seed snail in spring are doing beautifully.

It’s a lovely mix with several colours and styles.

Here’s another of my favourites.

Globe Thistle! As you can see, I have it and blue and white and I adore both. It is on the prickly side (not terrible, but not the softest plant) but its worth it because those flower heads just look so cool! (The birds also love the seed heads)

The heat has put a bit of a damper on the roses, but they are still popping out here and there.

This bright pink one is new… and it’s very special.

It’s called Miss All American Beauty. It was the favourite rose of an old friend who passed last year. We shared a passion for roses and when he died last July, I knew I wanted to get a hold of this rose and plant it in my garden in his honour. I thought I was going to have to order it from one of the specialty sites… so imagine my surprise when I found it in Walmart this May! And now it’s blooming around the anniversary of his death. Clearly my old friend is looking down on my garden from somewhere.

Of course, this is all just a glimpse of the August garden.

It changes day by day – each more beautiful than the next.

This is Furby. Furby lives up the street from us. He’s a strictly outdoor cat… something I’m not thrilled with… but that’s another story.

Furby has elected himself as my new garden cat. Just like Relic did when he first started coming around, Furby suddenly appears when he hears me out in the garden.

He hangs out with my while I work away on the weeds.

And he enforces snuggle breaks! He’s a wonderful gardening companion and I love having him around!

It’s no just the butterflies and their offspring that bring me joy in my yard.

I’m always delighted when I come across these guys! But it’s rare when I come across them when they are still this small.

The pair of them went hopping out of the path of my lawn mower on Saturday. I had to stop the mower and relocate them to a safer spot in the yard.

Later that day, I was weeding in the catio and I came across this big boy on the other side of the size spectrum.

How big you ask?

Here’s my hand for scale.

Naturally, since I had drawn attention to it, Lemmy had to check it out.

He was pretty cool at first….

But it’s Lemmy, so you know it was never going to last…

The bops got progressively more aggressive (he really wanted to make that toad hop!)

So toad got relocated to a safer spot too! Gotta keep my garden insect control safe and happy!

The other week, when I posted about the butterflies, I mentioned that I hoped the Tiger Swallowtail had laid some eggs in my carrots or parsley. But I wasn’t thinking… that’s the wrong kind of Swallowtail. Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars primarily feed on trees and shrubs in the families Magnoliaceae and Rosaceae, as well as other plants like birch, willow, and ash. Specifically, common host plants include tulip tree, sweet bay magnolia, and wild black cherry

The carrot family lovers are Black Eastern Swallowtails. They look like something like this:

This one is actually a Spicebush Swallowtail, but its close. You may recall that I had them frequently at the townhouse. In fact, it was my first interaction with caterpillars and chrysalises… though it didn’t end happily.

Interestingly enough…. I’ve never seen and Black Eastern Swallowtails here. Just the Tigers. So, imagine my surprise when I went out to inspect my carrots and found these guys…

There were about five in total, and already a good size. Almost ready to make their Chrysalises.

I had a couple last year, but much, much later in the year. And I still never saw the parent.

I’ve been checking on these guys every day, and one by one they’ve disappeared… gone off to find a good spot to become a butterfly. If I’m very lucky, I might find a chrysalis – but I’m not getting my hopes up. These ones are really difficult to spot.

But I did get lucky, and while I was out there on the weekend…

And got to see this ragged beauty. By the state of the wings… it’s quite possibly the parent. As I’ve noted before, Butterflies mate, lay eggs, then fly until they die.

And from the looks of things, this one only had a day or two left. I’m honoured it chose my garden for the next generation, and a place to spend it’s last days.

Now I just hope I can spot it’s babies as they emerge just as beautiful!

Another Tuesday….

Another post about how I barely got any stitching done this weekend! I’m really feeling like a broken record here. I just can’t seem to find the time to work on it. I managed to get some more stem work done, but that’s it.

Now there’s only two days left to the end of the month and my self imposed goal. Can I finish it (and block 20) before then? Probably not. But maybe by next Tuesday! It is a long weekend in Ontario after all!

I know I said I was setting aside knitting for a while to work on my embroidery. But Friday there was a little chink in the plans. A while back I mentioned thefts in the neighbourhood – I didn’t go into detail then, but one was of my dress form in the front yard (with the honeysuckle growing up it). Thanks to our security camera footage, and friendly neighbourhood facebook pages, the thief was identified (she’s well known in the town for stealing property apparently), I got the dress form back and police were involved.

All has been quiet since until this past week when the thief decided to retaliate on us for calling the police by vandalizing our property – easily cleaned but annoying. Once again police were involved, and I spent 14 hours going through our security footage. Even on 2x speed, going through 28 hours of footage is exceedingly tedious (it looks much more exciting on CSI). I needed something to keep my hands busy so my mind wouldn’t wander while watching clip after clip of my front walkway.

My cable sock would take my eyes off the screen too much – but a vanilla sock… that was the perfect solution. I grabbed the leftover bits from the original Sanderson socks. I knew they would be enough for a pair of anklets for me. (And JUST enough – there was about 5 inches of yarn of the first ball left at the end). It was just the thing to keep me focused on the footage. And I got a sock out of it!

Charges have been laid again, and hopefully I won’t be knitting the second sock in front of a screen anytime soon… but given her track record… who knows.

Aren’t they looking succulent?

These are Sugar Baby Watermelons. They are basically a personal-sized watermelon (about 5-7 lbs). I’m not a fan of watermelon, so I thought these would be fun to grow for Dave. They are also ideal for my small garden. I decided to grow them on the Squash ladder instead of the tunnel so I could use the steps to support the fruit as it grew.

And so far, so great! I’ve actually had to cut away several vines because the plants are doing so well. We’re probably still a few weeks off from harvesting, but I’m so happy with my first try so far. Of course, the real proof will be in the eating. But Dave will be doing that because ew… watermelon.

My cucumbers seem to be developing a little slower than last year. But I have harvested a couple.

The first is the lemon cucumber I bought from my favourite local nursery. Isn’t it cute! It certainly doesn’t look like a cucumber! But Dave says it tastes like one!

Here it is with one of my Japanese cucumbers. They are similar to an English cucumber.

I’m also really pleased with the progress of my peppers.

These were bought on a whim for Dave, of course (I don’t actually eat many vegetables). I’ve never had much luck with peppers, but I have four plants and all four have decent sized peppers so far

I’ll give them a while longer and see how big I can get them.

And last…

We have tomatoes! Or at least we will very soon. These are Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes. Also bought on a whim as I already have the yellow pear tomatoes growing. Though they may look ready, they aren’t and a clue as to why is in the name. They get a much darker red, almost brown. A few more days.

I’ve said it before… the garden is a strange and mysterious world, with magic known only to itself.

Like… Where the heck did these Balloon Flowers come from????

So here’s the thing. I did plant Balloon Flowers in the garden. But I planted ONE plant, in the sidewalk garden (about 20 feet away from this spot). And that was in 2023. And it never came back. And I had no Balloon Flowers in 2024. Also… that 2023 Balloon Flower looked like this:

So what the heck??? I know Balloon Flowers do spread by seed – but I’d love to know how far that seed travelled, because none of my neighbours in the general vincinty have any!

Another mystery over in the veg garden…I touched on last week. And I actually think I solved the mystery. Or at least part of it.

It’s doubled in size since I showed you last week. It’s on a vine that SHOULD be a Celebration squash. But that clearly is not a celebration squash. But I remembered… I had several squash plants come up in the old squash bed (seeds from rotted squash from last year). So instead of planting fresh seeds… I just dug up the seedlings and replanted them where I wanted the squash this year. And I’ve learned that the squash/pumpkin/cucumber family is very… promiscuous. That means they can cross pollinate with pretty much anything in that family And when that happens… you get a mix of whatever it pollinated with. In this case… I’m guessing it was one of my little star gourds. What does that mean for harvesting…. well… although it’s big… it could be inedible… from just downright bitter, to potentially mildly toxic. Or… it could have the look of a gourd… but be as tasty as a squash. It really is a gamble.

It’s also possibly mixed with a yellow zucchini. Though that would have had to come from a neighbours garden as I didn’t grown any last year. So it’ still a bit of a mystery… even if I mostly figured out what happened. The other mystery is… will all the other plants be like this?

Either way… I’ll be planting from bought seed when it comes to the cucurbit family from now on!

And here’s another somewhat mystery solved.

My double decker coneflowers did not mysteriously dissapear….

Apparently I forgot that they just take some time to develop that upper deck. And until they do, they just look like a regular pink coneflower.

This next one isn’t a mystery… but just Mother Nature showing that she does what she wants. I think I mentioned that I lost my big white Butterfly bush this year. I had it planted more or less where the downspout from the kitchen roof came down. And we had a very wet, cold winter… and it turns out Butterfly bushes just can’t take that much wet. Lesson learned.

I bought a new one, and planted it in a different spot. (It’s going to bloom soon). But looked what popped up in the catio…

Now… it didn’t just “pop up” really. I do weed the catio (which I’ll be doing again today), and I when I first noticed it as little seedling, I thought it might be a Helenium I planted there, that had struggled. But as it grew, it became increasingly obvious it was not.

In truth – it might not be a white one – as I have several colours. But the white one was only about six feet away from where this one popped up, so white it most likely. Sadly, I can’t leave it in the catio. It will get too big. I’ll have to dig it up and find another spot for it. Or maybe donate it to a neighbour.

Either way… it just goes to show… the gardener plans… Mother Nature laughs.

Any good mysteries in your garden?