Woe is me!

Veggie garden is being assaulted on 2 fronts: squash vine borers and powdery mildew! That coupled with the green tomatoes has left me very discouraged. So far we have had 3 ripe (peacevine) cherry tomatoes 4 more are ready to come in. I harvested 1 black beauty zucchini and another cucumer and a green serrano- the serrano wasn't hot at all. We had a couple of cool nights (down in the low 50's) and the garden is starting to look a little sad. The powdery mildew seems to have taken off over night. Yesterday was a very warm 90'F and it's back in the high 80's today. I woke up this morning and the powdery mildew was everywhere! I cut a lot of leaves off the squash and zucchini and sprayed the rest with a milk solution to try to contain the powdery mildew. I've also cut out 5 squash vine borers from 2 plants (the only 2 plants that have produced thus far!) I'm thinking they are so stressed out now they will probably kick it. I hate squash vine borers! One plant that had them was planted early and not covered, the other was planted later and covered with a floating row cover until the week of July 4-obviously that didn't work well!

I broke down and went to the farmers market today and bought tomatoes. The ones in the garden don't seem to be producing much fruit and the fruit that is there isn't growing very fast and it's not ripening at all. I got some heirlooms, some hybrids and a ton of cherries for drying in the oven. I haven't tried them yet.

Good news: Winchester Cathedral, Gruss an Aachen and Sweet promise all have buds. Zinnias and cosmos are blooming-tiny flowers -it's weird! Veronica has sent up a second flush and the cone flowers are going bonkers.

I'm not feeling the garden today so I decided to share a picture of Watkins Glen taken on Aug 1 when DH and I went down there for a hike. A beautiful state park at the south end of Seneca Lake,

Hot Hot Hot!!!

Ugh! Heat wave in WNY...it's been in the 90's for the past few days with oppressive humidity. All I'm going to say is that I hate it and I'll leave it at that. The people in the Mid-West are having flooding and tornadoes so I feel really lucky that natural disasters are few and far between around here.

I went to the nursery today (festival in town= 250,000 visitors the village this weekend=no farmers market for me!) I wanted to get a hanging basket and fill it with shade plants. The front of the house is kind of blah...and shady- Big red maple out front. Ideally I would like to put window boxes in the front windows. I have the inserts but need to make the boxes- not in the budget this year. So, what I got was some hot pink impatiens, chartreuse sweet potato vine (Marguerite), some chartreuse and pink coleus and asparagus fern. Throw it all together and I think it looks pretty good hanging on a branch of the red maple out front. I also got some Golden Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea') I had intended to put it in the basket but ran out of room. I put it in a pot with the leftover hot pink impatiens. I'm going to try to over winter the asparagus fern (I'll bring inside and put in the bathroom), the coleus (cuttings) and I'll put the creeping jenny in the ground-I'll try to reuse it all next year in the boxes.....I wonder if I can save the sweet potato vine???? That thing was hard to find..they only had a few and they were all chartreuse, good thing I didn't want a dark purple one!

I also got a flat of marigolds and some purple sweet allysum. I love orange and purple together. I filled some of the window box inserts & clay pots and put them on my deck -not terribly fancy but my back deck was woefully bare- flowers are so expensive!!! I wanted some verbena and lantana but there was no way- too much dinero. Thats why I love perennials, they cost a bit more but they last! I have some Fordhook nasturtium seeds that I planted in the veggie garden last week left over so I put them in the boxes and pots too. Seeds are cheap...love seeds.

I had never been to that nursery before (we have a lot of them around here). It was really nice. Not too far from my house & they had a huge selection of just about everything and everything looked really healthy, not an easy feat with this heat. I found a rose that I want to plant next to the driveway "Happy Chappy" was the name. I'll have to look it up and see if it will work there. I could have gone crazy and spend a ton of money but I managed to control myself. Besides the creeping Jenny the only other perennial I got was Veronica alpina "Goodness Grows" beautiful electric blue spikes. I couldn't help myself. I love Veronica and used to have it at my old house it's like a butterfly magnet! I just planted it between my Captain Sam and Distant Drums roses. Yesterday those two were neck and neck: who will bloom first???? I think Capt Sam pulled ahead this morning. The first bloom is just starting to open..... Distant Drums bud is still closed up.

Weigelia is finishing up its blooms I should have taken a picture, it was gorgeous this year. Sage bloomed and is kaput. Allium moly is out in full force. My chives are going nuts! Thyme is blooming. Salvia blooming. Stokesia and echinacea buds are forming. Peonies are probably going to bloom tomorrow-I see a lot of peonies blooming in the area. Iris' are out in full force. Bleeding heart is looking really good. I need to pull out the Spiderwort in the front (also blooming). I love it but the purple blooms are clashing with my hot pink and chartreuse color scheme-it was planted by the previous owner who apparently had no color scheme or master plan. I may replace it with some Echinacea from the back yard garden-I've got plenty! I'll see if anyone in my pottery class wants the Spiderwort. That's a great place to get and give plants. Most of us are gardeners in addition to being potters. Picture courtesy of Aunt & Uncle's garden