Things still blooming in October.

All right, first things first - this Agastache is INSANE. It's been blooming non-stop, attracting hummingbirds and smelling wonderful since June. June, people. It's now mid-October. That's four months. That's cool.

A different agastache here, fronted by some bright red Salvia. These were both experimentals, but I have a feeling we'll be planting more.

Next up we have the Evening Primrose. The cooler nights seem to have killed off the aphids that LOVE this plant, and in response it has started blooming again. Nice.One lone Echinacea blossom. I have a hard time deadheading these during the summer, which would cause them to bloom longer, because all the little tiny birds love the seeds. So I sacrifice blooms for food. The whole garden is pretty much like that. Plus, seedheads are interesting during the winter.
This is a Solanum of some sort - from the same family as tomatoes and deadly nightshade. It's an annual - we planted one outside the fence last year, this year we had a bunch come up, including this one, which is inside the fence in the middle of the gravel patch. It's about 4 1/2 feet tall.

Verbena rigida, still going strong. This is another one that just goes and goes and goes. Planted in a tiny triangle of dirt surrounded on all sides by concrete, it's enthusiastic and cheerful.

Pineapple Sage, another Salvia. This one isn't too hardy, and it doesn't start blooming until October, but it's gorgeous, so we put up with it.

This picture is mostly to show you that we are still working on the porch, because the fuschia came with the house, and I'm not real crazy about it. It survives, though, so who am I to dig it up?

Zinnias! I put this in to annoy Mark - he's zinnaphobic, apparently. What a poo-head.

These are just beginning to bloom, and frankly, they're a little early. Mahonia 'Winter Sun' usually starts blooming in late November at the earliest. Last year the blooms got wiped out by our ridiculous cold snap in December, so this year perhaps is compensation. Hummingbirds like this, too!

And Rosemary, because the freaking Rosemary never stops blooming around here.

The Miscanthus is just beginning to send up its seed heads, they are lovely in the sun, but on the whole, we planted too many and they got too big. Lesson learned.

Cosmos - part of our sunflower wall, they were sort of shaded out, and are just now seeing the sun.

One thing to be said for Seattle, gardening can happen all year round!

Happy Earth Day!

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Embothrium coccineum, originally uploaded by gingershana.

This is one of our Chilean Fire Trees (Embothrium coccineum) happily putting out new leaves. We repotted a couple of them this year, and they are growing like crazy.

For Earth Day this year, we are having a seed/seedling exchange at work. Yesterday evening I potted up (in yogurt cups) seven divisions of chives and six batches of daisy seedlings. I'm sure the people on the bus next to me were wondering why I smelled like onions at 6:15 in the morning!

Take a little time today to thank Mother Earth for all she gives you, and if you are so inclined, maybe do a little something to help her out.

Today in Seattle

Today we played with the new camera - Enjoy!

Deer Fern (Blechnum spicant) in one of our salvage pots.

New leaves on the Fern Leaved Buckthorn.

The Olympics from Carkeek Park this morning.

Girl butts.

Vine Maple leaves beginning to unfold

Trillium, happy under our deck.

Lola, with the stick she carried for a mile down the beach.  At that point, Mark had to let her take it home.....

The red flowering currant in our parking strip - total volunteer, and the hummingbirds love it!

Frittilaria - Checkered Lily

Salmonberry flower.

The Gingko, thinking about leafing out.

Umbrella Pine buds.

Acer Henryi, new leaves.

Tomatoes, at last.

The haul, originally uploaded by gingershana.

So this was my haul two weeks ago, now sitting in the freezer as eight pints of spaghetti sauce. I was slightly scientific about it, buying four plants each of two different varieties of heirloom sauce tomatoes. Those are Black Russian on the upper left and Principe Borghese on the upper right. I kept them separate and made two batches of sauce. I think the Black Russians were denser, and I know they produced more fruit. Five pints of sauce, compared to three for the Principe B. Of course, it may just be that they handled our ridiculously cold spring better. In which case, I'll definitely plant them again.
The cherry tomatoes, which got taken to work to share, were an unknown yellow pear and Matt's Sweet Million teeny tiny red ones. They were VERY sweet.
I picked the last of all the tomatoes yesterday and made another three pints of sauce. There's absolutely nothing like the smell of a day-long-simmered tomato sauce full of herbs and garlic. Mmmm.

I think perhaps Summer is here.

Well, if the garden is any indication, anyway. The vegetable garden, that is. I let Mark deal with the fancy plants posts, me, I'm just into the veggies.

This year we expanded the garden! WOOHOO! Now it's maybe a whole 200 square feet (maybe). We're growing more things, too. Radishes, lettuce, carrots, peas, kolhrabi, tomatoes, various squash, lemon cucumbers, and scarlet runner beans. Whether half of these will ever come to fruition is another question entirely. We ate more radishes than was strictly necessary, didn't eat as much lettuce as we should have, and are currently gorging ourselves on snap peas. Mmm.
The carrots aren't quite ready, but I couldn't resist seeing how they were doing. Let's just say that we might, maybe, possibly have a few little rocks in our dirt, and our carrots may all end up being PG13.

Here are some other random garden photos:
Squash leaf - way cool and silvery. I think it's a Delicata of some kind.

Peas:

Kohlrabi: All evidence aside, I was perfectly sober when I took this photo, I swear!

A bean, beginning to bloom:

Tomato!!!See it??

No???
Here you go:

And last but definitely not least, a lone basil plant.
Or folk art, whichever you think it is.

(more pictures on our Flickr page if you click through any one of these)

That's the update for now! A post about our best ever 4th of July coming soon.