It’s the end of summer in the gardens out in the yard and on the front porch. Thankfully, many of my flowers will bloom through to the first frost.

Haven’t shared an update of the garden areas in a bit so thought I’d take some time to do it today.

Disclaimer: I have almost no idea what I’m doing when it comes to the vegetable garden stuff. And just a tiny bit of knowledge (not nearly enough) with the flower garden stuff. Also, I despise weeding.

Want to go on an end of summer garden tour of the yard (and front porch) with me?

The Butterfly Garden

This is right at the corner of our driveway, the sunniest spot around here. These bargain zinnias have brought me so much joy! Glad I took the gamble on the dead looking plants that just needed a bit of love. I grew the white alyssum flowers from seeds purchased at the dollar tree (guess I do sometimes find things there after all). Not pictured in the photo below:  all the purple asters, coneflowers, nicotiana, and lantana. Plus one recently acquired small mum. No longer thriving in the garden: white petunias and yellow snapdragons.

A butterfly! (of sorts)

Fence/Wall Garden in Front of Front Porch

I’ve replaced all the herbs that were in the small pots with white, yellow, orange, and pink mums. Relocated the herbs to various places mostly in the backyard. Mr. Flamingo stands watch over my bigger pots of mums. And on either side of those, my attempts at fall gardening: green beans, okra, and cucumbers for a fall harvest, I hope. My husband says no way are we getting okra in October. I say I feel like the little boy in The Carrot Seed.

On The Front Porch

Uh, that’s not a flower. No but it’s very exciting. I’ve been looking to get a new cushion for this bench since the beginning of last year. Toyed with a new bench but I just like this one even though next year it will likely need replaced. Maybe.

So excited to sit out there again (you might recall Chip, the stray cat, ruined the former cushion with a most unwelcome gift. Still miss the silly little fellow a bit).

The blue lobelia didn’t make it in my hanging basket (not sure what happened so I relocated a tiny strand to a different pot and though you can’t see it, filled the hanging basket with mint. Between the mint, sage, and lavender, the front porch smells amazing.

In late August, I cut back the pink petunias and am getting a lovely second wave of end of summer blooms. Also, yesterday, I repotted fussy Ms. Lucinda the Meyer Lemon Tree. Hopefully, she won’t throw all her leaves off in protest.

Shall we move on to the areas where I’m a bit less sure of things.

The Usual Vegetable Garden

Better than past years but still a sort of not much to see here, move along stop on our tour. We’re going to get a few more cucumbers. A few blooms on other plants as well. We should have cucumbers, beans (not enough), hot peppers, and maybe one more eggplant. Oh, I also planted another row of okra for fall harvest back here.

Around The Backyard Deck

This fussy fuchsia plant’s also been giving me fits. I think it could be best friends with Lucinda the lemon tree. However, it finally decided to get it’s color back and go ahead and bloom again after I moved it (again) and put some plant feed in the pot. Realized I don’t take many pictures of the plants on the back deck. Maybe for a future post I’ll share more. It looks a bit more shabby than the front. It’s a weird sun/shade area of morning shade followed by intense afternoon sun followed by more shade. Hoping my herbs adjust okay to the area. Also, have a citronella plant and of course, lemon grass on the table back there.

Side of House Raised Garden Beds

We planted our tomatoes in a raised bed on the side of the house this year. Let me introduce you to Audrey 3 (Hopefully, you’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors to get the reference) also know as our tomato plant(s):

We’ve had a record number of tomatoes (for us) this year. Usually, it’s early October and I’m picking the green tomatoes to just fry them. So far this year, we’ve had EIGHT red ones. However, I do feel a bit as if I’m getting eaten alive as I go deep into our tomato plant mass to search for them. And I learned a new trick this year.

Brown bag tomato trick: If you put a slightly ripening tomato in a brown paper sack and place it in a warm sunny location, the tomato ripens and turns red! Game changer for us. Am I the only one who didn’t know this?

The second raised bed was a bust with nothing much happening. I’ve moved some lemon grass (Bought way too much of that) over there as well as some woody looking lavender. Blue tub gave me a handful of beans and huge squash plant that never produced. Now, I’ve got carrots going in it. Fingers crossed.

How are things going at the end of summer in your outdoor areas?

For fun, I thought I would share what’s growing in our vegetable garden areas.

First, I want to talk about the weather today. It was 39 degrees when I woke up this morning. Thirty-nine degrees! That is too cold for May. Luckily, we didn’t have a frost here. Funny because J was just asking what if it snowed in May. And my husband was answering we’d have wasted a lot of money on plants. So, while not unheard of for here, thankfully, no snow, just a bit chillier than usual this week.

I’d have been sad if I lost this little tomato baby. So excited for how well my from seed tomato plants are faring so far…

Side of House Vegetable Garden Areas

Here’s a blurry glance at the vegetable garden area where we planted all our tomatoes. I can’t seem to get a decent shot of the whole area.

You may remember I shared about my husband making me a raised bed from the wood left from old box springs and an old fence gate. 

Well, to the left there I had him build me a small flower bed as well. More on what’s in there another time. Then, oddly enough, he decided to add the rest of the wood to a burn pile. Too many project ideas from me, I guess.

The blue tub in front is my first attempt at a raised bed. I bought a $7 tub cooler (maybe?) from Target, drilled holes in the bottom, added liner, rocks, and dirt. It contains corn, green beans, and zucchini. All started from seed, trying something called the 3 sisters method of planting.

And we decided to try just all tomatoes in the other raised bed. It contains both my plants started from seed as well as some starter plants purchased at a local nursery. And of course, marigolds. I always add marigolds to my gardens. Do you?  I’m a bit obsessed with the flowers this year. Even found a type supposed to repel mosquitoes for the deck table. Need to get more. Bonus of marigolds, they’re fairly cheap.

Regular Vegetable Garden Area

Let’s move on and talk about our regular vegetable garden area. The place we just stick the seeds and plants in the ground and hope for the best.  Our strawberry plant holds lots of promise this year:

We’ll see if the human creatures here get to enjoy any red berries before all the other wildlife finds them.

Here’s a glimpse of our garden for this year:

I really do need to quit being lazy and take the zoom lens off for some of these photos. This year, we’re attempting: green beans (from seed), cucumbers, zucchini (yes, more), onions, and some hot peppers. I also bought a small compact eggplant, designed for containers but I planted it. High hopes for fresh from the garden vegetables later this summer.

Flowers in the Onion Family

Because I’m a bit more obsessed with my flower garden areas than the vegetable gardens (it’s a patience thing), I want to end by showing you my allium flowers. I recently learned some kinds of these flowers are edible as they’re related to onions. Mine, I think, are not. However, I still love these purple globe flowers. Even when they don’t behave and grow between my herb garden containers like I planned, choosing instead to stand tall and show off right in front of them.

What’s growing in your gardens?

Thought I’d share a brief update on some of my various garden spots around the yard. The progress photos as well as future plans for each spot.

First, I want to share my unexpected iris blooms with you. I moved these 2 years ago and they finally decided to forgive me and bloom. A yellow one and a purple one, almost ready.

And of course, now, I think I may move them again. Another future project churning in my mind. My thought is to move these over and around the maple tree in the front yard. They’ll get plenty of sun there and not be so crowded out by my cheerful daffodils.

On One Side of the House

There’s only the small clump of irises, had hoped for more before I went a little daffodil crazy. The daffodils have faded. I’m in that impatient phase now where I have to let the daffodils naturally fade away and not mow the leftover greenery out of the way. However, I did sneak over yesterday and plant some sunflower starts behind the daffodil greenery. I can just imagine one of my new flower garden spots being a wall of sunflowers. (We determined the shed wall where I first wanted to go with the sunflowers didn’t get quite enough sunlight for them.)

On the Other Side of the House

Not really a flower garden side as this is where we put the raised garden bed my husband built from the used box springs. However, I couldn’t resist adding a few marigolds to it, mostly for practical reasons.

Front Yard Areas

Really, I’m trying to hold off on doing too much to the front yard areas until Mother’s Day weekend when I expect good sales on outdoor flowers. Plus, this mess is a bit much. Some day I’ll be better at knowing what’s a returning perennial and what’s a plucky weed. Maybe.

However, I did cave and buy my favorite little blue flowers one day last week.

They’re still in the pot. And when I was out getting the marigolds, I also picked up a pot of lemon grass to put next to the stinky boxwoods.

Oh, and the alliums I planted to give color to the herb garden are just about ready to bloom…

That’s all I have to report on the front yard areas for now. Not as much as we walk around to the back yard.

Back Yard Areas

I have more flower garden spots and ideas than I have time and budget. Anyone else with that problem? So, I’ll just share about my wildflower area.

I had two tiny wildflower blooms! Not the best pictures (excuse the blurriness, I went out to take another but the flowers are bent over and almost spent now)

Here’s what the area looks like from a little further out. I’m waiting (impatiently) on my late summer wildflower blooms. I have some fencing around it this time (some of you may remember when my well-intentioned neighbor decided to “help” by weed eating my first attempt at this. Then, last year just didn’t go real great. Third time is the charm I hope!

Next time, I’ll fill you in on the vegetable garden areas. Not as exciting or fun to me but we still give it a try every year.

Are you gardening this year? How’s it going so far?