60 Days Until Frost

How did we get to the last day of July so fast? Here at the Stone Wall Garden we can probably count on 60 more frost-free days. If we are very lucky, that could extend to 75. It was only 79 days ago that the garden looked like this.

This tattered Monarch butterfly is a reminder that we are on the down side of the summer. I actually felt a little guilty bothering her to get a picture. She has serious egg laying business to finish before she dies. Soon we will watch beautiful new Monarchs fly over the garden heading south to Mexico.



The first New England Aster blosssoms are beginning to open. While it's true that they bloom for a long time, they are a signal that the purple asters and yellow goldenrod of fall are on the horizon.

Ed is busy clearing weeds where peas and garlic have been harvested, and planting buckwheat, peas, zucchini, kale and lettuce. Who knows how the crops planted now will do? The weather is unpredictable, but it's best to plant something. If you don't fill in the garden soil with something you want to grow, it will fill in with weeds that you don't want. Mother Nature abhors a bare patch of dirt. Weeds will not miss an opportunity. Weed seeds are in the dirt, float on the wind, stick to the fur of animals, and drop from the sky courtesy of the birds.

August and September are wonderful months for the garden. New potatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, green beans, lettuce, peppers onions,and beets are there for the picking. Fresh basil, parsley, mint, thyme, rosemary, sweet bay, lemon verbena and French tarrogon wait to make meals exciting.

There are still new flowers yet to bloom. The asters and chrysanthemums are just getting started. I'm still waiting for the closed gentian, the Angelica gigas, the moon flowers and the tuberose.

The second half of the garden 2010 is here. There is still a lot of exciting garden fun to come!