cleaning up...

Few days ago I tackled my unkempt tithonia wall. Snipped all the spent flowers, cut off all the dead, wilted leaves and sickly ones, too. Swiped tons of aphids for the fishes (my catfishes and loaches especially will be pleased). I hoped removing the dying foliage would stave off spread of disease, and also lighten the weight on the stems so the plants aren't quite so prone to fall over when soil softens after rain. It looks more airy and light, now- air movement among stems is good for plant health too, I recall. While I worked bees ambled around me, and a painted lady butterfly was nearby. Once on a flower just inches from my eyes- so I could admire closely how the light touched the colors on its wings.

Today I raked the front lawn. After the crabapple tree finished dropping its fruit- and most of its leaves- a few weeks ago, I cut the lawn shorter than usual and sowed more grass seed. A mix of sun-and-shade tolerant. Let a drift of leaves settle on the lawn during that time, which I think hid the seed well from the birds- I scattered it with handfuls of compost mixed in, the day before we had good rainfall. Now there is a nice flush of new green grass across the lawn. I am using the collection bag on the mower for the first time all year, so that seedheads of crabgrass get removed. It's less food for the lawn and compost pile, but I'm seeing a bit less crabgrass this year and I'd like to continue in that direction.

Walking around to see how yard plants have fared, need to start laying down leaf mulch for winter. Rhubarb didn't do so great.

Always forget arum will come back up here, in the fall. It reappeared a week ago.

Best thing in the back bed is heartleaf brunnera. It doesn't seem much bothered by insects or weather yet.

Hellebores I transplanted have done well- they really grew bigger, fast. I might even have a few more flower in the spring.

Around another tree in the backyard I planted out those two salvia cuttings. They're doing well- already sprouting new leaves.

It's the same area where I put silver dusty millers. I learned it's in the plant family artemesia.

That space around the tree doesn't look like much yet, but I hope it will fill in pretty- in a year or two.

in front and back

Near the house- I really like cranesbill, now that is has recovered from transplant and grown out. I want to get more of these!

A different kind of lacy foliage is the artemesia nearby. That one has done splendid from getting dug up in the middle of summer and moved to my yard.

On the front porch and back deck, my pots of sweet potato vine are having a short comeback. New leaves are almost completely untouched by the bugs that make holes and scars. I've been cutting off the old, damaged leaves to encourage new ones to grow out more. As long as this 'indian summer' lasts.

some flowers

My second-year mums are creating a patch of pretty color in the front yard, even though they are uneven and flop over. I need to learn how to pinch them, at what intervals, to get nice dense growth.

Earlier I had rubbed seed off the lower part of the one orange/pink celosia bloom- now I've cut the entire head off to get the rest of the seed out.

It is still nice color- I have the very top part in a little jar of water to look at for a while.

I've pulled up all the cosmos from the vegetable garden- they're looking really scraggly with dry stalks and only tufts of leaves here and there, not worth the payoff of a few remaining flowers. I've been scattering the seedheads in the back bed, and already a few sprouted! So maybe I can get a permanent patch established back there.

The salvia is blooming. The flowers are small, not much to notice. I think they look a little like snapdragons.

tiny melon

Had some volunteer cantaloupe in the garden this year, also a few cucumber plants. I kind of forgot they were there, and never went searching for fruit under the broad leaves until it was too late. Most of the fruit rotted. This one was still good, although very small. It looks like a tiny cantaloupe.

The inside was green. I thought just not ripe- but it tasted exactly like a cucumber. Better than the actual cucumbers I got. I think the two melons crossed?

tomatoes...

Didn't do so great for me, overall this year. I have started cleaning up the spent vines. Still trimming off diseased-looking leaves, so its all barren like this:

I picked all the tomatoes that had a hint of color change, and have them in windowsills to finish ripening.

Ate these two yesterday, topping some pasta with basil pesto (not mine- of all the herbs only basil failed me, I hardly got any this season).

The few cherry tomatoes left will top a pizza later this week, then that's it for those plants too. Pulling up some of the tomato cages they were so stuck in the ground I busted a few. The rings broke right off the uprights where it was welded.

This one cherry tomato really went wild. Its vine grew all the way up the downspout. I have to get on a ladder to trim the top of that euonymus shrub, its way over my head. I'm short, but still. I think that vine climbed eight feet!

new plants

for my birthday last week- my daughter gave me some herbs from one of my favorite local nurseries- lemon verbena (going to try some tea).

and tarragon

I've already cooked eggs with the tarragon- that's a flavor I haven't had in years, since my last pot of it died. It's nice to have it around again.

I was at the big box home improvement store for something the other and walked through the outdoor section- they were cleaning up pots of plants to throw away, so I got a few at half price. A light purple chrysanthemum, and this dusky darker pink one.

Its hue looks nice next to my lime-and-orange coleus. Turns out I should be happily surprised I had three out of five mums grow back this spring, instead of disappointed! they're sold as annuals. I'd sure be happy if I could get this dusky pink one to survive the winter- it was the only one of this hue at the store. It looks too perfect right now, all compact and dense with flowers- compared to my survivors from last year which are loose and lean over- more pics coming up.

spotted pest

I have found a new member of the insect plague in my garden. It's not just whitefly, aphids, Japanese beetles, stink bugs, caterpillars and leaf hoppers anymore. I now have cucumber beetles too. They used to be a huge problem in my old garden and I was so glad to have not seen them for five years. Well, now they have found me again. I was out cleaning up my tithonia wall yesterday- it has been sorely neglected because of a week with sick kids, and then being ill myself. Found lots of dark brown/purplish aphids on the tithonia stems, fat grown ones surrounded by rows and rows of little new-hatched ones. Swiping them off to give my fishes a feast. And discovered cucumber beetles, too.  They like to rest underside of tithonia petals so now I know where to look. I squished three today, and another escaped me flying off from a green bean plant. Which look terrible. I have cut off so many diseased leaves they are practically nude. It's a wonder they give me any beans at all. If the cucumber beetles have been here long, undetected, no wonder my bean plants have been doing so poorly. 

Well, at least I have not seen many Japanese beetles this year. I made sure to stalk and kill the few I found mating on my celosia. 

And I have just found out how awful stink bugs are. More of those, this year. They have no natural predators so just keep multiplying and multiplying. I used to let them be but now I go after those, too.  Funny, I used to not notice the odor when squashed them, but now it is really offensive. And I've heard it attracts more of them. Best to catch and dunk in soapy water. Ugh- if it's not one thing, it's another.

it looks rather empty

sold

My last two aponogeton crispus. How I am going to miss that plant. As the smaller one was even smaller than I had estimated - I would have priced it lower had I seen it better before removing from the tank- the buyer accepted some bacopa cuttings to make it up.

I usually re-use plastic containers from fresh herb purchases- I save them up- and a small box cut down to fit them will travel first class. But for these plants I took the tops of several plastic egg cartons, snipped the short ends to fit them together. (I usually save these to use as drip trays- they are the perfect width to fit in the windowsill, with three or four small pots. The box ends up a bit oversize so has to go priority mail but I don't mind- it will get there safely.

Now my bacopa thicket is short and stubby- but multiplied in size. I took the cuttings just above where leaf die-off had occured on the lower portions. Then cut to the ground and replanted the short bare tops. They ought to regrow. I've spread the bacopa thicket thus to the left, under the capruonii. Which really has space now. My two new apono capuronii bulbs had to get shifted while I pulled the apono crispus- as I expected, they hadn't grown any roots yet- and they are both sprouting!

Siphoned out ten gallons of water while I was removing those plants- and still there was mulm and unearthed ferts from root tabs scattered through the water column. I tried to clear it all out. The shrimps look fine, and the tetras are not irritated- but some of my kuhlis are. When later I fed gold pearls the kuhlis went nuts digging after the bits in the substrate, and some of them would suddenly jolt back up as if shocked- I think they ran into fert particles?

I've replaced my heater, too- the prior one, although barely two years old, had water bubbles inside the glass. I removed it and dried it off and a day later there was still water inside it. Which means it's leaking somewhere I guess, and would fail soon. I got a new 100w aqueon pro, now adjusting in the tank. It's nice and sleek, unobtrusive with the black housing.

ps: Perry in the window tank is shut up in the fry box again. So he can ease his bloated stomach over several days' fasting, and I can give the cories shrimp pellets without interference. I think I'm going to get tired of this soon, and have to re-home the cories - sigh-.

fatty

I fed the window tank fishes after dark, again. Perry was faster nipping his individual bits of flake off the surface, then he immediately went to the cories' corner. I'd soaked their half a wafer in a bit of tank water before sliding it in, so they'd have a better chance to eat some before the competition arrived.

But it looks like Perry got most of it anyway.

going back

to doing a few things the way I used to. Thinking how much better my old garden did than this one. It's not just the lack of attention I have given the garden this year- although there's surprisingly few weeds, considering. Mulch does a good job. But I used to dig in the compost every spring, not just top-dress it. I think that makes a difference. No-dig method hasn't panned out, for me. I'm going to do some serious digging come spring, see if working the soil over well results in sturdier plants. More weeds, probably- but I used to like weeding, as well. (I know it sounds odd, but I did).

Also going back to a previous thing with one of my tanks. In the window tank, some of its plants haven't been doing so well. I reverted to the old backdrop I'd originally used. It was just a piece of cardboard with dark cloth draped over, that sat behind the tank and usually tipped so the top part leaned away from the tank onto the window pane. That let more light in from above. I think the plants have been missing that extra amount of light- so I took off the black plastic that was currently taped across the back of the tank tank wall, and returned to using the tipped cardboard. This means there's a now strip of light across the top:

but most of the time I view the tank from an angle above, like so. It is still not bright, but definitely more light in there now so I hope the plants that were faltering improve.

With the late-season heat this week I've been finding more caterpillars in the garden, and a few more mosquito wigglers. Yesterday I gave Perry at caterpillar that I thought might be just a bit too big for him to handle. He bit at it repeatedly, with that little excited waggle of his tail. Finally got it down. He likes fighting for his food! He's doing loops across the tank when I approach again. 

Today I gave him a few mosquito larvae. The biggest one I dropped right in front of him, the smaller ones I tipped in altogether- so they scatter. He was so excited at getting the first one, started zooming back and forth across the tank, blasting past the other larvae as they drifted, herky-jerky, down through the water column. It was funny. Finally he noticed one of the smaller wigglers and then slowed down, started intently hunting for them across the bottom of the tank.

seed saving

I rubbed seed off the orange/pink celosia flower. Here's a tiny tuft of it.

Also this week gathered tithonia seed from a few flower head I missed when deadheading- so it had gone all the way to seed.

monarch

butterfly on tithonia. they are frequent visitors, but this is the first time I managed to get decent photos.

Next year I am planting a bigger tithonia wall.

my cat treed a chipmunk

I saw the cat outside looking at something intently in the grass. I went over, thinking it had found a snake or large insect. It was a chipmunk. Behaving odd- it was leaping up and down short hops with its back arched, not moving away from the cat. Once it jumped up against the cat's side, who just turned his head to look at it, confused? I thought for sure the chipmunk had a severe injury, nerve or brain damage. Then it suddenly bolted up a nearby tree. My cat tried to follow but the chipmunk went pretty high.

It was up there for hours- I kept going out to look. I didn't see when it come down. I don't know if the cat was still waiting there, or if the chipmunk escaped and made it back to its hole.

It sure was acting strange, so I kind of hoped if it was seriously injured, the cat ended its life quickly.