69 thoughts on “Ode and Farewell to the Summer Garden”

  2. you do your best to plant what you love.
    you weed and water and care for the seasons carriers of joy and hope to make the plot of ground you embrace shine.
    then June July and August are followed by September October and with November in sight we regroup and refine the plan and do it a little differently next year.
    better

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  4. Goodbye giant vine
    Perhaps next year you will give
    Actual pumpkins

    (Or was that vine supposed to be melons? Either way, I have a thing that has outgrown the bales and is sending a long arm of greenery out across the patio – there have been flowers, but no fruit yet.)

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  8. Rise and Rhyme Baboons!

    I am no poet, so you get prose here. Sherrilee, AKA VS, also submitted a photo after I submitted the majority of them, so thanks so VS, as well. Be sure you enlarge the pink phlox photo from Barbara–there is a lovely swallowtail butterfly (I think that is the name–someone who knows butterflies can clarify) on the flower.

    Meanwhile I live in hope for the colors of fall and I live in denial that the iceman cometh.

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  12. Letting the bard do my work today:

    Farewell my garden! thou art too dear for my possessing,
    And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.
    The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
    My bonds in thee are all determinate.
    For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
    And for that riches where is my deserving?
    The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
    And so my patent back again is swerving.
    Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
    Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking,
    So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
    Comes home again, on better judgement making.
    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

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  14. As you all know, I am strangely fond of Tom Waits’ What’s He Doing In There.

    As I look out at the backyard jungle I sometimes wrestle food out of, I am hearing, What’s She Growing In There?

    I know there are some butternut squash, tomatillos and runamok raspberries- at one point I saw an acorn squash out there too.

    Tomatoes are a solid mass of vines that make me glad I didn’t put Green Zebras in there or I would never find them.

    I’m sure I will find plenty once I start clearing things up out there, and I’m already giving the gardener’s battle cry, “Next Year!!!!”

    OT-For those of you following along, I am hoping to have a new-to-me car today. Blog post to follow. Just a teaser, does anyone remember the name of our goat detective???

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      1. Morning glories, too. I made the mistake of once planting the seeds that got Seed Savers Exchange started – Grandpa Ott’s Morning Glory, or something like that. I don’t think they will ever be gone from this property. They sprout up everywhere.

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        2. I would like him, too, if it was just one. This year is pretty sparse with “only” a couple hundred; most years it’s a few thousand. No exaggeration.

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  18. My gardens have long gone to grass,
    Tall as a tree, roots deep as the sea.
    Quack grass, you say. But grapes I see.
    Perhaps in spring a bit of asparag(as).

    Ah, there I see tall Sunchokes who hide
    Sweet tubers underground.
    Dig a bit and they will be found.
    To return again in spring and provide.

    So,this woman’s garden is wild and free,
    Strong and tough as each weed
    That grows beside and goes to seed.
    Just brave the tangle of brush and grass to see.

    Okay, so it ain’t Yeats….but it pretty well describes my garden of trees, vines and grass.

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      1. On my boulevard. An outlaw sunflower, it sprang up six feet high in the zone which is restricted by the city to a maximum height of 18 inches. No one complained, so I didn’t have to cut it down.

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  23. my dog can’t wag his tail while he’s being petted. he gets really excited and his tail is fat and powerful so he bangs it are into whatever is nearby then… you pet him and as soon as you reach to touch it stops.
    nat king cole was a session piano player, a studio musician. one day between songs someone else was recording nat sang a little ditty. someone heard him sing and asked why he didn’t sing all the time. I can’t sing and play at the same time was his response. stop playing was the resolution. they told him you’re ok even very good on piano but we can’t get anyone else to sing like that
    vinnie is the best tail wagger on earth but he sure likes being petted

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    2. Oh, for pete’s sake, Steve! I don’t feel unsupported. I don’t do poetry either, but that does not mean I don’t appreciate others’ poetry. Save the emotion of shame for something worth it! You have written pages and pages on this blog and we already know everyone on the Trail supports each other.

      Don’ worry ’bout it.

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  25. Sitting in waiting rooms this week, I keep trying to think of blogs, but I got a burst of creativity in two other directions and my mind won’t let go of those. My mind is on fiction. I will try.

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  26. I’m not much good on poetry either.
    I was looking through the remains of our garden last night. Picked a couple pumpkins… still got a few green beans coming. Carrots are still coming. Of course potatoes yet.

    This spring I planted some cantaloupe just to see what they’d do in the straw bales. They didn’t do anything. Till about a month ago. And now I have lots of vines and one little melon coming; it’s about 3″ diameter. Couple more weeks frost free I might have an edible one!

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  27. I still have lots of green tomatoes on my plants. And masses of basil – I just have 2 basil plants but they’ve grown like CRAZY this summer. I’ve made pesto til it’s coming out our ears and I’ve frozen quite a bit as well. Maybe I’ll bring some to book club!

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      1. Or just the feel of a natural nesting place maybe, hidden in plants. We raised ducks a couple years when I was a kid. For meat.

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  28. My garden, if you will, is the field of soy beans 20 yards from my patio. It’s ready for combining. The Canada geese flocks like to sit it. So you look out and among the pale yellow stalks are also black stalks sticking up. It’s rather funny.

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  31. I think the reality is that Dale is very, very busy with his new job and he will not have much time for our playground. Renee said a week or so ago that keeping it going feels important. I agree!

    So when there is not a new post we can just keep playing on the old swingset. Many of us are also quite busy, so it is likely that on some days there won’t be a new post.

    In the same way that TLGMS used to brighten my day, this blog does that now. Let’s just do the best we can to keep it going.

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    1. Yep – got my photos taken, so one is mine. It’s been hard to think of anything interesting to say the last couple of weeks, so it felt good to get a little inspiration today!

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  33. OT: I might not have time in the morning – will fly out tomorrow a.m., solo, to see my sis et al. in Berkeley, CA area… will get to house sit for a friend of hers for 9 days. Be on the blog just sporadically, as I still haven’t bought a smart anything. Till we meet again…
    (Forgive me if I posted this twice – I can’t find where I thought I posted it.)

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