Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Aug. 30

Hi Katy -

Hot weather; hot flowers! I took a walk around my neighborhood and was really struck by these torch lilies a/k/a "red hot pokers". They almost glow at dusk.

Cheers,

The Pilot

They look like they're ready to take off to somewhere!

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Congratulations to The Famous Pat* on winning so many ribbons at the fair!

To get that last 3rd place Floral Dept. ribbon into this photo, I had to put it sideways at the bottom. If I win more ribbons next year, I’ll have to send in 2 photos! (No, I don’t know why Floral Dept. ribbons are smaller than Agriculture Dept. ribbons.)

Next year, maybe you could make a fair ribbon blouse or something and enter it!

From May, update soon:

So, a few years ago, we had some very large mulberry trees cut down to about 6 feet tall. We use some of the wood to border raised garden beds, some we burned, and some we just left as habitat (and it quickly became overgrown with raspberries).

About a week ago, while getting the garden beds ready for planting, i saw a little face peering at me from the densest part of the thicket.

Over the next few days, we'd see two little pups come out and play in the garden around sunset, and various dead animals (including a female mallard and one of the neighbors' chickens) appear near the brush.

Last night, we saw at least 5 pups out and playing, and later follow the mom off to the neighbors' large acreage...no photos of it, sadly.

A few little flowers are starting on our pawpaw trees, so hopefully we'll get some fruit this year.

And, of course, more sneks on the walking trail (which had a recent controlled burn).

Also, some little parasitic eggs on a black cherry tree, and some weird fungus on some saplings in our woods.

Grimmy

Everything is not all sunshine and roses when you pioneer a new garden area. Interesting photos! Insect eggs are not always innocuous. The fox pups through the window are cute. Some wildlife is fun, if not always adding to productivity.

Sunflowers

Hi Katy -

I enjoy "all you can cut" sunflower gardens during the dog days of summer. One farm near me grows so many varieties of sunflowers, I'm not sure of all the names, but I think I cut "Mammoth", "Ring of Fire", and "Chianti". My arrangement was inspired by Van Gogh (of course!)

Cheers,

The Pilot

How glorious!

Reminder: This is a simple method to try to get paper wasps to leave your eaves. May take about 2 weeks.

Had a new wasp nest forming on the side of my house. Wife hung up a couple paper lunch bags. No more wasps. The best is still dead, a year later. It works.

— Sean Rowland (@rowlands_laws) August 25, 2025

Some people crochet elegant fake wasp's nests and hang them up instead.

Gardens of The Horde

Hi KT,

Thanks for all your weekend contributions to the blog.

Been a rainy year here and the crops are as good as I have ever seen. The corn in the background of the raised planter pic is about 8' tall. On July first it was less than 3'.

Beans and lettuce in scampywife's raised garden really went crazy last week. Also, some of her front yard flowers.

Have a great weekend,

scampydog

Great front porch and edible reports! The front yard flowers are spectacular! Thanks to you and scampywife!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Aug. 23

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:24 PM

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