August Garden

It’s been a dry, dry summer up until the past couple of weeks here in Northeast Indiana, and that, mixed with the intense heat, has made it rather difficult to maintain not only lawns, but gardens, too.

Fortunately, we stuck it out and watered daily, sometimes twice a day, and are now receiving the payoff of massive rains every few days (bonus: yards are turning green again!)

I’m sad to report that a couple of plants – our lettuce and cucumber – gave up early this month and I wasn’t able to bring them back to their former glory. The sunflowers have also been ever so slowly fading away.

Otherwise, August has been another bountiful month! We’ve had more tomatoes than we know what to do with – lots of summer salads and salsa, and I hope to make my own pasta sauce soon.

I’ve been pulling up onions just about every day and love finding ways to incorporate them into our meals on a regular basis.

I planted just one stalk of corn to see what would happen and have been working to hand pollinate it over the past couple of months. I must admit, I was quite surprised to walk out one morning and see not one, not two, but three little ears of corn forming!

Several eggplants were ready all at once – a different variety than we grew last year. And I’ve been snatching handfuls of herbs for cooking when I can.

We have several mini watermelons ripening on the vine, and a few cantaloupe, too!

I’m still waiting on our carrots and for a few remaining blossoms on our bell pepper plant to take off.

And while there are no pumpkin babies just yet, there are still loads of orange and yellow flowers growing on the gigantic pumpkin vine that is currently taking over our entire backyard. Fingers crossed it actually produces a few pumpkins in time for the fall festivities!