Bright spots in the garden

As I mentioned in my last post, here are my last few garden pictures:

I took these photos earlier this month. Most of the garden was already past its prime then, but there were a few bright spots, like these Scarlet Runner beans. You can see the huge bean pod in the background, but it's the bright flowers that grab me.

If you look in the upper right corner, you'll see the tail end (literally) of a bumblebee. I was trying to get a shot of the bee in the flower but, as usual, he was too fast for me.

We didn't have a bumper crop of broccoli this year, but we did get a couple of good-sized heads. I was hoping it might do better toward the end of summer, but no luck. The plants are still beautiful, though.

The Brussels Sprouts have gotten bigger since this photo was taken, but we haven't picked any yet.. They like the cool weather and are harvested at the end of the season. It's fun to have fresh vegetables when most everything else is dormant.

The flowers in our back garden are a little out of control, but I don't mind. I'd rather have wild patches of flowers than perfectly tended and orderly beds. I took this photo, though, to show how huge the marigolds got. We knew they'd be taller than the usual marigolds, but we didn't expect them to be anywhere near five feet tall. (The unattractive dead-looking stalks are the milkweed plants. The day I took these photos I opened a few of the milkweed pods and let the seeds travel on the wind to, I hope, become more milkweed plants next spring.)

I took one close-up shot to try to capture some of the vibrant colors in the flower garden. This picture doesn't completely do them justice, but I think you get the get the idea. I love the bright pink and orange. We never did figure out exactly what the pink flowers were. They may have been something from the seed mixture we planted last year that came up again this year, but we don't know for sure. They were some sort of vine, though, and I had to pull them away from the tomatoes a few times.

The end of the garden is always a little bittersweet. It is sad to see everything dying -- partly because I know that means winter is coming. (It's a good thing I'll have these pictures to remind me that the snow won't last forever.) But at the same time, we're usually pretty tired of the weeding and watering and picking by the time fall rolls around, so it's a bit of relief to know we don't have to do that anymore. (Although we do need to pull up all dead plants still. That will be a project for October.)


Thanks for stopping by!