“August’s harvest is rich, with all the heat-loving crops coming into full productivity…”
Bob Thomson, The New Victory Garden
I’m choosing to be positive about the garden in August. The trials of the spring with its late snow and frozen tomatoes have been consigned to the past. I have almost but not quite forgotten the month of watering that I did. Watering seems a strange concept now when it seems we get a downpour every few days.
For the first time ever I have good sweet peas and enough of them to cut and bring in the house. They struggled through the dry month and have now taken off. I’m glad I never gave up on something that once seemed impossible. I have had many failed attempts at sweet peas in past years. They are, of course, the sweetest smelling cut flower of them all.
The giant nicotine (N. sylvestris), another sweet smelling annual, has finished flowering and I have lots of seeds to grow more if I want to. This is the biggest annual I have ever grown in a pot. It was at least five feet tall when it was flowering. Seeing it in its glory I now realize why gardeners of my parents’ and grandparents’ generation thought the dwarf nicotines were such poor specimens. Live and learn.
A much smaller and more modest nicotine (which is possibly N. langsdorffi) is blooming in a pot on the porch. It has elegant green bell shaped flowers and is barely two feet high. It has been in a pot for at least two years now and doesn’t seem to mind low light levels inside in winter.
The apple trees and roses have leafed out again after the retreat of the caterpillars. As did everything else that was defoliated. Who wasn’t happy to see the second spring that occurred in July? I was not one of those people up on a ladder picking off caterpillars. I was sure that Nature would eventually take care of it and that is exactly what happened.
In the wild garden, the phlox are the happiest I have seen them in decades. In dry years they suffer but this year they’re lush and healthy with all the rain. The blast of intense purple that they provide is one of the highlights of summer for me.
The first dahlias bloomed in mid July. They were all pulled out of their pots at one point by the raccoons so I had no idea what colour any of them were. It didn’t matter since I wanted then to look like cottage garden flowers and not soldiers. I changed my thinking about them when I saw them in a cottage garden setting. Look at Frances Palmer’s website if you want to see dahlias that are cottagey and informal. I read an interview with her where she said she made a tennis court into a garden because who needs a tennis court really. I think I would like her needless to say. And her gardens are gorgeous.
Finally, in the vegetable garden the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini have been growing every day with the heat and rain. In late July I planted some greens for fall soups. I wouldn’t normally plant these in July but with all the rain they popped up right away. I will probably do second plantings of more vegetables if the rain continues.
Even if it stops raining now, I won’t have to water for a few weeks at least. What a treat it is to watch the tomatoes grow and not have a watering can in my hand.
Happy mid-summer everyone.
By Jill Williams
