Monday, August 18, 2008

Late Summer Blahs

It happens this time every year ... the excitement has worn off, just about everything's bloomed and I can't even bring myself to keep up with the watering ... the Late Summer Blahs!
You fellow gardeners must know what I mean. Every spring, you can't wait to see the perennials breaking thru the surface, going to the nursery to pick out this season's crop of annuals, waiting for those first tomatoes, why even watering is an absolute pleasure in the beginning ...

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I love to walk along my garden path each morning, peruse it at lunchtime and then go over it once more before twilight. But lately, I can't be bothered to do much else than make sure the waterfall's running properly, the fish have been fed and the glut of new tomatoes have been harvested. Remember just a couple of weeks ago I was complaining about the lack of red tomatoes ... I knew what was coming. Now I'm up to my ears in tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.
And yes, although I couldn't wait for that first fresh taste ... now I'm trying to unload them on anybody I can. But it's hard because everyone's veggies are coming at the same time ... I couldn't even be bothered this weekend to chop up and freeze my peppers. I'll get to it ... sometime.
It doesn't help that my petunias and impatiens look beaten. Yes, after blogging about petunias needing lots of fertilizer, I bought Miracle Grow extra blooming formula and applied it immediately. Then I went on vacation, hoping that I would come back to refreshed, stellar blooming annuals. Not the case. I cut them back, but they still managed to get stringy. Yes, they're blooming, but not like they were in mid-July.
Same with those annual geraniums that I proudly planted in May. They were supposed to bloom all season long. Didn't happen. They're healthy for the most part (I lost a few). They've grown bigger than I thought, but the whole point was to have constant blooms. I'd have to give them a "thumbs down" at this point.
And although I was initially excited by all the salvias coming up thru the garden path on they're own, now they just look cluttered and it's getting difficult to walk thru. I have some major garden cleaning to do, but I'm just not up to it yet. I have another vacation coming up (remember I said I'd warn you), so it'll just have to wait till I get back.
Oh well, in just a few short months, I'll be missing it all again, and waiting for another spring. And soon the Blahs will pass and I'll be getting excited about fall planting ... it's just a few weeks away!

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I haven't forgotten ... I'll get to the Stargazer Lillies and Hibiscus this week.

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