Lovely pictures everyone..Sharon your "arizona sun" gaillardia looks taller then mine..I was disappointed on how short mine are...Pudge your grass bed is wonderful. After poking along all summer my polish spirit clematis is finally blooming most of the annuals in my flowerbeds paid no attention to the frost Last year the annual Hollyhocks were outstanding...this year they have just began to bloom and the flowers are really weirdly shaped It hasn't happened before but my rugosa cabbage type rose decided to put on a few blooms on this years new growth..second time around for it and smells just as lovely.. ---savona---

It's got to be the thick layer of mulch I had put in this spring. I've certainly not fertilized and rarely watered (maybe every couple of weeks). I've known mulch is a good thing but this year has proven it me beyond a shadow of a doubt! And yeah, that one mutant sunflower has really burst into gorgeousness, hasn't it? The others look just like regular ones, with a few flowers.

Jennifer, The caterpillar in your photo is a Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar, not a monarch caterpillar. Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars have the green and black stripes with the little yellow dots....and monarch caterpillars have green, black and yellow stripes with no dots. The plant likely is rue, a favorite of swallowtails. Monarch caterpillars look like this: Image of Monarch Caterpillar Swallowtail caterpillars look like this: Image of Swallowtail Caterpillar George, It is good to see you here. I am thinking of digging my sweet potatoes early as well. They're not in hardware-cloth protected beds, and now that is has turned back so hot and dry, I'd like to harvest them before the voles find them. Kim, Good luck on finding a place that seems right for you. I think working on a farm with housing included would be a great experience. I don't blame you for wanting to find a new place before it gets too cold. Nancy, Welcome home. Daffy is just pretending she's not excited that y'all are home. You know how cats are---they are not going to admit they missed you. You can be gone a week and come home....and the dogs almost have a hysterical breakdown as they jump and bounce and wag and bark and show you how happy they are to have you home....and the cats will look at you cross-eyed and squinting as if they aren't sure who you are, then they will send you an ESP message that says "my litter box needs to be cleaned" as they turn their deliberately back on you and carefully wash their butt---all to show you how they really feel about you going somewhere and leaving them behind. The difference in dogs and cats just cracks me up. Amy, I hope your mom's repair surgery is an easy one. I didn't even know artificial hips had plastic parts. I guess I thought they were all metal....so they'd be less likely to fail. That shows you how little I know about artificial joints. Perhaps Honey would like to be a vegetarian, but she needs to learn that in order to have veggies to eat, she needs to let you grow them first. Our two youngest dogs were terrible about chewing on things they shouldn't---especially blankets and furniture. It took forever to mostly break them of it, though I know Princess still chews a hole in her blanket now and then. She's only a couple of years old so I still have hopes that someday she'll stop chewing on everything in sight. I'm still constantly buying her rawhide bones, real bones and all sorts of chew toys in the hopes she'll chew on them instead of chewing on something she shouldn't. One of my first clues that she has chewed on something she shouldn't is that in the middle of an ordinary day, I'll walk into the room and she is in her dog crate. Since she only goes into the dog crate to sleep at night, finding her in there in the daytime is a clue that she knows she's misbehaved and she's put herself in "time out". She is so smart---but apparently not smart enough to stop chewing on things that belong to her people. Jersey used to be a big, big chewer like that, but has finally settled down---but she's ten years old and gray-haired and, until we bought her a new dog bed about a month ago, her favorite thing to do even at this somewhat advanced age was to chew a hole in her dog bed and tear the stuffing out of it bit by bit. So far, knock on wood, she hasn't chewed a hole in the new bed. (I'm sure since I just said that, I'll go upstairs in a few minutes and find a hole in her new dog bed.) Rebecca, Congrats on the rain. Of course, it is not raining here, but I believe the western edge of our county got some rain earlier. Before that rain arrived, it was 94 degrees here with a heat index of 102. It cooled down quite a bit when the western half of the county clouded up and got rain. At our house, we had half clouds, half sunshine (on the southern part of the property) and no rain, but the temperature dropped into the 70s already, so it feels much better than it did at the same time last night. Hailey, Soil that is 8 is pretty alkaline. Our unimproved soil tested around 8.2, and so does our water. With many years of amending with as much organic matter as possible, we now can keep our soil in the 7.0 to 7.2 range, but if we skip a year of amending, it can head back to a higher pH really quickly. You also can use sulphur to lower soil pH and most bags of sulphur will tell you how many pounds to add per square foot to lower your soil pH a certain amount. Have a fun and safe trip to KY. I like to compost the current year's mulch and add it to the soil as compost. Often, my mulch has pretty much decomposed by winter on its own, and yours may or may not do the same---in some dry years it does not decompose nearly as quickly. I often just pile up several inches of chopped/shredded autumn leaves right on top of the mulch and let it all decompose together over the winter. I used to rake up all the mulch, haul it to the compost pile, layer it with chopped/shredded autumn leaves, let them decompose over the winter (watering and turning it all occasionally if we were having a dry winter) and then I'd haul it back from the compost pile (as compost) to the beds in late winter or early spring and mix it into the soil. Then I learned I could leave it in place, pile stuff on top of it, and compost it in place and save myself a ton of work. Gardening smarter....not harder....that's what I try to do. By composting the mulch, as long as it gets hot enough while composting, the composting process kills disease microorganisms and insect eggs and such. If yours doesn't break down over the course of the winter, you can just add new layers on top of it each spring. Eventually it all breaks down in place and enriches the soil as it does so, and this process should help slowly move your soil pH to a lower number. Dawn

I feel like I am so far behind I'll never catch up, but I'll try. Larry, Those cookies look awesome. I'm glad you ate one for each of us. Farmgardener, One of the things I love about this group is that we weave discussions about real life together the way it really happens---because none of us garden in a vacuum, so of course we must discuss grandchildren, great recipes, pets, wildlife, etc. At some points in the year if we could discuss only gardening, I think we might run out of things to talk about. Your story about your grandson is so cute! It reminds me of when Chris graduated from kindergarten at the age of 5. They had little caps and gowns and a ceremony and everything. On our way home, I looked over at him and he was holding back tears. I asked what was wrong and he said "I don't want to move out and get a job and get an apartment." I could hardly control my mirth as I explained to him that he didn't have to grow up, move out, get an apartment and get a job until he'd graduated from college when he would be in his 20s. He was so relieved! How a 5 year old ever got the idea that graduating from kindergarten meant it was time to go out into the world and support himself is just beyond me. I'm glad you got some rain! Our mesonet station got an inch of rain, most of it yesterday afternoon, but all of that missed us. I had expected the rain would miss us and had watered the garden and containers thoroughly the day before rain was expected so I didn't have to sit and worry about whether it was coming or not. Had it rained, I just would have considered that rain to be a bonus. Larry, I usually don't dig sweet potatoes until October, assuming the September nights stay warm, which they have so far, but of course you can dig them at any size you want. Maybe you'll find bigger taters underground than you're expecting? dbarron, I seriously hate this heat. It has cooled down a little bit, but not a lot, and I am so sick and tired of it. I'm ready for all the good things that come with cooler weather....I'd love a really chilly evening or morning, but that could be weeks away still. Because it is so warm, zinnia seeds from the current flowers have sprouted in the pathways and the little plants are 2-3" tall. I bet they get big enough to flower since the weather is staying so warm. Nancy, Cats are not allowed to sleep in our room with us because they are too disruptive. Of course, you have to train them to learn to handle the night without you. They have cat beds, blankets, toys, food and water. All they're lacking is human company at night, and they've learned they have to live without that human company until somebody gets up in the morning. We close our door at night and they've never destroyed it yet. If they are scratching at the door, I've been known to put them in the spare bedroom (with a litter box and food/water, and a cat bed and blanket that are in that room all the time) and close the door. Staying in the spare room hasn't killed a cat yet and they've gotten used to not being in our room with us. You know, you're the grown-ups and they are the fur kids, so you can train them to be the way you want them to be. Your sweet potatoes will be fine. The vines are protecting them from the sun and often sweet potatoes will enlarge enough to pop up out of the ground that way. Amy, I've grown ornamental sweet potatoes indoors over the winter before---I kept them near an east-facing window so they had morning sun and was careful to avoid overwatering them and they did just fine. I like to do this some years so that I don't have to buy new plants in the spring. I just dig up the current year's taters, prune the vines back sharply, replant them in pots I can bring indoors, etc. I usually leave them outdoors on the porch for as long as possible---until the nights start dropping into the 50s, and then I bring them in to stay. They really love warm weather and lots of sunshine, so don't grow as rampantly indoors as they do outdoors, but that is a good thing. If you went to see The Lion King, I hope the boys liked it. Lillie and Aurora adored it, though I think they liked Aladdin a bit more. I was a little worried that the death of Mustafa or the hyenas might be too upsetting for Aurora, who was 4 when she saw the movie, but neither one seemed to bother her at all. Actually, my sister and I felt like all my mom's great-grandchildren really benefitted from seeing The Lion King so close to our mother's death because we were able to discuss mom's life/death using the circle of life analogy from the movie in a way that even the youngest great-grandchild could understand. Sometimes in the garden we have that same circle of life discussion about both plants and insects in the garden, and I hope that lesson sticks with the kids. I'm doing to ignore the Burpee's sale if I can, but I'll say this...as expensive as their catalog seeds are, if they cut the price down to half-off, they're as affordable as seeds from most other companies. I only buy Burpee Exclusives from them, and not that often either, because everyone else beats them, pricewise on the things that are not exclusive to Burpee. Rebecca, I hope you found time for a nap. Afternoon naps are just the best! I didn't do any gardening today at all. It was CostCo/Sam's Club, grocery store and feed store day instead. I wanted to go to some of the big box stores and look at plants, but then there's the question why? What plants could I possibly want to plant in this hot weather? I'm still waiting for the autumn cool-down, and not waiting very patiently either. It also was NCAA football game day, but the only game I've been interested in watching is OU's game tonight. I just cannot get into football when it is 90-whatever outdoors and the heat index is near 100. If it doesn't feel like football weather (if anyone here remembers what it is like to sit on the bleachers at a football game and feel COLD, lol, then that is the football weather I remember from my younger years), I cannot really get into a football mood. We need to mow tomorrow. I am tired of mowing. It is crazy how fast the grass continues to grow even though we haven't had any rain in a couple of weeks now. Tim, of course, adores mowing so he'll be out that riding in circles on the riding mower, happy as a pig in mud. Dawn