My deck garden, covered with bees.

My deck garden, covered with bees.
Originally uploaded by Leenechan

Bees bees bees!

Raspberries...growing through the bird net!

Raspberries...growing through the bird net!
Originally uploaded by Leenechan

Our tomato crop is finally drawing to a close. It's just about time to enjoy our autumn crop of raspberries! Compared to the summer crop, these berries are huge. We pick about a cup of berries every other day, but once they really start going we'll have more than we know what to do with. Not bad for only the second year!

The first berries we picked were much better than store-bought, but a little too tart. That means we have to water them more...

Wind in my sails, wind in my sails...

Look at my giant cosmos!
Originally uploaded by Leenechan

I love the startling magenta color of this cosmos. Unfortunately, these plants have grown so tall in the pots that even a gentle breeze sends them flying across the deck. Next time I'll ignore the packet's assertation that these 30 inch tall flowers are great for container gardens, and stick to dwarf cosmos blends like Sonata.

I'm actually really tired of cosmos, but the bees and hummingbirds love them. I have no choice but to continue growing them.

The nice thing about growing flowers in pots is the fact that you can move them around the yard to find the best lighting for photographs.

Butterflies with torn wings...

Butterfly count on the buddleia this morning: one Monarch butterfly, three Swallowtails with torn wings (all at the same time), one Cabbage White butterfly, one Compton Tortoiseshell and a Hummingbird Moth. There were also some honeybees and gigantic bumblebees. None of them wanted to have their picture taken. XD

It's sad to see all these swallowtails missing huge chunks of their lower wings. The monarchs are always perfectly intact, because they're distasteful/poisonous to predators. Rather than feeling like I'm witnessing a glorious show of nature, I feel like a kindly matron in a Dickensian novel, gathering up and feeding all the battered, starving orphans. Why can't the birds leave the poor swallowtails alone?

That is why they're called "swallowtails," after all.

In a few weeks, my tomatoes are going to be all gone. All in all I've been able to pick a dinner-sized bowl of tomatoes every day for a month. Not too bad, huh? I still have no idea what I'm going to do with all my jalapeno peppers, though. I had originally wanted to do those instead of bell peppers because you can use them green, and you only need one at a time. I'm going to have to make some spicy food soon!

Speaking of spicy food, one of my favorite convenience/home-cooked fusion meals is Trader Joe's Chimichurri rice sprinkled with shredded Manchego cheese (also found at Trader Joe's) and topped with a fried, sunny-side-up egg that was done in olive oil instead of butter, and served with a garnish of diced cherry tomatoes. I've got to get a few more bags of that rice...:D

If I don't drink a glass of milk with that meal, I always end up with heartburn.