How Goes the Garden? August 2025

About time for some garden news. 
 I didn't realize I'd missed Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day until yesterday!  I've been doing the bare minimum outside due to summer heat, just watering, and a bit deadheading in the front yard, and watering again.

While the temperatures have gone down into the 90s from the 100s, the lemon cucumber leaves show damage from the hotter days.  

While the lemon cucumbers have yet to produce any cucumbers, the Salad Bush cucumber is doing well.  The plant looks dreadful.  Either this kind always does, or it thinks it's dying and putting out cucumber after cucumber.

This one escaped my sights, I discounted the ugly plant!  I expected it would be too bitter and pithy to eat, but it wasn't (see below).  

One of my FFA $1 mystery tomatoes is a nice large red one.  

Ready to enjoy, a warm tomato and a cooled cucumber!

The Herb Garden is happy, but even herbs need some water on hot days.  The little flowering plum I transplanted from a container took to the ground well.  I just realized, it's probably close to ten years old!  A former co-worker's son planted a plum pit in a pot and after it grew a bit she gave it to me.  It was in a container until this past April. 

A generous friend dug out some daylilies and shared with me.  Some are in the ground, others in containers waiting for me to get to them. 

They are Chorus Line, Country Fair Winds, Fragrant Returns, and Gentle Shepherd. 

Green Stink Bug

I should have stepped on it, they damage both cucumbers and tomatoes, my only vegetable crops this summer.  This one fell off my cucumber while I was watering.  I guess it's back up there by now, doing its damage.

In July I bought a mystery plant at Walmart early this summer.  The last one, no tags, abandoned in the store, so the cashier decided to just let me have it for $1.00.  It's a perennial, Swan River Daisy (Brachyscome) Radiant Magenta.  I almost lost it last month neglecting to water it, but it's come back fine.

Most of the black-eyed Susans have died, but a few remain. 

A Grandpa Ott morning glory with the morning sun on it.  I don't plant these anymore, they reseed enough on their own.

These photos make the garden look good, but trust me, the far back (not near the house, and out of sight due to a half fence covered in Virginia creeper and roses) is mostly dried out and brown.  I do water the strawberry area back there.   I did dig up and pot some plants from back there to transplant into the front yard.  Just in case I give up on it back there!  I didn't use the raised beds for vegetables this year, and the pluot tree there is dying.

The May May daylily may go to a friend, then there's Rose Marvel salvia, a pink coneflower and Firecracker penstemon. 

I'm not using more water this summer, but the cost of water has gone up quite a bit.  I find it funny that water is measured, not in gallons used, but CCF, Centum Cubic Feet. One CCF is 748 gallons.  Why can't they make it easy?  🤣  

Unfortunately, since I let the grassy areas go they've given Mickey the itchies.  He's part Golden Retriever, and I came to find out they are genetically predisposed to seasonal and environmental allergies.  The Goldendoodle I used to have had bad seasonal allergies too, up until the first hard frost.  So, I've started giving Mickey store-brand Benadryl.  He's sort of knocked out, which isn't good, but that is what happens to me with antihistamines too!  I won't take them, they knock me out for 24 hours.  Mickey won't let use anti-itch spray on him.  I bought a kind with kefir in it!  I thought it might be the spray part, but when I poured some on a paper towel to dab it on, he snapped.  Either it stung, or scared him.  Or, just didn't want me touching. He is what is known as a reactive dog.  Not aggressive, reactive.  Dog reactivity refers to an exaggerated response to specific stimuli, and it can manifest in various forms, including fear-based, frustration-based, and excitement-based reactions. Copilot AI

He's cute though!

And cuddly on his terms (he sometimes dodges head pets, we say he needs to give consent), sweet, smart, and has a lot of personality.  He's not easy though.  Trainers feel it's some sort of trauma from his previous owners.  They had him from 7 weeks until 5 months old, then returned him to the shelter.