Today's Reading and More Gardening

Today, I finally began my 'summer reading list' and have been voraciously reading London in Chains: An English Civil War Novel by Gillian Bradshaw about a feisty, 17th century girl who gets a job managing a secret, illegal printing press! I will be finished with it in less than 24 hours, which is what always happens when I get a really good book. I have no restraint; I must know what happens and then I have book withdrawal!

Although it was hard to put down the book at all, I did take some breaks to plant, weed and take pictures in the garden. I have to be a bit better about weeding now that we've had rain, but you'll see in the pictures that there are still plenty of weeds.

The zinnia patch really benefited from the rain cleaning their leaves and nourishing them.

Most are now at waist height or even a little higher.

The mixed planting of winter squash, gourds, pumpkins and sunflowers is one of my favorite bits of the garden. The sunflowers are now taller than me!

The vines are looking for space to grow and I will let them grow out over the lawn if they want to.

Here, you can see the butterfly garden to the left, with lavender colored wild bee balm and coneflowers and butterfly bushes and the sunflower/mixed patch to the right.

You can see the string bean rows are wider after the pounding rain, but they do look happy enough.

This picture is mainly to show you the tomatillos that are now as tall as the tomato cages supporting them. They responded to the rain more than anything else. They are in the background of this picture, looking like a hedge.

I am already anticipating eating the first eggplant.

This Australian Jarrahdale squash is growing well. I just love the shape and color of these, both the immature light green skin and the blue-gray skin and the orange interior of the ripe squash.

A growing Jack O'Lantern.

I couldn't resist posting another picture of the coneflowers as they are so pretty.

Here is a little double cosmos I tucked into the herb bed as I only had 2-3 seedlings of it.

And, these are the lovely brown-eyed susans. Just the first few...you can see there are a lot more buds to open!

Now, back to my book =)