It’s July. The garden is starting come into it’s own. That means the tomatoes are ripening, the peppers have been coming in, most of the flowers are in full bloom–though some are past their prime–and the winter squash are big but not yet ripe.

This year I’ve been making a lot of flower arrangements. I don’t always do this, because I worry that cutting blooms might make things look less full. But the flowers are so plentiful this year — some of them have even spread to parts of the yard where flowers were never meant to be — that it seems silly not to bring some of them indoors.

Below you will find a picture of Black-Eyed-Susans growing on the side of my shed and behind the last vegetable bed. If you look closely you can see a strange metal grate I took from grandparents’ basement, which has some kind of squash growing on it. It doesn’t look like any of my other squash so I’m thinking it’s probably a pumpkin. You can also see part of the compost bin, which is probably why all these volunteers plants are calling this area home. Strange things pop up around your dumping grounds.

This is my first year successfully growing a spaghetti squash. My friend found starter plants at her nursery of choice and I ended up wit ha couple of her cast-offs. By the time I got the plants I was already out of room in my veggie beds, so I decided to plant these guys along my fence…and wouldn’t you know, it worked.