September Vibes

It’s a really good thing I committed to more flowers in our vegetable garden this summer. Because I’m exhausted, per the usual late summer fatigue of processing hundreds of pounds of tomatoes, succession planting for six months straight, and keeping up with all the other intensive summer vegetable harvests and processing needs.

And to be clear, this is all a voluntary, self-induced fatigue that over time will transform from fatigue to romance once the subzero temperatures freeze us inside huddled by the fire. How quickly our minds twist exhaustion into something that took little effort.

My fatigue is buoyed by the hundreds of annual flowers I planted in the garden this year. So let’s celebrate some of my favorite views right now.

If you stand at just the right angle right now, you really could be in a flower garden. And I’m pretty pleased with how the layered flowers across four beds seen here makes a bold color statement. I’m especially happy with this brilliant red zinnia (I think it’s wine Benary’s Giant from Johnny’s Seeds).

The Benary’s Giant series is one of three types of zinnia I grow. Orange Benary’s Giant is another reliable producer for us, and it’s a favorite with pretty much anything with wings. I think the pink ones here are Senora, though not as impressive as older seed has produced, so I’m not sure what’s up with that.

This is another great cross section, basically looking in the opposite direction as the first image above. Again, with a view of five beds, you get a big burst of color and texture with some popf of vegetables mixed in. It’s high up there on my current favorite view here.

I have been blown away at the productivity of these Thumbelina Zinnia, a new zinnia variety for me this summer. I paired it with my artichokes here, and the extras are tossed in and around other beds. It has been covered and buzzing with pollinators for the past 2.5 months and my garden will never be without it ever again.