The morning dew helped the webs stand out a bit from their surroundings. But I still had trouble focusing accurately. Still, even slightly out of focus, this web is impressive.

Next is Angelica gigas (Korean Angelica), in her full glory.

And now on to Limelight hydrangea, the best and only hydrangea worth growing in my opinion. It has been reliably packed with huge upright balls year after year. I ripped out 3 Nikko blues this year- not one single bloom after 3 years.

Pictured here  blue vervain (Verbena hastata) grown from seed this year and already blooming away. It is almost indistinguishable from hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), which I also grow. In the background is the lovely Hopi-Dye Amaranth, an annual that sows itself everywhere.

Cleome is another annual that seeds itself with abandon. But it is very welcome here this time of year.

Pictured here is a cluster of unripe and one ripening Toka.

If I didn’t have so many other fruits and veggies to process I would be out in the ditch picking these elderberries.

We’ve had MN Midgets before, so while they are not new, they are a favorite. Perfect size and flavor. A small cantaloupe with super sweet flavor.

But now we have something new. Or new to us anyway. The Banana Melon.

Turns out this variety was popular back in the late 1800′s. It was in the seed catalogs of the day, so I’m guessing it enjoyed some level of popularity. Either that or some clever marketer realized we gardeners enjoy planting different varieties and was trying to sell us on an oddity. I know that’s why I bought them.

They are large. Much larger than I would ever have expected. This one was about 13”, but I gather they can grow close to 2 feet. I picked it slightly immature I think, but there was a little soft spot, so rather than let it rot, I thought we should try it.

It’s pretty good. The taste and texture is much like a cantaloupe. It was not quite as sweet as our MN Midgets, but maybe that was due to immaturity. The vines love to climb, and it appears to be a heavy producer – if only we had a longer Summer. And not to be a complainer, but many sites and catalogs claim this melon’s name is derived from it’s shape — sure, it’s oblong like a banana, but it doesn’t have that quintessential banana curve to it. I vote for renaming this the Yellow Mellow Melon.

(Here is the sunflower set on Flickr if the above slideshow doesn’t play for you.)

I’m very pleased with this totally unplanned ensemble of Joe, Verbena bonariensis and Hopi-Dye Amaranth- the latter 2 seeded themselves. Notice the Russian sage foliage in the foreground. I love this plant but but am at odds with them since in my garden they never seem to have the space they need to hold their  their branches erect. This one looks better than my others, which look knotted up, cramped and just plain unattractive. I have resorted to either shearing these down multiple times or ripping them out entirely.  They don’t respond well to my tendency to plant things too close together. While we’re on that topic, last year I planted a shrub a little too close to Joe Pye. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this would soon become problematic. My gardening friend Shelby suggested I move the shrub and not even think about trying to dig up Joe. This spring it was apparent that Joe wanted to swallow that shrub alive. I couldn’t believe how he had increased. There were 2 huge distinctly separate clumps of him cornering the poor shrub. I didn’t remember planting 2 Joe Pyes- but then again I don’t remember planting a lot of things. Could a single Joe Pye plant do that? I still haven’t taken any real action (not surprising to those who know me). But for kicks I did slice off a few small pieces of Joe with a sharp spade, which felt like trying to dig into compacted gravel. I replanted these pieces in my new bed, which needs spreaders like Joe to cover the ground. They are now blooming away happily, just not as tall as big Joe since they were transplanted. I would never want to attempt to dig up big Joe entirely.

two cucumber hills climbing tomato cages

It turns out 18 cucumber plants is way too many. In my defense, I was still rebounding from last year’s poor garden-cucumber relationship. I know, it’s unhealthy.

3 varieties: Lemon, Suhyo tk, Homemade Pickles

That unhealthy relationship has led to some nice cucumber salads, several trips to local food banks (they welcome fresh produce donations), and the realization that canning pickles isn’t so hard.

Step 1: Collect and wash cucumbers

Only one of our varieties is actually a pickling kind – I’m sure the others would likely do fine, but they wouldn’t look like pickles. Aesthetics are important.

Step 2: Slice cucumbers into halves or spears

I found some fresh-pack dill pickling canning recipes. Fresh-packing means there is no soaking or cooking of the cucumber for days/weeks, but it does still call for several ingredients. I was at the store purchasing quart jars when I noticed some packaged mixes. Much simpler than purchasing all the ingredients separately. Perhaps I have sacrificed on overall pickling potential, but I wasn’t really setting out to win any awards. I just wanted to can some pickles.

Steps 3-8: Follow instructions on pickling mix package

I’ve used two different pickling mixes now: Mrs. Wages and Ball, both Kosher Dill mixes. They appear about the same, but Mrs. Wages is a slightly larger package making an additional quart jar. That’s good if you have many cucumbers, but not good if you have a small stove that requires a smaller hot-water canner.

Please note that I refrained from using the following puns and word-plays when writing this posting:

• In a bit of a pickle
• That ain’t kosher
• Dill-iberate
• Dill-ectable
• Canning what you can can
• Had a ball
• Indistinguisha-ball

I wanted so badly to hold him in my palm and love him up, but I restrained myself so we could get the photo. He was perched on (or rather stuck to) a magnolia leaf- excellent choice of tree my little friend.

Now on to the veggie garden. We are growing Red Burgundy okra this year. Everything about this plant is attractive- the flowers, the leaves, and the red fruits themselves. This would look great as an ornamental. In fact, Frances of fairegarden talks about drying them for a fall wreath in one of her recent posts. This is a wonderful garden blog, please do check it out.

What’s making me happy lately besides the recently purchased very precious (and expensive!) Heronswood Globe Katsura tree ?  More on that later.  The newer “tree shrub groundcover area”, for lack of a better name.  After viewing expertly designed large scale plantings of the aforementioned at The Oregon Garden last year, I fully embraced this aesthetic and realized that in many ways it makes sense for our setting: easy to maintain + multi-season interest.

The shapes, textures and foliage colors are compelling enough with or without blooms. This isn’t exactly the case in my “fireworks” bed, where the show is about over.

I like to think the beans of the Jack’s plant would also be magical. Maybe a few seeds have survived and have been past down through the generations. And maybe one day I will trade those seeds for a cow. I’ll need a cow first.