This poor plant was taller earlier on in the summer (took this picture in early September i think), and had a few more branches. The squirls broke several branches and windy weather got one. Even still, it had a number of flowers that kept blooming through to late September.

This is the same pumpkin from the previous entry as it looked in the begining of September. The side on the ground turned out a bit flat, but that was handy when I carved it. I wanted to get some pictures of it carved and lit up but I forgot to take them.
By this point the leaves were suffering from an odd white coating that I think is powdery mildew. You can see it on the leaf on the left.

This head is almost ready to be picked. It is easy to tell the fertalized seeds from the unfetalized. Or so it seems. More often then I liked it turned out that seeds I thought were fertile hadn't fully developed. Just the largest seeds are actually going to be useable, the rest must have stopped growing at some point though they were fertalized.

A sunflower from the plant by the backdoor. It's just past it's prime here and petals are starting to fall off.

Ok, trying again. Orange cosmos flower.

A flax flower and an orange cosmos flower.

Another big spider. This one did move quite a bit, it was difficult to get a clear shot of it. Even this picture at it's full resolution is ever so slightly fuzzy. This is a garden balsam plant it is sitting on.

I walked right into the Big web this spider made between the bush under the window you can see in some pictures of the back wall, and the sunflower plant beside the back door. When I backed out of the web I looked around and spotted the spider, was wigged out for a moment (it's big and harry, you'd be wigged out too), and then went to get my camera. It was a well behaved subject and didn't move much. Due to a bit of wind I had to hold the branch of the bush steady to take pictures and I kept thinking it would move any moment and crawl on my hand. It didn't.

One of our bees on a sunflower in the upper deck garden. The bees live under the pool walkway. We see them coming and going from between the slabs. They've been there for two years so far without it being a problem so we've opted to let them be. The full version of this picture make a great desktop image.

Adorable little bleepity bleeping squirl that crawled between the fence boards with the intention of stealing sunflower heads. I was sitting outside taking pictures of the flowers being visited by our resident bees (hive in the yard) when he came along.

These are the two potted pumpkin clones I had outside. Both lived, though the one in the larger pot fared better. It even had a number of flowers. I kept meaning to bring the pots inside before it got too cold, but I never did and consequently they died. But hey, at least I know growing pumpkin cuttngs can work. Useful information for this year if I decide to try it again.

Here you can see how the pumpkin vine is taking over everything. It's crawled up the bush on the right and is heading voer the evergreen in the center. That is the vine that later grew down the other side and devleoped a 6th pumpkin that we didn't let mature.

This was supposed to be posted with the previous picture of the vine. See the previous entry for a breif explination of what is going on in the upper right.

My sister was moving the couch out of the back door the day I took these. She's going to be thrilled that I posted a picture of her in her PJ bottoms, but that is one of the better pictures that shows how the pumpkin plant took over the yard. In the other picture you can see that the vine has grown over the edge of the pool and is just about to touch the water. Later I trimmed it back to where the gravel and the walkway around the pool meet.

The first of many long overdue pictures of my garden. This is, obviously, a young pumpkin. As you can see something tried to eat it. I don't know what, but it was most likely slugs or squirls.

Buyers remorse now, fun later

I just (two seconds ago) bought the seeds from Thompson and Morgan I mentioned in the previous entry.
I took a couple of pansies off the list and lowered the total by $10, but couldn't give up anything else.

Shopping

I spent far too much time on Thompson & Morgan's website today looking though their online seed catalogue. I'm trying to not sepend a fortune on seeds but it is very difficult to resist the pretty flowers and the interesting vegetables.
Earlier my shopping cart total was estimated at a little over $100, which was more then I wanted to spend. Now, after removing some plants and adding others, it's just under $150.

Spending so much on seeds seems a little silly in some ways but when you consider the number of hours of enjoyment a garden gives you in comparison to other forms of entertainment you can spend money on, suddenly $150 for seeds doesn't seem so bad.
It looks even cheaper when you consider the savings I'd have from collectiong seeds from this summer's plants for next year's use. Gardening pays for itself if you do that really...

Yeah, I'm trying to talk myself out of taking things off the list. (sigh)

Square Foot Gardening

Mac at Pesky'apostraphe mentioned the other day that she will be square foot gardening this year. I followed the link in her entry to the SFG website and found the method outlined there quite interesting. It might also be a solution to the probelm of wanting to grow a pumpkin plant again this year but not having the vertical space for it, as was proven by last year's pumpkin plant.
Acording to the SFG website you can train a pumpin plant along a trelis like any other vine, and you an do that with watermelon too.
This has me considering building a couple of very strong trelises and grwoing a pumpkin plant and a watermelon plant. If it worked I'd get the plants, my family woudln't be irritated by the vines, and as a bonus the fruit would be protected from the slugs and whatever else it was that chewed holes in my pumpkins last year.

I'm also planning to grow tomatos, peas, corn, sunflowers, flax, and misc. wildflowers.