I misplaced my good camera, the one I used to take the following photographs. Until I find it, I’m limited to grainy iPhone snaps, or the marginally better (or not) pictures I might take if I dig out my old Sony Ericsson CyberShot cell phone. That camera was good but became distorted through the kinds of mishaps that phones can get into.

And more bad news: the beautiful cucumbers that made up for the dismal start to my backyard garden? Most of them got cucumber wilt, a bacterial disease transmitted by cucumber beetles. I wrote a paper on them only a few months ago. The paper is dry, chunky, and a synthesis of a lot of information out there. It’s useful to the organic farmer planting a good couple of rows of cucurbits.

As the growing season soon will be over, I’m planning my garden changes so that next year is more productive – other gardens near me were lusher. This is what I want: a proper fence down the meridian of the front yard, and a rain barrel with a seeping hose so that I can better serve the water needs of my front garden. The back garden wants lots of compost enrichment this fall, soil testing in the spring, liming it, and getting things better prepared earlier in the season.

Here are photos of my garden two weeks ago, when the drought finally ended. You can see tiny watermelons (they didn’t make it – it’s a mystery what happened to them) and a new watermelon sprout with attendant tomatoes, basil, and a small pepper plant.

The chicken-wire barricade there is my rabbit fence – not like it stops them, it only slows them down. There’s tasty, tasty clover to be had…

And my first fruits of the garden – not counting a handful of curly yellow beans – are these delicious cherry tomatoes. The parent plant is very prolific. I am looking forward to having more of them this coming weekend, when I return to Montreal from my parents’ home in Ontario.

The cool weather has brought on more new growth. So at least there’s that.

Lastly, the flax seed I’d scattered in the front yard is in bloom:

Flax plant in flower
Flax plant in flower

If you want to catch up with my garden adventure, each of these blog posts has “Previous post – Next post” navigation buttons at the bottom. They take you through my writings in chronological order, but the previous post was A Few Garden Photos – The Harvest Slowly Begins, and the next post is:
The Garden Harvest, Pickling, And Homemade Sauerkraut