Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day October

Better late than never! I took these pics yesterday, but didn't get to blog until now. Still, I was thinking of y'all, and I did remember the camera!

You might notice how empty my lil flowerpot garden looks without the squash and pumpkin vines. Over the two months that I was sick, the squash bugs just decimated the vines... evidently they are only drawn by the female flowers, so just as bloom reached its peak, the bugs descended. Aaaaack! Well, I know better for next year. I'll just have to concentrate on different crops.

Long after I thought the plants had given up, there's one last green bean. And then, amazingly enough, there are....

Bell peppers! I have five now (one fell off), but imagine my surprise when the plant basically languished all summer long, then caught a virus--looks like peach leaf curl, actually, lol--and THEN started setting peppers! It's cold now, so I doubt they'll ripen and they might not even get to full-size, but what the heck! They're peppers!

Here is my bloom for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Yep! Indeed, that IS an eggplant blossom. What is WITH these plants? The sun has disappeared, lol! But I have three baby eggplants and, as of today, two blooms.

Combined with the peppers, this is more produce than I got all summer long. Who knew?!

Now is that a beautiful sight? The mint nearly died off completely; only one sad sprig was left. The weather cooled, it rained a couple times, and the mint started growing.... and then it leaned over and grew some more! I moved the pots one day and they snapped apart.

Huh? They weren't attached... then I realized the MINT had snapped apart, after it had colonized the adjacent pot. Now THAT'S the mint I know and love, lol!

Look at that basil!! It came back too, just like the mint, but without the colonizing tendencies. it hasn;6t had a chance to colonize anything--I've harvested it twice in the past couple weeks, and it's coming back yet again.

My wonderful brave portulaca though... well, let us kindly say it is reduced to sadness and comment no more.

*elaborate sigh upon its behalf*

The oregano and tarragon have been harvested again and again and they're still going strong, but the cosmos is another one of those which leave me scratching my head. Tis the only one that survived (I planted a dozen seeds), and it hasn't bloomed yet. Too bad the foliage isn't edible! If it were blooming, it would be wonderful; this is Cosmos sulphurea "Bright Lights" and it's easily one of my most favorite summer flowers.

The pansies are trying valiantly....

This is the original butternut squash pot and I guess that squash was REALLY greedy! Judging by the state of the pansies only a couple weeks after transplanting, there is next to no nitrogen left in that pot! I'll have to fertilize it once more, full strength this time (I had been going half-strength, not expecting more flowers on the veggies).

Here we have that amazing purple verbena, my other bloom for you. This is another plant that surprised the heck out of me. It will bloom a while longer, I think, since frost isn't predicted for a while yet.

These are the manager's strip gardens. I think the young tree in the first one might be a weed. Her gardens did nothing for most of the summer, also, so I'm thinking it must be our microclimate. This garden is almost completely in shade and I think she planted it well.

This garden has VERY little root room between the parking curb and the fence, and again, I think she planted it well... but even though it got almost as much sun as my flowerpot garden did, it also did nothing for a couple months after she first planted it this summer.

This is my neighbor's garden. She commandeered this little space between the driveway and the back fence, cleaned it up, weeded it out, and planted pansies and asters. Again, it is very slow to get started. There are a couple blooms on her pansies, though.

Walking through the neighborhood, I see that sticks are beginning to fall from the trees. It is so amazing that the trees just GIVE people sticks like that! Trees most definitely do not shed their young branches in the desert! Maybe it's because of the climate? Or because of the species... none of these trees grow in the southwest desert.

These brqanches demanded a pic. Can you see why?

Take a closer look....
LICHENS! Amazing, isn't it???
Now check this out... are they seedlings, growing in the pattern they fell?

Or is that branch resprouting? I couldn't tell!

Look at the trunk of the tree the branch fell from.

Moss, and mushrooms!!! OH, how I love Wichita!

My final pic... the mimosa tree at the back of the neighbor's yard. Those blossoms did what blossoms do. Look at all those pods!

What's blooming in your area right now?