September Already ? WARNING! A Gazillion Pictures :)

Summer is almost over and I'm still wishing it would last a lot longer. I'm feeling this  has been the shortest summer ever..... at least for me. 

Staying cold and wet so late this Spring and early Summer sure didn't help any and then getting injured in mid- July and being pretty much down for the next 4 or 5 weeks only made it appear even shorter. 

Now here it is only mid- September and fall like weather has been hanging around for a couple of weeks and appears to be here to stay. :(

I thought my back injury was minor and would heal itself in a few weeks with therapy. However the back is not cooperating at all. About the time I think we are making progress .... I move ever so slightly the wrong direction (and it's never the same way twice ? ) and boom we are back at nearly the beginning.  We are having a surgical consult in October and we'll see what happens then. 

This is why there haven't been many garden post this summer. Not much gardening going on this year :( 

With the cooler and wetter summer the flower gardens have been absolutely beautiful...if a little weedier than normal.

 With the late and colder Spring I was beginning to wonder if we would have any Passion Vines this year... but they finally showed up ♥

I bought a new wind chime for the fish pond...but ended up moving it to the deck. Because the glass was green and it just blended in with all of the plants. I'm in the process of making a blue one though. Found an old bottle cutter at a thrift store and it works great :) 

 The "Naked Ladies"   aka "Surprise Lilies" aka " Magic Lilies" were the best ever this year. What do you call them in your part of the world? 

 The Blackeyed Susan's  really loved the weather and their new home .

My giant Sunflower was spectacular...that is until a big storm came through and knocked it down. We tried to brace it back up but it was a no go and I eventually had to cut it down completely...so sad.  

 The smaller front bed next to the porch was very nice all summer and still looks good...

 .... and you can never go wrong with Zenna's  and they just keep right on blooming til the very end ♥

 Just a small section of the other side of the porch flower bed. 

 The Marshmallows when they were at their best. They are still blooming but not as many now... they loved the weather this year and are over 10 ft tall. 

 Looking down at the fish pond from the deck...

 ... and a closer look at some of the water plants. 

Two of the three apple trees were loaded this year and we'll have applesauce for the winter and probably longer 

 So far I have made 18 quarts of applesauce and 8 pints of apple butter and that is just off the first tree. The second tree is now ready but I'm not sure that I am  :/ .

 At one point I had 3 pans cooking at once but that ended up being too much to handle. 

This year I planted more milkweed and we had more Monarchs than we've had in years...

...and now I have caterpillars everywhere :) 

Hopefully next year will even bring more Monarchs and other butterflies. 

Today I'm trying my hand at making my own fermented hot sauce...since the one thing I do have lots of from the veggie garden is hot peppers...

Hopefully it will turn out at least usable :) 

So this is what happens when I don't post often....you get a gazillion pictures all at once :) It could have been worse.... I did leave out a whole lot of them LOL! 

Catch ya all later....