As you likely know, the garden has a way of completely transforming itself throughout the course of the growing season, whether we help it…or not. This year I seriously went for it when I was trying to keep the weeds under control, and even hired help once, had amazing relatives come across the state to help tackle it, and my children basically just lived here. Which is not quite as easy considering this property is actually located a few blocks from my home. Thankfully, they really love the garden too. And….my husband is doing an awesome job at building the garden kitchen, that will also have a bathroom in it!!! (Is it silly to be so excited about a bathroom? Maybe don’t answer that.)

Hey look! It’s a jelly bean California poppy! And this is just one of the colors…

But here we have the ever so glorious hardy Hibiscus AKA Hibiscus Moscheutos, I love that they come back every year here in Montana! What a treasure! Also makes an excellent dark red tea that is supposed to be good for heart health as well as a broken heart. Just looking at this photo makes my heart happy. Just remember that these do die back all the way to the ground and seriously can take a bit to look they are alive at all. They are a fall bloomer, which is something everyone needs, just make sure you give it enough water! The blooms generally each only stay open for about a day, so I like to make a habit of going out to look at them and then picking them and bringing them inside to make tea. This is known as a swamp mallow, so if you do a strong infusion, it may become a bit mucilaginous, but to be honest, I find that quite refreshing as a cold drink in the heat of summer. Mucilaginous herbs are helpful for ailments as well, like if you have a dry cough, or if you are having tummy troubles and need some help calming down the inflammation in your gut, it kinda coats it so it can heal. I generally only put one flower in a quart jar of hot water, although because there is more color than there is flavor, I tend to mix it with a bit of lemon balm that I have growing because lemon balm tastes awesome and really has a bright flavor and the ability to bring happiness to your life.

This picture was earlier in the season, but not too early! You can see the bindweed just totally wreaked havoc on my rows. And it grows back faster than I can weed it. I want to try some other tactics to get this weed under control next year, but I really think that just keeping on top of it is going to make a difference for next year.

This picture was taken quite a while after and I probably weeded twice and look! That darn bind weed is still coming back! I even ripped open my jiffy pots, laid them down as weed barrier, and then mulched over the top of that!

If I’m thinking towards the future, the hope is that I can slowly pull back all that plastic and use mulch and compost and plants to be my natural ground cover. I really would enjoy going for the food forest look, but I’ve got a long ways to go.

These plants are mostly peppers, I grew wayyy to many Txorixero (Pronounced Cho-dee-share-dow) which I mistakenly thought was a hot pepper and was happy to discover was instead a sweet pepper. I should’ve done a better job at processing these, but I did process quite a few, and gave a large paper bag full away, sadly because the farm stand wasn’t open this year until after the season was over. But you know what? Progress takes time. And look at the finished product:

Ta-Da!!!! Which…I say finished product, but now that there isn’t much to go into it….I haven’t actually opened it up to the public to sell anything, because I don’t really have much to sell…and things take time. In order to start lettuce and kale and cilantro and all the other cold greens I was thinking of trying to grow and sell over the winter, first I must clean my back room….which is a little bit daunting. It’s not that it is super crazy, it’s just another one of those things that I procrastinate even though I know it will be awesome to start some little seeds.

I also got some help from my kids (!) making this little mini greenhouse to go inside where I will have some grow lights and some succulents for sale! I couldn’t help it, the plant nerd in me was needing some fun new plants after the first hard frost of the year.

Phew, I am finished for the night. Haaappy gardening!