Tuesday, August 23, 2016

An August Garden Part 1

You would think, with a Twitter handle of RamblinGarden, that I would write about my spouse's community garden plot all the time.

You would be wrong.  He's a veggie person. I'm a flower person.

But, you can look at a vegetable garden from the point of view of a flower lover, right?

Right.  Especially when the sunflowers are blooming.

In our community garden plot just to the north of Binghamton, New York, our sunflowers have reseeded themselves for years.  The hot weather has produced a bumper crop.  We let the birds get the seeds, and we enjoy them as cut flowers.  The bees enjoy them as on-site flowers.

But our garden doesn't have just sunflowers.  It has zucchini, and the flowers are beautiful, too.  My spouse grew up, Italian style, eating zucchini flowers, covered in batter and fried.  He rarely makes them, though.

Zinnias.  This is my favorite - believe it or not, this is the real color of one of the flowers.  I wonder how this happened.

Here is a zinnia flower opening.
And one, past its prime, but still attracting a bee.

But there are the veggies, and I promise to write about them soon.  My spouse (not to brag) is an excellent cook, which is a good thing.  If he depended on me...well, that's why he cooks.  And he works so hard in that garden, to bring us fresh produce.

If you garden, which do you like to grow better - flowers, or veggies?

23 comments:

  1. What fantastic images! If I had to pick, I'd probably go with flowers but there's nothing like eating veggies you've grown yourself!

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    1. I do enjoy our homegrown veggies a lot. I just love flowers even more!

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  2. I would love a flower garden no doubt. Byt having tasted fresh veggies from my sis-in-law's garden, I would be tempted to grow veggies too.....And oh my, what beautiful zinnias.....:)

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  3. Vegetable gardens have a beauty of their own and vegetable flowers are often quite attractive - especially to bees! (Well, that is their goal, isn't it?) I'm right there with you on the zinnias and sunflowers, two of my favorite summer flowers.

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    1. I will feature the veggie photos tomorrow, Dorothy!

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  4. I don't garden. Even with house plants, it was always strictly Darwinian for plants in our household. If you could survive with a modicum of attention, you could stay. We ended up with no plants. Sigh. However, I adore looking at flowers---and eating vegetables too. My instagram account is full of flower photos, including some beautiful recent sunflower pics.

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    1. Silk flowers look more realistic than ever. And no, it isn't cheating. I use them in the winter on my table.

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  5. I love both flowers and veggies. Living in an apt I've stuck mostly to flowers and house plants. I've toyed with the idea of patio gardening but that did not happen this year. Maybe next. I look forward to reading about your community garden. We have one on the other side of town and it's amazing.

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  6. I grow flowers and plants in containers but want to have a Meyer Lemon tree soon. Tried tomatoes a longtime ago... They didn't go well. I have a pothos ivy, in the same pot, since I was in my 20s. I add a little dirt and fertilize from time to time and pinch it back. It's beautiful. I've left it to a friend in my will. LOL!

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    1. My late friend had an avocado tree in her Brooklyn home, started by her son in kindergarden (he will be 40 next year). I was so amazed by her green thumb.

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  7. Bad enough when the critters eat my flowers, but when they were destroying my veggies I just gave up growing them. I must plant some zinnias in my front garden next yer. I heard that deer do not like them.

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    1. You do have so many problems. For a couple of years, groundhogs seemed to be eating everything, even our petunias. This year, for some reason, we don't have the problem. I am almost thinking I don't want to know why.

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  8. Since the only plant I ever had I managed to kill, and it was a cactus, I will say I don't like to grow either.

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    1. Even cactus have their own growth requirements. Did you only water it when it rains in Tuscon?

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  9. The flowers are so beautiful! My Grandma always grew zinnias so they are one of my favs! I grow both flowers and veggies- they are both fun in their own right-I just can't seem to keep my veggie garden all neat and pretty!

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    1. Ours is far from neat and pretty. I only take closeups for a reason!

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  10. They are all beautiful but that multicolored zinnia is so unique. You do such a great job of getting me to stop and appreciate the beauty of nature.

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    1. Thank you, and thank you for sharing the post!

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  11. Loved the photos. But i, too, am the veggie, and not the flower, person.

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