I went in and told my husband that we had beans. He said they wouldn't hurt me as long as I didn't make them mad. (?) This must be an agressive variety!
This tomato was recently put behind bars. 
These lettuces went into lockdown and now there is no way in or out for the cat or the crickets. 
I love blue in the garden. It's subtle but it can make you stop in your tracks, and get down low so that you are surrounded by it.
I think that everyone should run out and buy Blue Salvia to stimulate the economy.
The blue of the Chaste Tree stands out on the way to check on the melons.
Thank goodness I am able to refrain from picking the cute ones!
The latest rose Donna Darlin' is a whole palet of colors and the camera only hints at it's beauty. Pick up one of these while your out!
And then we have him. There's nothing like This Blue! 
Oh great, now the turnips are wearing jewelry in their piercings!
Today was the first ever harvest of peaches from the miniture peach tree and it was a huge surprise. I felt one to see how firm it was and it was ready to pick! Judging by the color, size and the slight green cast, I expected they needed more time to ripen, 
except that they are white peaches! They are little, but it is relative. Have you seen their mother? 
I also picked the first ever cucumber from Black Mountain Garden! It is a pickling cucumber and the curiosity was getting to me. Is it edible? Or is this a"clamp your eye shut, start spitting, get it out of here, your trying to poison me" little disapointment? Michael wasn't having any of it, so I took a bite, and it actually tasted great with my coffee which was a another huge surprise because this was the 110 degree cucumber featured in a photo from a couple of weeks ago. Nothing like baby steps to build up your gardening confidence!
With no place to plant broccoli, and a great day to plant broccoli being today and tomorrow according to my new sources, I head out to get a tree box (cheap wood frame for the large trees) thinking I could cut it in half and use it as two square frames, fill it 10 inches high, and be on my way, that way I could plant the broccoli and hold out until next year to decide if I was relocating the cactus bed to put a new bed for vegetables in it's place. So I head to my favorite nursery and just happen to ask about the collapsed wood tubs, figuring they'd be certainly less then $39.95 each because they were in heaps of pieces! Can you believe it! They were $5.00 each! I hit the motherlode! (They weren't easy to put back together mind you until I grew a few new synapsis'! )
So with my raised bed situation all squared (circled) away I don't have to vegetable garden in the rocks.
This is where the artichoke was supposed to go. The dusty green pot satisfies that calling for now.
And here is the very last one and my favorite! I have the strongest desire to get an old levered water pump to place next to this one! I haven't written about it before but the back wall is 2 stories high and I made a promise long ago to keep water away from the back wall so that the people below me wouldn't have to look at the water stain across there visual horizon. So this adds some interest and green, and keeps the water contained! Tommorrow I go to Leslies to pot up about 2000 lettuces (She said 2000) and other vegetables, and then I can get some dirt on my way home and fill these tubs up to finally plant the broccoli. Do I need an intervention? Possibly so, but after about the fourth, and they do no good, what's the point! (Ask my husband!)
With 10 minutes on the timer before the chicken was done, I'm out tearing up the main bed trying to locate the irrigation line that was buried 7 inches below the surface well over 2 years ago. This bed has needed to be reworked. It's no easy task at 7:00 in the evening, but no worries, I've got my trusty pickax and I'll be done in no time! Pickaxes are the way to garden here on Black Mountain. So what's my dirt like you ask? Until I can come up with a better description, I'd say it could pass for a drive-in movie parking lot.
As I plug along, every rock I find gets chucked in the rock holding beds that are located around the property.
Lightly popping them off the wall and they drop right in place.
I don't think I'll ever get to that place where I am not mining rocks. I'll just be doing it less because of the switch to raised beds. 
And over where I was working everything was emerald green so I happily worked in the garden all day. I herded the traveling pots under the apple tree and planted green beans in the pots and plugged them into the watering grid so there is a good chance that the pots might stay there for a while now that they are leashed up, we will have to see. I also replanted all of the lettuces that the crickets wiped out and planted peas and spinach.
The day before the temperature was 110 degrees as this Perky Sue perfectly illustrates.
But yesterday it didn't feel like it, and it was like looking through emerald colored lenses of cooler weather. I'll take Green Color Therapy anyday! 
Today I met with Don Fabbi, of the Doolittle Community Garden in Las Vegas. Don is like the grand wizard of the garden and you can pretty much find him there almost every day of the week answering questions, organizing details and doing whatever else needs to be done to keep everything on target. It is planting time now for fall crops and some of the beds had been freshly planted.
As part of the tour there were some unusual plants to see. This cotton with red tinted leaves was interesting with it's rose colored blossoms and bursting cotton balls. 
Don mentioned that in winter the cotton plants are quite striking in the landscape as a dried ornamental, and in spring the birds like to gather the cotton for nesting material. 
This is Indian Cotton with brown colored fluff.
There are peanuts growing in a few of the beds and they are totally foreign to me. 
This mammoth sunflower was quite ominous and I wondered how I would capture the scale,
So Don agreed to pose by the sunflower as he held up a flowerhead that had recently been granted to the birds. They will really like this towering monster! 
There are 40 beds arranged throughout the property and many of the gardeners are seniors who would prefer to garden in the shade which is why the shade cloth has been provided.
Patti Kathlene, the country western karaoke signing seamstress friend of mine made me a couple of aprons after our antique excursion to Boulder City last week.
Everyone needs something with dingo balls on it in their wardrobe and this one is ridiculously cute! The other one is my alltime favorite and perfect to wear to bring in the fall weather and maybe wrestle with pumpkins or pie or both.
I say Tie One On! Thank you Patti Kathlene! Wanna go sing on Friday? The pizzas on me!
Yesterday I installed a new irrigation valve just for the vegetables and herbs that do require more water then the drought tolerant ornamentals that are scattered about. I'll be able to plant the area under the apple tree, and water the kitchen garden items that are sprinkled about in both the lily bed and iris bed. Eventually this line will extend to the sunning bed where there will be another raised bed to take care of the visions of artichokes that will be over there. Artichokes are so cool. They are a big thistle!
At 100 degrees it was time for a break and a few photos. Here is a pickling cucumber sprawled out across the hot rocks. 
And now the raised bed. I sprayed Die Bug (D.E.) on the radishes and turnips last night just to console myself from thinking that I was powerless against the midnight salad rampage that takes place here nightly. This place is crazy as crickets come nightfall. I will reseed the lettuce, but until then I am waiting for an epiphany. 
Here is the lovely Agate from our fishing trip to Panguitch, UT. The rocks feel like treasure in your hands and sound like glass when they jostle about in your pockets. (The little button was a hitchhiker.) 
So when we got back home there was a new sunflower in the garden,
and crickets or whatever it was ate all of the lettuce seedlings, but other than that everything else in the garden seemed just as we had left it. 
It was time for a roadtrip, so we packed up the gear and headed out to go fishing. We took the scenic highway out by Cedar Breaks, UT,
up where the lava flows touch the sky,
to Panguitch Lake where we heard that the fishing was great!
We were really happy with the accomodations,
that were right across from that old rustic cabin. The insides were cute,
We fished all day but didn't catch anything. They told us stories that people were hauling out boat loads of fish the day before, but today the water was really choppy.
We really enjoyed our stay at Panguitch Lake Resorts.
But for me, the best thing was to get off of the paved road and see surroundings of mullen, fleabane, yarrow, current, white lupine, and other of those familiar plants I long for, and to notice that the ground was covered with a glasious stone, Agate with chips perfect for arrowhead bird points, and palm knives for fish cleaning back in the indian day. This place was awesome. So I pocketed some souvenir rocks that I will share with you saved for next time.
Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, Carry On, and Hurry Back!
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