Goodness. It's August already. I don't know about you but the older I get the faster the time seems to fly. Sigh.

Spending as much time on the dock and cleaning up the flower beds as I can. Anticipating creating a rather large shade garden this fall so I can move the existing one (soil is too shallow) into deeper soils. Hope to get the bed built and a few plants moved. But we'll see how that goes in September when the temps cool down.

*****

Stop feeding all perennials and woody plants now. If you keep feeding, they may not harden off enough (get tough enough) to avoid winter damage. You can continue to pump feed to the annuals and veggies. A great island gardener hadn't seen our veggie garden in a few weeks - came by and said, "It's a JUNGLE out there." And it is.

Another sniffed and said, "the veggies won't taste good - too much fertilizer" :-) Not that much my friends, not that much - this old head gardener knows how to get the plants up and growing in a way that optimizes growth but doesn't stretch them. If they were being fed too much, the leave axils (where leaves come out from stem) wouldn't be so close together. They'd be long and stretched. And that's the way of it. You don't treat vegetables rough to get good tasting crops, you grow them without stress. And they optimize their own growth. Two of the tomatoes got so heavy they pulled down their twine. Have to get stronger twine or grow smaller plants. You know where I'm going with that - don't you. :-)

Stress free gardening for both the vegetables and gardener. That's my goal. :-)