The crickets are out in full force, which as Rachel reminded me means that fall is on the way.

A quick note about weeds for readers (assuming we have any): if you are, like us, lazy about weeding, or simply don't have the time to keep it up, a good idea would be to focus on the most pervasive ones to keep your garden looking decent. My votes go toward crab grass and milkweed. These are much easier to pull up or dig out when young, and if allowed to go to seed, one can quickly become 20, and 20 becomes 400, within a mere few weeks. Now that it has become difficult to tell the difference between weeds and herbs in the first herb patch, I can attest to this (and it is almost entirely crab grass with some milkweed mixed in). Once either one goes to seed, it's not enough to simply get the roots out of the ground and let it lie there to compost, so disposal adds an extra unwanted step. Get those weeds out early and often! A chore that could take a few minutes a day can easily turn into a losing battle that can ruin an otherwise good-looking garden plot.

Tomatoes are beginning to ripen in force. Jim and I should do a major harvest with buckets and other large conatiners sometime this week.

i went to the garden for a little over an hour 7:30-8:45pm, sunday. i made sure everything got watered. the butterfly and veg gardens got watered for an hour. i hand watered the rest (by hose anyway).
theres a lot of tomatoes ripening. i can't believe the size of the sunflowers. one has to be nearing the 8 foot mark.
i picked 3 tomatoes. i tried to pick a couple on andy miller's side and found they'd been half consumed by some animal. funny, that, considering the fence. i suppose it was defeated (i had never staked it in properly after weeding a few weeks ago).

its definitely, definitely time for a big harvest, including the tops of herbs.. also, the weeds are getting huge too. we may need a lawnmower -- with school starting in a few weeks, we need to clean in up well before the weekeend of the 15th. i left a meesage on wendy's machine about borrowing hers.

not enought time to work tonight, and the weather was been rather unpleasant for working in the garden. much too hot, highs in the 90s at least till wednesday. ugh.
yet, it has to get done. gonna have to be brave and work hard despite the elements.

unfortunately, i have gotten very poor, and my time at the garden will be limited as i seek some temp work to float me through till school starts.