Lazy Gardening, Cosmos Blooming.

I haven't had much energy these past few days. I'm not exactly sure what it is but I have severely neglected the garden to say the very least.
A very kind friend on a gardening site send me seeds that I've yet to try previously. It was very generous. I've had a lot of really nice friends recently sending me seeds to help me grow a wonderful lush patch of earth and it really means so much to me! Specifically my friend Sadie Sams! She has sent me Eggplant and Kohlrabi, in addition to tons of flower seeds that I am really excited to try out. My favorite out of all of them are the Red Sunflowers. I've never seen them around here at all.

The few cosmo seeds that I scattered under my front window are finally blooming! I hope a few more open up, and I'll take a photo. They are shades of magenta and lilac. Cosmos are such cute little flowers, they grow up tall about 2-3' and then have very sweet delicate little flowers. Very colorful!

One of the packet of seeds that I was sent by my friend at MyFolia that I am especially excited to try is the "Purple Cape" cauliflower. This variety is meant for colder climates as I hear. Overwintering is something I have never made an attempt at but it is how to grow this particular cauliflower, so I will give it a shot! Nothing like a new adventure in gardening. Kale is another plant on the list that I have no grown before, which I now have the opportunity to grow.
I HIGHLY recommend anyone check out MyFolia, there are tons of kind and caring people there that LOVE to swap seeds! There is even a map showing you where the seeds traveled from to you, and a note for the person receiving the seeds if the sender chooses. It's very awesome.

I just enjoyed the first cucumber of the season. It was so tasty! I forgot to take a photo, as it is very dark out but I don't think it was ready yet.

Photo Update: Lemon Flowers, Baby Pumpkins, & Siamese Cucumbers

Improved Meyer's Lemon Flowers

I love this photo! This is the lemon tree I purchased for $10 on sale. Yay! I am really happy to see the flowers, I think they are REALLY pretty.

Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin

I am so excited to see the first pumpkin finally pollinate! The plant produced a few female flowers however at the time there were no male flowers on it or other plants. Thankfully the pumpkin pot in the front yard flowered profusely with male flowers, and suddenly I had a golfball sized baby pumpkin. It is now the size of a grapefruit!

Siamese Boston Pickling Cucumbers

As you can see in the photo, I have 2 baby cucumbers connected! They both look pollinated, it just looks like they sprouted off the same stem. I have heard of this before on MyFolia!!! I believe it is called a mega-bloom.

A very bottom heavy Boston Pickling Cucumber

This cucumber looks very bottom heavy. I've never seen one like this, and I'm not sure if it is an issue because it wasn't completely pollinated.. But the thing is the bottom looks much larger than those of others.

Orange Habaneros

To add a bit of color to the post, my habaneros are ripening like crazy!! Yum. They are perfect to give away as 1 goes a long way for some people.

Zone 8 Gardening.. AKA "Dude, Where's my Summer?"

Amusing title, isn't it? Sad thing is, it is absolutely true. This summer in my lovely zone 8 area, we've had virtually zero days above 80 Fahrenheit, which is also 26.7 Celsius for all my Marvelous Metric friends. Shout out to the UK, and the western park of Canada! You my friends, may also be in a zone 8 area.
Anyway, this is AUGUST for crying out loud. Where is my summer? It was cloudy and blag on the 9th, my birthday. I am prepared for at least a few days of heat, whereas my tomatoes on the other hand seem to really love this weather.

As the lackluster summer starts to come to an end, and I hear more and more reports that we will have a cold and all together tough La Nina winter again.. I wish for a green house and some crops that will grow beautifully during the chilly season. The few very cold months we have can sometimes be a bit brutal and I am really thankful that the Pacific Northwest does not drop in temperature more than it does. It could be much worse! Wind is more often than not the worst enemy around these parts with the vast number of trees known to grow here.The heat lovers that are not annual will be coming inside soon, my peppers and honestly unsure of my artichoke still. It could easily be potted up but I worry about hurting it.
My Brussels sprouts are getting heavy mulching even though they sweeten up with frost. I'm also searching for seeds for frost hardy vegetables, including the purple sprouting broccoli I hear is a wonderful crop to grow here. I'm not sure if I could get over the purple heads though.. there is also purple cauliflower, which I read turns green when cooked. SO weird!! I'm searching for some cold hardy cabbage as well.
Brassica family seems to really thrive in this area is cared for right.
Winter Squash is next on my list, with Spaghetti Squash in the lead!! I am so so excited for this plant. I only obtained 4 seeds and sadly one singly little guy sprouted. This one will be treated like my baby, that is for sure. I absolutely need to research a bit more about the care of these but it is called a winter squash, hopefully it's for a good reason. Butternut squash is another I am interested in trying as it is also a winter squash variety.
Not all members of the Cucurbita family are hardy in the winter so it is very important to check what kind you are planting and when.
Many of the Allium family can be sown in this season, late summer and successfully grow through the winter.

Most of this I have not tried. This is my first winter season trying to garden, and I will most definitely report my successes as well as absolutely failures. I'm not sure which way it'll go, though. Might be more failures than successes ;)