And here we are at the end of Summer.

I think with it being September that summer is officially drawing to a close. It’s been obvious recently, as the days have gotten a bit more nippy — particularly in the evening — and when you go out at night you want a sweater or a jacket. This means that we will soon be dealing with the ocean of leaves from our two beautiful trees in the backyard. I’m not complaining too much about this though as they provide a lovely amount of shade during the summer time and more than anything else trees will make me feel at home.

It’s been a good summer. Our “square foot” garden was not quite as productive as it might have been had we gotten it started sooner, but next year we will have it built and it should be able to be planted a bit earlier on. And it has not been dreadful at all. We had lettuce, and some onions, spinach earlier in the summer, and a very few tomatoes.

I’ve also managed to keep herbs alive for the entirety of the summer. We’ll see if I manage to keep them alive through the winter as well. I purchased basil, mint, lavender, and oregano, and put them in terracotta plants on my front porch.

This picture was taken rather early in the summer when they were small, but they have mostly survived the summer. I’ve had mint ice water several times and used the oregano and basil in my pasta sauces and salads.

I also had catmint, but it didn’t last the first month. The neighbour’s cat decided to gorge itself on half of the plant and then when I took the other half inside, I forgot to water it as it was separated from the lot – so, Brina enjoyed bits of fresh cat nip early on in the summer until it died a rather horrible death. The Basil also started out with four stems and is down to 1.5. One died early on, the other died a horrible death just a week ago when a typical Walla Walla windstorm knocked it off of the porch. This destroyed one stem and broke another slightly. Now admittedly this one still seems to be living… but I think it only counts as .5 now.

Still, an entire summer for potted plants IS an accomplishment for me. I did not inherent my Great-Grandmother’s brilliant green thumb, and I am hopeful that this bodes well for future attempts.