Actually, pretty much most everything. After 3 or 4 years of either too cold, too dry, too wet, too many bugs I declared to my garden "One last chance before you all become shrubbery!" They responded,
Actually, I decided my soil needed perking up. I added composted cow manure and pelleted bloom food wherever I could together with some garden lime. Yes, I know I could make my own compost, I learned how at my mother's knee, but I just don't feel like it, and DH just won't clear out the spot I wanted for it either. Mama also said I should dump the ashes from my fireplace out in the garden too, but I'm too lazy, I'd rather let them sit down there in that pit made especially for them down in the basement. Someday I'll have a bunch of ashes and I'll do it then.

I rather wish spring hadn't been so cool and damp again. With a nice warm May and September I can get three bloomings from my Shastas. Number one just finished, I'm hoping for number two. My polyantha roses are doing great. I'm thinking more and more that I may re-do the back garden with them, since I need to dig up and replenish the rest of the soil back there anyway.

Our Magellan zinnias are looking good and making me wish we had planted more. In the vegetable garden, Tango eggplants are outstanding and, despite groundhog damage, Kwintus pole beans are very rapid growers. Stokes Ivory Banana hybrid peppers have been going great guns since early in June. In the tomato patch, Burpee's new Brandy Boy is winning the taste tests.

MM

My roses are doing very well this year too. The big thick blanket of snow did them well last winter. I grow mostly Austins so they have been in non-stop bloom since June. But even my William Baffin, New Dawn, and rugosas have been putting out occasional new canes with bloom (usually once-bloomers for me).

Overall my veg. garden is not doing as well as usual. Maybe the cold spring, but it certainly has warmed up the past month and a half, which should make up for the slow start. Only ripe tomatoes we've had are from a container-grown cluster type that spent half the season in the greenhouse. Eggplants seeming not as productive as usual. Squash has been slower, but this is ok as we certainly have enough to eat vs. too much. Even green beans not as productive as usual, I haven't had to push them off on my neighbors and friends. Strawberry crop was a bust--much less berries than usual and a lot of mold from all that rain. Peppers doing fine though.

This has been a great year for our flower gardens - Everything is much healthier than last year. Because of too many deer - we don't do a vegetables other than some containers of tomatos on the deck which are bearing nicely. We've had a few japanese beetles but not too bad.

The pumpkins, squash, and carrots are doing well for me this year. Tomatoes are not doing so well for some reason. I planted Marigolds between each plant to keep the horn worms away this year and it worked, but I'm afraid that they took away a lot of the nutrients for the Tomato plants.

MaineDad

We have world class cucumbers this summer. I had a bed with 10 young clematis plants and this spring DH thought there was a lot of room going to waste, so he interplanted with young cucumber seedlings in early June. I've been feeding the clematis a lot (Rose Tone monthly) and watering every week or so and ... well, the cukes have loved it too! We have the biggest, healthiest, most productive cucumber plants ever! Makes me think we've been starving them all these years. LOL! Right now there are three of the big metal salad bowls full of cukes in the fridge - guess what I'm doing this afternoon! Anybody got a great pickle recipe to share? LOL!

Hi everyone hope you are enjoying this hot weather.Last year I planted quite a few roses and did not loose any of them,however my climbing Golden Showers is just begining to form its first small bud after it looked like the winter had killed it.My climbing America survived but only just and it did not put out half as many blooms as last year.Should I cut them both way down prior to hilling up with leaves and mulch this fall? I would hate to loose them as the were just beautiful last year.Thanks Josie-2