Fleurs, fleurs and more fleurs!

Hi. I've been busy. What can I say? I have no excuses for the rarity of posts this summer. Only that we've been on our boat ALL.THE.TIME! It's been perfect boating weather all of July and August, so far, has been hot and humid and the only relief is on our beloved boaty, so we've been boating fools this summer!

Tally of lobsters, you ask? 23 and counting! And that doesn't include the three billion small ones or females that we've caught and thrown back in! 23 keepers! Isn't that so great? We have 5 in our live well at the dock as we speak. Lobsters for dinner tonight! Wooo hoooo!

In other world news, the flower box competition is still being judged, so I've been fuss fuss fussing over them every day since last week. Dead-heading, watering, fluffing...And you know what? Right smack-dab in the middle of the dang competition, one of my cute little million bells (like mini-petunias) died. It just pooped out on me. Soooo weird. Luckily, I had two others in a different planter that I had grown, so I plopped those in a couple days ago. They are doing well, luckily...So odd how one little plant out of the zillion I have out there just decided to up and die on me.

I took lots and lots of pictures for your viewing pleasure, so let's go to the photos, shall we?

My insane cherry tomato plant that has probably 100 tomatoes on it. I pick about 8-10 every day and they are soooooo good:
In fact I have 6 on my counter right now!

The boltonia in bloom:


My Big Boy tomato plant that is neither big nor a boy. The plant itself completely pooped out on me about a month ago, but I let the tomatoes remain to ripen:

Eggplant doing quite well in the flower bed by the back door:


The fleurs and herb garden at the back door:

I have more herbs going in the back yard - a basil plant, chives, rosemary, sage and thyme.

The pickling cucumber plants that have gone HOG wild! I have 85 thousand cucumbers coming! So EXCITING:


Should be ready to pick some maybe next week! Yipppeeee! I'm sooooo excited! This is my first year growing cucumbers!

The adorable balloon flowers in the flower beds:
I love their balloony-ness right before they bloom! So cute!

And one of my favorite discoveries this year - variegated nasturtium!
Big, big fan of the variegated anything...

And, last, but not least for today, the flower boxes in all of their summery glory:






Wish me luck on winning the flower box competition! I'm very proud of these this year! Been a lot of work, but it's paid off in a big way, I think!

Ok. Must run. Going to do some painting on boaty today, among other exciting, glamorous things!

Ciao!