@johobbit, my garden is entering the earliest stages of spring. August tends to have a lot of growth and new promise. I have now done all my rose pruning, my friend has cut down my old grapevine (with lots of cuttings, mostly promised to others), done some weeding around my green vege garden, and looked at the bushes that need a serious trim. Two flowering bushes have to be moved - one has never had enough sun, and the other got covered by a larger one that grew quickly. 
I have one fruit tree to be pruned by my friend the horticulturalist, one I am going to remove, and a half-barrel planted with bulbs to drag forward into its place to be decorative in spring.

I've had some produce this year, but my family northwest of me has had far more. My parents canned their tomatoes on Friday and I brought up my paltry offering to add in because I wasn't going to use it. They ended up with 7 quarts of canned tomatoes. Maybe half of one of those was my tomatoes. LOL But I'm just glad they got used. 🙂 
I DO have lots of green tomatoes on the vine still, so maybe we can do a second round where I will be able to contribute far more. 

I ended up with several nice medium sized onions which I've been using. We've had a couple of beets, the carrots were pulled too early by excited kiddos, and the lettuce is beyond usable now. Maybe I can get a fall crop of seeds planted. 

My sweet potato vines are going bonkers so I have high hopes for those. I love sweet potatoes. 

I pulled the vast majority of my basil the other day and it's pretty well dried. I've been crumbling a few leaves a day into a jar. Smells amazing. 

Good to read the updates. 🙂

We have overflowing green and yellow beans, and are frequently enjoying them in our meals. Tomatoes are ripening nicely: I picked our first Early Girl the other day, and the cherry tomatoes have been bursting forth over the past week, mmm. I picked some of our red Romaine lettuce a bit too late, so am now mixing it with other lettuce, to diminish the slightly bitter taste. Beets are being stored away, but we are thoroughly enjoying some fresh, cooked ones too.

The potatoes and Brussel sprouts are not quite ready yet, but we are definitely anticipating all those!

The floral gardens are burgeoning, as they start to enter the best season of the year in terms of their beauty, colour, and lushness ... Autumn! We are going to transplant a couple of large hostas—that are currently in too much sun—to a bit of a shadier spot, so I'm pondering what other perennials to put in their place: it's between coneflowers and a gorgeous bush-type phlox (which I originally thought was pentas, but last week found out differently).

August usually brings us more rain than July, so I am grateful for that, as the skies are quite regularly watering the gardens, rather than the hose.  

I'm having some useful days in the garden while we have some amazing sunshine. (Still winter).

Yesterday I began clearing weeds from my cottage garden area, and then went to the garden shop for some more herb plants, plus one catnip for the cat to enjoy  which I'll plant in a different area. I found that the shop doesn't have spring stock in, Of Course! So my Shire rose is still alone, waiting for another pair of Blue Hobbit plants. There are some self-sown Sweet Pea plants looking a but straggly after I gently moved them to a bed with something to climb on.

I've also bought a mixed pack of Cottage Garden seeds, and thought I'd sprinkle them like the wildflower pack I had a few years ago. However, the instructions say to put them in trays and then plant out seedlings.  Hmm. 

My friend has moved a couple of bigger plants for me,  and the Oak leaf Hydrangea is getting more sun than before. I have one rose bush to move to a better spot before spring growth 

Finally, I bought giant sunflowers, to plant in a few weeks. I still have poppy seedheads to try out, and they'll add some colour. 

Posted by: @coracle

Finally, I bought giant sunflowers, to plant in a few weeks

Beautiful! I need to find the photos of our 10'+ sunflowers, which are in one of our front gardens, planted very close to each other, being volunteers from last year, actually. We have other sunflowers dotted around—some 6'; others 3' (Teddy Bear variety), and they're all so beautiful!

The very strong wind was almost too much for them a week ago, but my sister, husband, and our youngest son somehow gathered them all up—as if in a giant bouquet—twined them together, so they do indeed now look like they are in a huge vase. Really pretty.

EDIT: For those who have FB, here are three shots.

Between wet days and my work schedule, I rather neglected the garden for a week. This morning I picked lots of cracked cherry tomatoes which went in the compost pile. There were far fewer good ones that made it to the kitchen. The regular tomatoes are getting ripe in droves as well. Some of them are cracked too and one of the things to do today is to decide how to use them before they spoil. 

I picked 13 ears of sweet corn! Looking forward to supper tonight--sweet corn is definitely the family's favorite garden produce.

I also picked several yellow squash (from a free packet of seeds). Hubby has a prejudice against any squash other than pumpkin, so I've been trying to disguise the squash. Today it looks like shredding and freezing squash will also be on the to do list. 

I noticed that my garden paths need weeding again, so I hope the weather is nice tomorrow for that. My plan was to get wood chips to mulch the paths, but now I'm considering pea gravel instead since it's more permanent. It will be contained within the garden, so I don't think having it get into the yard will be an issue, but I'm wondering if anyone has experience with pea gravel on garden paths and what you think of it.

We have gravel on our side 'peony walkway', but that is just temporary, as they will be a foundation for a brick path that my husband is going to work on ... sometime in the next decade. I love the gravel—the sound; the simple look. But being right next to grass, yes, those hard stones do get on that part of the yard, which is annoying, especially when it comes to mowing.

But that should look really pretty, @Grandmama. 🙂 And you're right: being within the garden, this shouldn't be an issue for the lawn. Keep us posted!

Breaking news! Two of my three columbines are blooming again. So beautiful! My tall pink phlox are starting to burst out, although the leaves of the plants have developed powdered mildew. They have not had that problem other years, so I must see how I can prevent it next year.  

Signs of Autumn: some of my varieties of Stonecrop/Sedum are beginning to change colour. So pretty. And they're all only going to get better here on in! I adore the look of gardens in the Autumn, as they are so lush, vibrant, fresh, colourful.

I harvested a bunch of beets this past week, which I have just cut up to cook, mmm. The beans are still going, 'though slowing down a tad. Lettuce and cucs are done. Something has been eating my tomatoes. If I could only have one type of food to plant in our gardens, it would be tomatoes. Love 'em so much. We think the culprits might be raccoons, argh. This has not happened other years, even though raccoons have always been around.  

The tops of the potato plants are dying, which is the sign that they can be harvested in the next couple of weeks—certainly by mid-September. We store many of them away in our cool garage to enjoy throughout the snowy months ... off the cement floor, and covered with a blanket, as winters can be very cold here.

Because we typically have more rain in August, I have not had to use our well water as much as in July.

Jo, we have had squirrels take bites out of tomatoes before when we were in a drought. I wouldn't have minded them having a couple, but they seemed to just take a bite out of every one!

Since you have such lovely perennials, could you tell me what tends to be in bloom in August? My daylilies are all spent and the spiky foliage isn't all that attractive by itself, so I'm wondering what I could plant either behind or in front of them that would have some color this time of year. We are in Zone 4.

I have more squash than I know what to do with! 

It's just a few days until spring here, but already I have one and a half flowers on my forsythia, good looking buds ready to burst out on my peach tree, and good growing buds of all sorts elsewhere. 
The herbs I planted recently are looking healthy, and the coriander has grown well already. The catnip is already attracting my cat's attention.
We had a week of cooler and damper weather, so the return of sunshine today is welcome. There are plenty of weeds to dig out.

Yes, @Grandmama, it could be squirrels that are eating our tomatoes ... although some of the bites seems to big for squirrels.   I didn't add any calcium to the tomatoes this year, and I paid for it. Aside from the nibbling, they are not doing as well as they usually do.  

The perennials we have that are blooming now are:
Bush/Garden phlox
Black-eyed Susans
Coneflowers
Blanket flowers
Sedum/Stonecrop are all just beginning to turn their lovely Autumn colours

And of course there are many annuals (fillers, I call them ) that are gorgeous right now too. Loving my Teddy Bear sunflowers now, as well as the vibrant red geraniums and salvia (scarlet sage); also lantana, snapdragons, portulacas,  nasturtiums, dahlias.

Now, a heads up: there are many perennials I know nothing about, but every year I try to learn a bit more. It's a fun venture!

Enjoy all the squash!  

Ahh, coracle, indeed, the never-ending weeds. Nice that you are seeing buds pop out!

I just spent the last hour and a half weeding, so I can relate. Thankfully, it is a lovely cool, somewhat breezy, non humid morning, so I don't mind being out in the garden. I also spent time harvesting lots of tomatoes, beets, 2 cucumbers, red peppers and the last 2 ears of corn. I thought both the corn and the cukes were done with, so it was a nice surprise to find them. 🙂

I usually can tomatoes, but canning lids are scarce, so I may have to get by with whatever I have leftover from last year. Which means I have to come up with other ways to use up my bountiful tomato harvest. I've brought them to work and church and to neighbors already and yesterday I pureed and reduced down a large bowl full and made chili for supper. And, of course, BLT's for supper tonight.

Thanks for the list of flowers, Jo. I hope I can get to that perennial bed next year and make it look nicer. This year my focus is still on getting the vegetable garden finished. I hope to end the year "2 steps ahead". First step: make the old beds disappear and seed or sod where they were. Hubby has been very helpful in disassembling and cutting up the old lumber. There are still pavers around the old beds that need to be dug up and landscape fabric and mulch where the old paths were that needs to be removed. And, finding a place that will take the old, treated lumber. Second step: Finishing the new paths (weeded & mulched) and lay the pavers from the old garden around the fence of the new garden. If all that gets done before it snows, I will be very happy.

After traveling for two weeks I returned to find my tomato plants have exploded. A friend of mine watered for me and she (with my blessing) took all the ripe tomatoes while we were gone. The Juliet tomatoes have a few ripe ones on there but the Sun Gold tomatoes are insane and I don't know what to do with all of them because I just don't eat that many. They are tasty though. 

I picked the first of my grapes the other day. They maybe could have gone a little longer but they definitely tasted like grapes.

Green fingers, perhaps, but not green hips and back. I have been digging a lot for planting, and I seem to have strained something in the right hip. It will settle down, but I still want to get some more of the garden beds ready. It looks tidy but odd to have so much empty soil right now. I'm waiting to have the grapevine stump removed, after which I can redevelop that area. I desperately want to start planting nice looking things in the garden area most visible from the living rooms.