Our area is keeping me very busy dragging a hose from garden to garden. It is so dry here which is very frustrating when just 2 miles down the road they have had plenty of rain for their gardens. Hard to understand. Good thing we have a very strong 5 inch well for it seems like the hose is going all day every day to keep up. I just finish the rounds and where I began is wilting! Of course the weeds love the watering and I must deal with them. Oh well, I am producing plenty of mulch and compost! LOL

  We are having one of the coolest Julys on record here. Last week the high was only 66 degrees. A wee bit too cool for these old bones. Back up to a far warmer 78 today and clear blue sunny skies. So beautiful. 

My flowers love it.

  My neighbor in Florida took a couple of photos of my water hyacinths in bloom on my pond and sent them to me. They have taken over the pond but that is great to keep the fish from boiling in the Florida heat and sun. It is 4 feet deep so that helps too.

  This year was a bumper year for my black raspberries. I have made 2 batches of jam from them and have enough frozen for 2 more batches. It is oh so good to have some real homemade jam for a change. Nothing like it. YUM I started with just 2 plants 3 years ago and now have a patch that is 16 feet by 8 feet just crowded with canes. The spot and all the peat I added to that spot suited them to a tee. I had some deer trimming one edge of the patch and going after my cucumber plants but I put up a scare pan to keep the birds out of the patch and it seems to be deterring the deer from entering too. I drove an 8 foot long metal pipe into the ground a couple of feet and then used an aluminum pie tin with a hole in the top edge of it to attach a three foot cord and tie it to tippy top of the pipe. Whenever there is the slightest breeze, which we have all the time here, the pan will swing out and twirl on the cord and then come crashing back against the pipe. Makes noise day and night and in the day flashes light all about as it twirls. Really is doing a great job.

The following photographs are of Donna's gardens in Florida, sent to her by a neighbor.