Late Summer Flower Color

I did some work in the garden today, only to run inside when the rain started to soak my clothes. While the plants enjoyed the rain, the ever-rising local lake probably didn't need the extra water. All the beaches and low-lying land around here is covered in water and the flooding is likely to last another few weeks!
"Lime Bicolour" petunia I grew from seed this year -- I recall that this was an over-priced annual seed, but it claimed to be an exciting new hybrid, so...

Scabiosa caucasica are blooming now - nice to have the color, though the foliage on these can look a little weedy and messy:

Highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) compact variety shrub now has pretty red berries developing on it. It took about 5 years for this shrub to finally produce the berries:

Aconitum napellus (Monkshood) produces impressive strong stems of blue flowers for August. I really must divide this one next year to spread the color around:

I made my annual tulip order yesterday, only to have the kind people from Botanus email me and ask if I intended to duplicate one of the items I made on an order a few months ago. I pretended not to be going senile and replied that I do need plenty of a particular daffodil. Therefore, yes, there should be a duplicate. It should be a big bulb-planting fall once my boxes of bulbs arrive! I aim for planting as soon as they arrive, by the end of September.
Sweet peas in my hanging basket -- such a sweet scent!

Strawberrries Saved, Rural Roots

Finally, we have started to harvest the strawberries I so carefully planted last year. Up till a few weeks ago, some animal had been spiriting them away in the night, leaving us with nothing despite seeing many pink berries ripening on the plants. I solved the problem with some fine netting from Lee Valley Tools, which conveniently came to us in the mail. I suspect the squirrel, mostly because he stood and yelled squirrel-obscenities from the top of the fence as I covered the strawberries with the netting.
Netted strawberry plants:

Last month, we received a copy of Rural Roots magazine, a glossy publication exploring the lives of rural western Canada, including articles on gardening and nature. I enjoyed learning about all aspects of bison in the last issue, with everything from raising them to marketing them and selling the meat to high end restaurants. It was also of note because it included an educational article on raised beds, with an illustrative picture from my garden! It was funny, because it reminded me of all the reasons that raised beds are so great, including many points I hadn't thought about. Raised beds are great for northern Saskatchewan, where we have almost no soil and need to contain the soil and compost that we bring in.

Rural Roots Magazine:
http://ruralrootsmagazine.ca/ Check out the link. I think my farm-dwelling Saskatchewan in-laws would love this magazine.

Zone 1 Cherry Harvest!

It was a good year for cherries in the north. Tart cherries, that is, and don't call them "sour" either, because the cold-climate cherry enthusiasts think "tart" sounds nicer. We planted our Carmine Jewel cherries about five years ago and this is the first year with a substantial cherry harvest. That being said, we only have 4 trees and the two in the shade of larger trees don't bear very much and one got major damage in the severe winter of 2009. Carmine Jewel is intended to be a zone 2 tree, so any cherries I get here are a bonus.
A nice little tree full of cherries:

Tart cherries are superior to sweet cherries in baked goods and I would certainly try growing these cherries again, even in a warmer climate.
The greater yield came with slightly smaller cherries this year:

Container zucchini is producing a fat one:

Nasturtium "Cobra" - a red-flowered nasturtium with unique purple-tinged leaves:

Have you eaten any nasturtium flowers yet? They make great additions to salads and have a spicy peppery-flavour. They are very simple to start from seed. I start mine indoors and plant out in June.
My mutant "Black Plum" heirloom tomato:

I don't remember where I got this tomato seed, but there has got to be something wrong with my plant. Though the leaves look healthy and it is making flowers, it seems to be determined to stay under 4 inches tall, producing dense curly foliage that looks more like creeping ground-cover than the description of a 6 foot tall indeterminate plant. What is the world is happening here?
Creeping tomato?