Just when I thought that I’d missed Finnish summer due to our July trip, it’s reappeared after last week’s storms. It’s been mild and sunny this week, which has been great for catching up on weeding, harvesting, and all the other stuff that I’ve fallen behind on. I’ve even started sowing for an autumn/winter garden, which is something I’ve never attempted before. You guys will be the first to know how that goes.

1. Godetia (Clarkia amoena) mix is starting to bloom, and the colors are so pretty! First time growing them, so I direct seeded these into the cutting garden rather late — like the first week of June, which is right at the end of the suggested sowing period. It seemed a gamble at the time, with the dry conditions and all, but the majority of them germinated and now there’s a big healthy patch of them blooming away. These are definitely on the buy-again list for next year, though I hope they will self-seed.

2. Tree lilies and oriental lilies are blooming, making a walk through the cutting garden very fragrant indeed. This is when I love having set aside an entire field for flowers — I can go out and cut bouquets for every room in the house and there are still so many left to enjoy outside.

3. The dark columbine (Aquilegia atrata) seed pods were finally dry enough to harvest yesterday. I put little organza bags on the seed heads two months ago since I didn’t get to them fast enough the last couple of years. They’re a legacy plant from the house’s original gardens and pop up rather unreliably, so I wanted to have some seed stashed should they not appear one of these years.

4. I found this peacock butterfly perched on my root parsley, probably guarding his territory. We’ve had a good population of peacocks this year, which all of my crops have appreciated. I keep a large stand of nettles next to the raised beds, separated by mesh panels from the vegetables. Besides being convenient for making nettle tea, they do a great job of luring pests away from my veggies, and provide plenty of food for peacock caterpillars.

5. My first batch of onions! This is how many were harvested after my pulling up a dozen or so over the summer for kitchen use. They are now on a mesh rack in the barn for the next two weeks, after which I will hopefully be making one of those pretty onion strings for storage.

6. I’ve also started digging up Annabelle potatoes (there are a couple of red-skinned Mozarts in there too) for kitchen use, now that the greens are starting to fade. It’s still early enough that I can keep them in the ground and grab potatoes as needed, so I’m enjoying that while it lasts.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!