The Battle In The Garden

Today I am posting some photographs of the " Garden On The Hill" as I call it, because it is up on the hill behind our log cabin here on the Eastern Continental Divide in Western North Carolina, and as each year passes I continue to fight the elements (Summer Drought), sweltering heat,and getting older and less able to do what I used to do.

Now here is the dilemma that I deal with each year in my gardening endeavors, I have a major battle with Morning Glory's wanting to take over the garden and choke out every growing thing that I try to get to survive the Summer drought by hand watering each plant and giving everything some Miracle Grow to boost the chance of survival of my plants.

Morning Glory's are very aggressive plants, spreading their vines rapidly and making a carpet of vines twisting to and fro, out and upwards, entwining everything in sight....so this is what I face each Summer...do I pull them out or cut them down? or do I let them grow to help hold the tilled soil from any chance of soil erosion...should we be lucky enough to get a rain shower..which we do in early Spring..sometimes torrential Spring rains..which we here in the mountains call "Gully Washers"..and believe me we do get our" Gully's" washed with these early Spring rains.

Oh My...I sure do ramble on....lol....well on to what I started to write about...

The Morning Glory's are so beautiful to look at...many different colors and patterns..as I go up each morning on the hill in the garden to greet the new day and say Good Morning to Grandfather ( Sun ) and say a few words to Creator and thank him for a new day to explore.

Below please find some photos of the garden and some of the things I grow in it besides the Morning Glory's...click on any photo to enlarge if you want a larger and better view.

A photo of Two rows of Silver Queen Sweet Corn and Two rows of Blue Lake Bush Green Beans..each is 150 ft. long.

This particular morning I took the photo at 6AM and the Fog was very thick over the garden.

Another photo showing the two rows of beans and two rows of tomato's..each 150 ft. long..and to the left a row of Cucumbers..also in the still thick fog.

A photo of some of the Peyote Gourds that I grow on a 75 ft. fence that I put up..I use these gourds to make gourd rattles.

Another photo of the Peyote Gourds on the fence line.



Some of the Blue Lake Bush Green Beans



One of the Beef Steak Tomato plants..there are 18 Plants in the row..150 ft. long.
In between each Beef Steak Tomato plant..I planted Cal. Wonder Bell Pepper plants 18 in total.

One of the Big boy Tomato plants..also 18 plants in the 150 ft. row.



One of the Burpless Cucumbers..another 150 ft. row of these.



I left an unploughed strip to control erosion at the far left of the Bird House Gourd patch, this photo shows some of the Morning Glory's that took over along with grass and weeds.


This is the "Bird House Gourd" patchAs you can see there are some gourd plants in there but are covered with Morning Glory Vines..I will let them grow to help hold the soil and provide some shade to the soil to preserve moisture in the soil in the depressing heat we are having...94-104 deg. F. and high humidity, making it hard to do much work in the mid day sun..so all my gardening is done mostly very early in the morning at first light.



I will now start to show you some of the troublesome, but beautiful, different Morning Glory's that grow wild in the garden.

Side by Side..two variety's

A Blue One with a star center of very Deep Blue..almost black.

A deep Pink one..center star..barely visible

A very pale Pink one with deep Pink, almost Red, star center.

A pale White one with a nice star center of light Pink.

Small, but Pale Blue with darker Blue star center.

A pretty deep Pink one with a Red Center Star.

Another Pale Pink one with almost Red Center Star.

The Center one..Deep , Deep, Blue with Red fringes on the outside of the pedals, and a nearly black center star.

Another Whie one with a Blue Center Star.

One of my still growing Water Melons on the vine after I used the weed whacker to take out the weeds and grass, and yes......Morning Glory's

Another Water Mellon..still growing.

After touring the garden I came down the hill to our log cabin and checked on the condition of the flower beds in our front yard and other flowers in the front of the cabin..the photo just below shows the results of very hot temperatures.

The flowers look a bit sick even with watering every few days at the side of the Log Cabin.

A close up photo of some flowers on the Trumpet Vine..note: if you click to enlarge..you can even see a Bug on one of the flowers.

This concludes my ramblings of the "Battle In The Garden" I hope you were amused, or maybe even a bit sympathetic of my gardening woes.

Please feel free to leave a comment...I do check to see if any one has come by , and maybe...just maybe...I have touched your funny bone in some way..or just "Made Your Day" with my ramblings.