We are deep into tomato harvest season now - yum! Unfortunately, we aren't able to harvest all the tomatoes that we should. Our resident groundhog is eating almost all of the tomatoes below three feet from the ground. The only way we are able to keep the tomatoes for ourselves is to pick them early, before they are fully ripe. They finish their ripening on our kitchen windowsill.

As for tending the tomato plants, or the garden in general - I have had virtually no time for them. My aunt has been in the hospital for about three weeks now. She was in critical condition for a while but is doing better now, although she is battling cancer throughout her body and is still bed-ridden. Visiting her and dealing with the doctors and medical staff occupies most of my free time right now. She has no children and the other nieces and nephews live out of town. Since I'm only 30 miles away, I get to be her caregiver like a son or daughter would.

I apologize that I haven't been able to post here at Garden Desk either. I have still managed to take a few pictures from time to time, so I hope to sneak on some posts in the coming days.

I wanted to first mention tomatoes so I could re-instate Tomato Tuesday. I hope many of you are having a great tomato season. If you have a blog or website and have written about your tomato gardening, preserving, or recipes lately, please let us know so we can visit your site! I invite you to join in on Tomato Tuesday. Link to your tomato post with the Mister Linky widget below. Then consider adding a Tomato Tuesday banner to your site like the one above.

Remember to link to your tomato post in the Mister Linky Widget, not your overall site. You can link to your site when you leave a comment. If you don't have a garden blog, you are welcome to comment at the bottom of this post to tell us about your tomato growing experiences. Thanks and Happy Tomato Tuesday!

Remember to check out the Tomato Tuesday Banner page too!

Good morning! Since it is the 15th, I thought I'd again join in with Carol's ever popular
Garden Blogger's Bloom Day meme.

Like Carol, our yard borders are dominated by coneflowers and tall phlox.

Most of our coneflowers are also Echinacea purpurea.

Growing along side the purple coneflowers, we have lots of pink or white tall phlox.
They are along the fence lines and in front of the greenhouse.

My favorite July Blooms are from our enormous Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus,
in the front of our house.

It looked even more beautiful with the sunrise shining through it.

The bees and bumblebees like these hibiscus flowers as much as I do! 

Elsewhere in the border plantings we have many Black Eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta.

My favorite bunch of these are next to the tumbleweed compost tumbler, beside the deck.
(you can see the rose of sharon in the background).

We also have some white coneflowers and one daylily that refuses to die back!

I always like to end a bloom day post with blooms from the vegetable garden. The most interesting blooms there are from the Luffa sponges.

Its funny that my camera seems to be trained to focus on fruits and vegetables since the luffas in the background are more in focus than the blooms in the foreground!

Luffa blooms are most interesting just before they open, as they have a very unique look. Its also interesting that ants hang out on them just like they do on peonies.

That about does it for this Bloom Day Friday morning.

Don't forget to visit Carol's May Dreams Gardens to see more bloom day posts
(almost 100 already!)

Have a great weekend!

- Marc