Bear Butte Gardens BLOG: August 2012

I have to admit it, I'm a sucker for color. The brighter and bolder, the better. So gardening is a fabulous way for me to get a color fix on a daily basis. To illustrate -- check out these beauties:

Red Romaine Lettuce

Red Leaf Lettuce

Bush Bean Blooms

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Having co-founded and served as the director of a nonprofit arts organization for 7+ years, I really appreciate color combinations that are well done and it never ceases to amaze me how God can paint a canvas with ANY colors and they always look well done. If you and I threw orange and green on the same canvas, there's a good chance we may not end up with a quality portrait.

Burgundy Beans

Moon & Stars Watermelon Vine

Some of the best colors in my gardens are yet to come this growing season: the reds, purples, greens, yellows, and oranges of heirloom tomatoes; the degrees of orange of the pumpkins; the maturing colors of the peppers; the yellows of the sweet corn; the surprise colors of the sweet potatoes when we dig them late fall; and the reds of the onions.

Green Onion Shoots

Celery (front) and corn (back)

Along with the glorious colors of the gardens come the shapes and textures of the leaves and vegetables. I always marvel at the "imperfect" fruits because they are so unique and lovely. There is nothing lovelier than a lumpy, bumpy heirloom tomato! It's kind of like that Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the middle of the lot with all of the other perfect trees.

Varying shades of tomato ripeness

Broccoli

Rosa Bianca Eggplant

Head Cabbage

One thing I didn't plant in the gardens this year was flowers. Generally I have as many flowers as I do vegetables, but it was so BUSY just getting the veggies transplanted, I didn't have time to throw in the flowers, too. But thankfully, it looks like it's all been taken care of for me, because (you know) for every vegetable I get, there was or will soon be a flower to match it. :-)