Tag archive: Litha 2024

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Garden Glimpses: Joyous Julily!

Here at the old homestead, we’ve officially rechristened July as “Julily,” in honor of those fabulous daylilies that dominate the month.  In tones both hot and cool, daylilies explode with color all month long, fleeting markers of a fleeting season of bounty and fruitfulness.  Every day the pattern changes, highlighting now this variety, now that, as early, mid- and late-season bloomers come into flower, reach peak and fade away.  This fecundity is staggering, but it’s everywhere at this time of year.  Tomatoes, corn on the cob, green and yellow squashes, string and wax beans, all cram the local farmers’ markets, and in the garden the profusion is just as lush.

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Garden Glimpses: The Middling Time

Ah, June!  That middling month ‘twixt spring and summer, not properly belonging to either, albeit the time when summer officially begins.  Spring is a distant memory, but summer’s promise has not yet come to full fruition.  As the month commences, there’s a sea of green in the garden, punctuated at odd intervals by a stray splash of color.  But as July dawns, more and more of the landscape unfolds into the panoply of tones, both fiery and cooling, which will dominate the next six weeks, until August’s mid-month slump robs us of nature’s palette once again.

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