Out my kitchen window

It’s that time of year when looking out my kitchen window, the blooming plants have likely reached their peak growth. Things are gorgeous.

Of course there are a few plants that are either stressing from the intense heat a few weeks ago or are just bloomed out.

You have to overlook these plants and enjoy what you have.

In my garden, it’s fun to clip bouquets using the multi-colored zinnias, delicate cosmos and annual asters that are blooming.

I’m lucky that friends gifted me with garlic chives years ago and I clip them for yet another interesting texture in bouquets.

We recently had our county fair and I enjoy seeing what people use to fill in their bouquets. It’s also interesting to see what individual specimens they clip and enter and the numerous potted plants that come to the fair.

Some of them are quite large and probably heavy. You know they just might stress after five to six days in a different environment.

That doesn’t seem to hamper the exhibitors willingness to share their prized plants.

It amazes me how perfect they appear as they are perched on the shelves at the fair. I search for bug bites on leaves but they appear as perfect as can be. If they are a blooming variety, the entire circumference of the plant is in bloom. No offset blooms on the fair entries.

Just how do the gardeners do it?

I imagine it’s a daily routine watching for bug damage. Watering, too, must be monitored carefully.

I look at those fair entries and then at my garden at home and think, next year I’m going to do better.

If I were a judge I’m not sure what I would pick as a first- or even second-place entry. There are so many gorgeous flowers, grasses and plants.

It seems the general public does love flowers. Not only are the people who exhibit recognized for their numerous entries and the work they put into them, there are also the spectators who can be seen looking carefully at the exhibits and flipping over the entry tags to see who they belong to.

There is a junior division in the horticulture exhibits. Young people are learning how to grow and care for plants and how to exhibit them. Without those junior entries, we won’t have future generations of fair exhibits.

The same holds true in the agronomy barn. Not only do adults exhibit vegetables, children, too, are encouraged to take some of the family produce and enter it.

After all, it’s fun to see who scores a blue ribbon, read the judge’s comments and then take a few dollars home from prize money.

That prize money just might be used for seed money for next year.

Seed money, you might not need as much if you save seeds. I mentioned in April, seed saving and sharing through seed libraries. Now is definitely the time to start thinking again about saving seeds.

This can be a fun project for children to help you with and learn as they go from fall harvest to spring planting.

New to my garden this year is China aster or the annual aster. I am reading up on saving seeds from asters and of course, my marigolds.

My favorite zinnias are hybrids so saving seeds from them doesn’t result in a true to breed flower the next year. It’s best to save your fair-premium money for purchasing hybrid seeds from established dealers.

Flowers seeds aren’t the only ones to save. If you have some vegetable produce you were extremely happy with, try saving seeds from them also. Sometimes it just takes a few extra steps to preparing them for saving.

I will be saving seeds and hopefully, I will have some to share at our local seed library.

As seed saving time draws near, the view out my kitchen window will continue to transform to the fall season. I can hardly wait to add pumpkins and mums to my already placed flowing kale plants with rich shades of purple emerging.

Yes, there is still a lot of color in the August garden. Take time to enjoy it and think about the upcoming season.