Wild Vegetation and the Fruits of Our Labor

I'm thankful for my fleas. Inspired by this post, over at The Flourishing Mother, I decided that while I long for fall; for cooler weather, apple picking, pumpkin patches and sweaters; I'm ignoring the blessings surrounding me here, in this place. So, for those of you who are gearing up for the crisp weather, here's a taste of what's in store for us- our second growing season; time outdoors after a long summer of yard neglect; flowers, and fruit.

Our second generation tomatoes-
I'd tossed the rotting or otherwise unusable tomatoes down to the end of the garden for compost and lo and behold we have new plants- with blooms!

This is Kevin's only surviving tomato plant, planted from saved seed- Duke ate the others.

Limes and lemons (just turning yellow)-

Today, I looked up into our jasmine vine to see a strange flower. Thinking it was one of the many undesirable vines we have on our property, I wondered if we'd be able to find the root and pull it out. Upon further investigation, I found it to be another sole survivor. The boys and I planted morning glory and moon flower seeds back in the spring. We had several come up in the front yard, but they met an untimely end, due to the lawn guys and weed killer... how they looked like weeds, I'm not sure. I'd given those in the back yard up for lost as we'd never seen so much as a sprout. Somehow, this one grew to the top of the jasmine and sits up there blooming away. (Can you tell it's been too hot for us to be outside lately- we hadn't even noticed!)

Here is an actual unwanted vine. I'd been told it's in the kudzu family but after researching, I find it to be a balsam apple. It is invasive and will cover trees, which is too bad because the flowers and the pods are very attractive.

We have hibiscus, blooming and budding; and bougainvillea.

Lovely!

And figs!!!!! Two, to be exact, but the former state of this tree left us doubting that it would ever produce.

Here's a great blue heron, who visited our neighbor's dock and caused great commotion with our dog. The heron didn't seem to notice, or care.

What many blessings and naught to cause complaint!