Ruth Marlene Friesen: Welcome!

This site is like Ruthe, the heroine of my novel, Ruthe's Secret Roses

Ruthe is . . .
intimate with God,
prays a lot,
a bleeding heart for the hurting,
a big sister,
rescues friends,
has creative ideas,
likes to give surprise gifts,
loyal to friends,
dreams of love and marriage,
dreams of writing a book
goes the extra mile

So this site offers;
good books to read!
help to become Friends with Jesus,
The One Ideal Real Friend
a cure for loneliness
An Older Sister's Coping Secret
how to pray Panic Prayers,
& regularly/daily
devotionals,
how to grow in faith
Christian mentoring,
how to share your faith
character development
how to become a writer

Join The Customer Advantage - so I can bless you AND your friends!

Well, it has been a good summer, but we've had some hot weeks now, and the garden is browning off. It seems to sense that the season is about to change. So this will be the wrap-up garden tour for this year. By next month it will be a very messy stretch of dirt again with perhaps some dead and dying plants decomposing to become compost for next year's garden.

Some of these photos were taken about mid-August and the rest just yesterday, Sunday, and today, Labour Day.

Mid-August I was happy to find some flowers. That was my main goal this summer. I will choose more wisely next year, and place some of them in different spots. Here you see nasturiums, which I tried for the first time. But they were hidden much of the time in the shadow of the swiss chard, and the squash climbing over them.



Here the thriving squash crowd some bright marigolds, and up against the fence there's those white mystery flowers. I thought I had sown yellow painted daisies there!







Along the fence at various places, my pink morning glories brighten up even in the shade. But at night they close their petals and go to sleep.

I expect I'll have some work this fall again, pulling their dead vines off the fence!



August is the month for these lilies. At both the front and back of the house I have these Asiatic lilies, which I brought along from the house in Hague. They are Mom's "Kaiser Kronen" which is German for "Emperor's Crowns." The ones at the front were especially glorious and majestic this August!

This is a close up. Lovely, aren't they?


I think I've learned to like and appreciate them more this summer than ever before.

You want to be careful though, not to let those long stamens touch your clothes. The black tips can be worse than permanent markers on fabric.






This was my largest zucchini. It weighed 7 lbs, and was 18 inches long. I still have a stretch of it in the fridge and I am gradually using it up. Sometimes for a stir-fry and sometimes for baking.





Here's my first zinnas at last! And they are pink! (There was no indication what colours to expect when I received a small shopping bag full of seeds in spring).

I ended up cutting them off the last Sunday of August to create a bouquet for our Appreciation Tea at the mission.










I had to scrounge a bit to find enough flowers in various shades of pink and white to put this one together. But I managed by including some white lavateria and snowdrops or baby's breath.





There was one big, yellow zinna growing in the old fridge-planter. I cut it for the other flower arrangement in golden tones. It was easy to fill it with brilliant French marigolds.

Unfortunately, I had my hands full and didn't have time or think to take photos until my guest and I were at the Appreciation Tea location.

Here is that arrangement on the buffet table, behind the foods.

It is sort of becoming a tradition now that I bring bouquets from my garden. I had hoped to have many more flowers, but it didn't work out that way. (I'm plotting some changes for next year to ensure I have more flowers for bouquets to give away!)





Back in my garden, see my tomato jungle?

Maybe you can't make out all those green tomatoes on there, but that was just a couple of weeks ago. Now let me show you how those plants look now.

Labour Day Weekend

As you can see, we are now into September, the Labour Day long weekend, and by now there are definite signs of the plants dying off. The potato plants (in shade in the foreground) have turned yellow and lie down on the ground. I've started to dig up two or three plants at a time.

Look how all those big, bushy green leaves have curled up and dried! Now I can count the squash there. I believe I see at least 14.

On the other side of the path are the watermelons, and this year I finally have some! I believe I count 11 now that the leaves are drying up and going limp.

Actually, the watermelon and the cucumber vines all intermingled. There are still some small cucs there. Last Sunday I brought a box of jumbo cucumbers to distribute at church.

So I don't want to pull all these plants up just yet. I'll wait until there is a threat of frost over night. I'd prefer that the melons ripen in the sunshine a while longer.




Okay, here's the tomato plants with fast ripening fruit. At first I was picking one ripe tomato every other day, then two a day, and now it is a handful!









Can you spot the ripe cherry tomatoes there?

They seem to be slower in ripening, but now it is a treat whenever I spot two or three, to pick, wipe them off in my hand, and pop them into my mouth. Yum! A nice surprise burst of juice in my mouth!

None of the cherry tomatoes have made it into the house yet. ;)

But we shall see - perhaps they will start ripening in larger numbers soon.





Do you recall the cherry tomato plants I put in the broken crock at the corner of the porch?

Well, it grew tall and leggy. I had to put some broomsticks in beside it to give it something to climb, however it has not received enough sunshine, and so there are only a few teeny tiny cherry tomatoes on it. It still has some yellow blossoms too.

Obviously, tomato plants need to be in the sunshine to produce well.







Let me just quickly show you how my floral circle on the front lawn is doing.

The French marigolds and the white snowdrops or baby's breath (not sure which came up) are doing fine. There are a few zinnias coming up and one dahlia, although they may be too late to bloom this fall yet. We'll see.

Next year - it is going to thrive with glorious colours!

Ruthe's Secret Roses available in softcover! Purchase it at BookLocker.com and it will be in the mail to you within 48 hours!


The novel:
Order NOW
Author
Read it Right NOW!

Available at:
BookLocker.com
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com

Or ASK at any bookstore!

Have the RoseBouquet
(my inspirational blog/RSS feed)
sent to you weekly by email: