The hard work of sowing and growing is over around here and now it’s time to enjoy the chile pepper harvest.

One of my favorite parts of summer is when it’s almost over. That’s when gardening gets a lot more enjoyable because the hard work is done and the harvest has begun.

These days I’m having fun picking peppers off the plants on the patio.  It’s not the biggest pepper crop I’ve ever grown, but it includes seven different varieties and some are hotter than others.

In the photo from left to right are:

Casa Bella–This plant was a gift from someone who told me it grew small Jalapeno-like peppers that turned yellow. These cute little peppers are some of the hottest peppers I’ve grown–much hotter than Jalapenos. We like our peppers hot, but these are too hot to eat raw. When I add them to recipes, I only use one, remove the seeds and mince it like crazy. Once the peppers turn from yellow to red, they lose a bit of heat. I plan to dry the red peppers and then grind them into powder to sprinkle in soups, chili and other cold-weather fare.

If you’re looking for a way to attract more bees to your garden, plant a patch of Lemon Queen sunflowers and join The Great Sunflower Project.

In May I planted a packet of Lemon Queen sunflower seeds so I could be one of the citizen scientists counting bees for the The Great Sunflower Project. The project is the brainchild of Grechen LeBuhn, a professor in the Department of Biology at San Francisco State University.

The project encourages gardeners to plant sunflowers and collect data that will help gauge the health of urban bee populations.

I’m one of about 50,000 gardeners who have signed up to plant and count. So far I’ve submitted the results of three observations.

I don’t know how many bees gardeners are counting in other areas, but I have to say, the bees are loving my Lemon Queens.

During each of my observations honeybees have landed on these sunflowers at nearly one landing per minute during each 15-minute observation.

Good things do come in small packages, especially when talking about miniature tomatoes. These gems may be small in size, but they’re big on flavor.

When I planted my crop of mini tomatoes in May, I was looking forward to harvesting a big batch of small fruits in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes.

Now I’m enjoying the fruits of my spring-time efforts.

Every year I plant a number of small tomatoes in containers on my patio, mostly as insurance against elements that seem to conspire against abundant tomato gardening and harvests in my climate. Many summers it’s either too cool or too hot. There may be too little precipitation or there’s too much hail.

Planting a nice selection of tomatoes helps ensure I’ll have some kind of crop by the end of the season. While the rest of my heirloom and other larger tomatoes are still growing, I’m enjoying the superior flavor of these littler ones.

The Loch Ness Cucumber, submitted by Ron Doyle, was the winner in last year’s Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit contest sponsored by WesternGardeners.com.

If it’s August, it’s time for the WesternGardeners.com Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit contest. I hope you’ll join us for some gardening fun.

For the next month, be on the lookout for any odd-looking fruit or vegetables you find in your garden or at a farmer’s market. And I do mean odd.

I’m talking about a potato that looks like Lady Gaga or an eggplant that grew into a work of art.

I’m looking for the weird and wonderful results of what happens when things go wrong with Mother Nature’s gardening plans…like Sweet Cheeks, a pear tomato I found growing in my garden last year.

When you find a crazy veggie or funny fruit, just take a digital picture of it and email it to jodi@westerngardeners.com by September 1.

Happy Colorado Day to my hardy gardening friends who start planning their gardens in January, plant in May and keep their fingers crossed all summer hoping there’s something delicious to harvest at the end of the season.

Harvesting fruit from trees along Colorado’s Front Range is hit or miss.

We’re often hit with a late spring freeze that guarantees we’ll miss our fresh peaches, apricots and other stone fruits.

If the flowers do survive and set fruit, there’s the ever present threat of a hailstorm wiping out the crop in minutes flat.

But this year was a good one for Colorado peaches, at least the ones grown in a Pueblo backyard on a little Prunus persica ‘Saturn’ flat top peach tree.

John and I purchased and planted the tree as a 2009 Mother’s Day present for his mom, Shirley. It’s been so much fun watching that little tree grow over the last year and then surprise us all with a bountiful crop of rosy-red, juicy peaches.

Bill McDorman, president of Seeds Trust, is dedicated to helping gardeners preserve heirloom varieties for future generations. Bill will present his “Going to Seed” presentation in Pueblo, Colo., on August 5. (Image and information courtesy of Seeds Trust.)

Legendary seedsman Bill McDorman, president of Seeds Trust, will bring his Going to Seed Summer Revival Tour to Pueblo on Thursday, August 5th.

The program, co-sponsored by Pueblo County and CSU Extension, helps promote the role of gardeners in saving heirloom seeds.

Bill’s presentation is one part exposé on the need to address diversity, regional adaptability and food security by saving seeds, and one part seed saving techniques.

In the late 1980s, Bill was so concerned about the globalization of the seed market and the proliferation of hybrid American seeds, he traveled behind the Iron Curtain searching for open-pollinated, cold-tolerant varieties.

While in Russia, Bill was given seeds to many heirloom treasures from gardeners who did so under severe penalty if caught.

These ripe sungold tomatoes signal the summer harvest is about to begin.

This year’s growing season is taking a lot longer than most–just ask the Hatch chile farmers in New Mexico or the peach producers on the Western Slope. Many crops are delayed because of the cool spring weather that seemed to last forever.

I experimented with planting two tomato plants in early April, thinking the wall of waters would protect them. I was dreaming of taking my first bite of home-grown tomato in June.

Ha!

Those poor plants had to suffer through freezing weather, several snowstorms, driving rain and then suddenly hot weather. The tomatoes on those plants are just now starting to ripen.

I planted 14 different tomato varieties, but some of the tomato plants have yet to set fruit. That means I won’t be growing any 2 pound Giant Belgiums like I did last season.

The bald-faced hornet (D. maculata) belongs to the wasp family and is known for its elaborate hanging paper nests.

We noticed the beginnings of a bald-faced hornet’s nest on the ceiling of the front porch in mid-June.

I wasn’t sure what it was when I first saw it, but then I noticed the insect activity.

John grabbed his camera, stepped outside and took this photo that shows the inside of the nest, complete with several hornets and the first batch of eggs.

These wasps are common in the Rocky Mountain region, but this is the first time I’d spotted one of their nests so close to mine.

I’m more familiar with the nests of western paper wasps because I often find them hanging inside the eves of the playhouse I have in my garden.

In May, I started my Great Potato Gardening Experiment when I planted a plastic trash bag and my compost bin full of seed potatoes.

“I sure hope there are some potatoes growing in there,” I thought to myself as I took some pictures of my backyard potato garden.

It’s the first time I’ve tried to grow spuds–and depending on the outcome–it may be my last.

Right after planting at the end of May, the potatoes started to send up green leafy shoots.

When the shoots were about 7 inches tall, I added more of my soil mixture, part mushroom compost and part potting soil, to the bag and the composter, leaving a few inches of the plant showing.

I’ve tried to keep the potatoes well-watered, but not too wet. After they’d grown another 7 inches, I added another layer of soil mix.

I’m hoping tubers are forming at this very minute.

There are about 250 species of butterflies in Colorado, but I see more Two-Tailed Swallowtails than any other kind.

As part of National Pollinator Week, I’d like to take time today to salute butterflies.

This has been a good year for spotting butterflies in my yard, especially the beautiful Two-Tailed Swallowtails.

The ones that I’ve seen sailing through my backyard are particularly fond of landing on the roses and gathering pollen as they carefully tiptoe around each flower on their long, thin legs.

I’m not sure most people realize that butterflies aren’t only lovely to watch as they glide through the air, but they’re pollinators, too. They’re an important part of the ecosystem and when we don’t see many in the landscape it’s a signal that something may be wrong in the environment.

To make your yard more attractive to butterflies, create a landscape with food plants for both caterpillars and adult butterflies. Provide shelter from wind, like trees, shrubs and ornamental grasses and even fences.