As the days slowly grow shorter and we head towards fall, I’m finding myself in awe of the garden’s progress. Particularly the way nearly everything defied the murderous rays of July’s unrelenting sun!

The potatoes are just gorgeous and are going to be flowering any day now…

It helped that I planted a row of tall, shady sunflowers behind them, I think…

The pumpkins that are back behind the sunflowers are only doing as well as they are because I stopped weeding them and let some of the weeds provide shade and shelter for the roots of the growing pumpkin plants.

This helped during the worst of the heat and while it seems counterintuitive, it has definitely paid off because I counted at least 25 sugar pumpkins back there…

That’s my second pumpkin patch; the other one is already in a partially shady area next to the chicken coop and is doing totally fine after I weeded it.

It’s the garden beds that were out in the open all day that seemed to be struggling and the more I weeded, the worse they got! So, naturally, I stopped weeding and like magic, things perked back up. Go figure.

When it gets that hot, you just have to find shade where you can and sometimes nature is kind enough to provide it for us…

And sometimes we need a little help.

Speaking of help, I found this YouTube channel recently and fell totally in love with these guys and their families from Pakistan who try different American (and other) foods.

They eat all kinds of foods and are such good sports (and hilarious, too!). Of course now I’m obsessed with trying to get them to give these gentlemen a loaded baked potato to try. 😂

It’s heartbreaking to see just how poor they are when they give us tours of their homes and village, but then it’s really heart warming to see how their channel has grown and helped change their lives in so many ways. Such basic things we take for granted are literally life changing to them and their families.

I know it seems silly but they are just so wholesome and humble and genuinely sweet and every one of their videos make me smile. They also remind me to not be so jaded and to stay humble, too, and to remember that despite all the a-holes out there, there are A LOT of really good people in the world.

We should seek them out wherever we can. Even if they are half a world away and we’ll never meet them in real life.

Happy Friday, everyone!! 🤗