Well, well, well! Here we are at the Garden Journal Wrap up for July, and what a turn out we had! I must admit I had little idea what I was in for when I agreed to do this wrap up post; there were far more entries than I had expected there to be!
I see passion in every single one of your gardens. Who would be out there in the sun, slaving away day after day, then coming back inside to toil away at a computer to fashion a post, unless they were passionate about gardening? I know that you experience moments of bliss and wonder as you search your squash vines for the first tiny squash, or spy a ripening banana. You have moments of ruthlessness when you murder your first Japanese beetle, crush a slug, or rip out a plant that doesn’t quite please you. You all love serving your home grown foodstuffs to those you love. If you’re like me, and I know most of you are, you have onslaughts of FEELINGS while you are in your gardens. I know you find a lot of surprises there.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm the one giving out the prizes here. I had to evaluate whether or not your post was worthy of consideration for a prize, which has left me a bit judgy. I would like to take a moment to let you know what I value in a post.
The posts I find interesting are those that explore feelings and surprises, show losses and failures to us with humor, and display the gardener's lessons and innate understandings - posts that delve not only into the soil, but also into the soul. I don't want to see umpteem photos of the same thing over and over again, especially selfies! Some of us might remember that there used to be a limit of ten photos per post for this challenge. That was hard to accomplish, but it made for a more enjoyable post because the reader didn't have to spend a lot of time scrolling through photos. In addtion, the author had to be more selective, give more thought to what they would publish, and perhaps produce a more interesting post.
Because I hoped to read and upvote every single entry, I'm afraid I had to set some sound criteria for a post to be considered an entry, or I would still be reading them all. So, if your post was published after the deadline, did not use the tag #gardenjournal, or did not mention that your post was an entry, it will not appear in this wrap up.
In future, please remember to use the tag #gardenjournal as your first tag, which would make producing this wrap up post a tad easier; if I am to do this wrap up again, I'll be strict on that tag being first. It would also be very helpful if you would limit the number of photos you provide, or find some way to show them in groups.
Enough of my critique!
Let's move on to those entries folks. These are listed in the order I read them, not the order they were published, nor does the order show any of my preferences. I wish I could say more about these, but time simply does not allow for that - there were forty three entries!
Our fearless leader 
Whew! Now that I have put all this together, I see from my notes that I must have missed a post on growing taro, and another on eggplants grown in bags. My apologies to anyone I missed! Let me know, and I will add you to this post.
It's time for the prizes! I'm not sure who will be sending these prizes, or when, but they're coming!
Thank you to everyone who participated in the challenge this month. You all rock!
Join The Hive Garden Community! The HIVE GARDEN COMMUNITY supports gardening, homesteading, cannabis growers, permaculture and other garden related content. Delegations to the curation account, 
Are you on HIVE yet? Earn for writing! Referral link for FREE account here!
@munos