Happy GBBD! (garden update)

Today is my first official Garden Blogger's Bloom Day! On the 15th of every month, good garden bloggers do a nice photo post of what is blooming in their respective gardens on that day. And I tend to be too much of a slacker to take part. But, partially inspired by my new fun magnifying filter (yes, I know a macro lens would be more fun but the price was right on this sucker), here is my first foray into GBBD...

Unfortunately, due to an EXTREMELY wet June that turned into an absolutely normal July (read: hot and dry), everything went crazy last month and kind of needs a trim now. So this is a close-up on my new beautiful blue salvia since it hasn't been cut back yet ;)
Here is my first actual flower on my now-huge bee balm! This thing was in a 4" pot and looked like it froze last winter, never bloomed all last year and has spent most of this year shooting up to a ridiculous height:

It's now much too large for it's current spot but that is only partially due to the surrounding shorter vegetation being trampled by two-year olds at a recent BBQ. They will fill in and it will look more sensible once I've done some more transplanting in the fall.

Here is a shot of my Achillea "Paprika" yarrow that I am in love with. Anyone know how easy/hard it is to divide yarrow? Because I am in love with these bright red ones and they are getting big...

This one is more for my own edification/a reminder for the future. These are my tomatoes. I bought cheap tomato cages and planted too close together (overenthusiastic, yes that's me) and now my toms are tippy and overcrowded. I'll go out and trim them tonight, and learn for next year, but right now there are a LOT of blooms crowded in there. And I've now tasted my first big fat homegrown tomato straight off the vine, and it is officially awesome. Also, my first tiny yellow plum tomato, and I need to plant WAY more of those next year. Just a little more spread out.

These are my ridiculous beans. I slightly overplanted since I didn't have any inoculant - my inoculated beans did so well last year that silly me assumed they would not be quite so happy this year. I was wrong. Darn. This is probably cheating, bloom-wise but I love the crazy shape of these things! I now have the gear to build better teepees so the learning curve is now starting to curve in my favor (did that make any sense?)

I love penstemon. Most of mine have been dead-headed so they will hopefully be blooming again soon, but this little guy was getting out-competed in his former spot so he was recently transplanted and I left him alone for a while. Hence, a few flowers left:

And just a little thyme:

I recently realized, my garden now has parsley, sage, rosemary AND thyme. And I couldn't be happier about it. Also basil and chives, among other herbs. I love me some herbs. Too bad I didn't make the June GBBD, that would have been much more impressive. Now most of my salvias and penstemons are past their prime and need a lot of trimming. However, this is still good camera practice, so I hope everybody else enjoys this 1/10 as much as I did! If I can make it in August there might be some different stuff blooming, but September should see a lot more stuff perking up as it cools off again.