Back on the Home Front
Thanks to my father-in-law, Victor, my garden survived my two-week absence. He had to do a lot of watering while we were gone, thanks to the drought-like conditions. I'm hoping to return the favor when he goes on vacation this August.

Jane from Horticultural mentioned that her garden looked "wild" when she returned from vacation. I noticed the same crazy, overgrown weeds in my garden, too. Before I left, I gave all the garden beds a really thorough weeding. Man, that didn't stop a lot of weeds from exploding into giant-sized beasts while we were away. I guess that little bit of weeding I do most days when I'm puttering around the garden does keep the worst of it down.

Some of the flowers went a little wild while we were gone, too. These petunias are over three feet tall. They are some "leftover" petunias that I threw into a bed in the back yard after I'd filled up the beds in the front. These leftovers have totally taken over with exuberant purple and pink blooms.

The veggie garden is chugging along. When we came back, all the lettuce plants had turned into these ragged, towering monsters. They'd obviously gone to seed. I've pulled them out, and this week I plan to start some new lettuce seedlings under lights inside.

While we are now out of salad greens, we have plenty of other veggies to enjoy. The Sun Gold cherry tomatoes just started this week. The little yellow fruit grown in grape-like clusters. And they do taste like bundles of sunshine. The other tomatoes are getting close to having ripe fruit, so I'm hoping to have lots of tomatoes from here into Autumn.

The Little Leaf cucumbers have also started. This is a dwarf vine that produces small cucumbers, the perfect size for my square-foot garden. I worried that the cucumbers might only work for pickling, not for eating fresh. When I picked the first few cucumbers, I was really worried, because the little guys are covered with spines. But once they're peeled, they are very tasty and juicy. We're also have a few bush beans, beets, and carrots left. I can't seem to get my carrots to germinate as well as I'd like. I could eat carrots every day, but my garden hasn't kept up in the carrot department.

Oh, and did I mention broccoli? I started broccoli plants inside back in early March, and two plants made it outside. They quickly became huge, beautiful specimens. We harvested one head before vacation and the second head after vacation. Delicious! I've left the plants in place, and I'm hoping side sprouts will form so we can have second helpings of broccoli.
- posted by Laurie @ 6:42 PM