Garden Update

Well, well, it has been a while since I indulged in a garden update. (This will be rather "picture heavy.") I must say I have not been in the garden much and most of it is a mess. What is blooming and growing is only the stuff that can stand neglect and the dry summer we've been having. Having said all that, I will dwell on the positive here.

My glads did extremely well. Most were around four feet tall, and I thought they were doing so well: strong and erect. Then we had the first rainstorm...and indeed a lot of them were flat on the ground. They were converted into a very lovely bouquet in a vase, though, and the rest kept right on doing great.

The arum italicum have shed all their leaves and are into the next stage:They put up these stalks with green berry-like seeds which slowly turn to red. They have been multiplying nicely on their own (I only moved three of them I thought, but have had more than that in volunteers) but I need to move them somewhere where they'll have a little more space on their own and a little less sun.

I put in some dahlias this spring as well. The one has smaller yellow blooms (up to 3") and although there are quite a few of them, they are nothing special. The one beside it has bigger blooms (at least 4") and just keeps on pumping them out. The red and orange combinations are so pretty.

Tom brought some new garden residents for me. I am really enjoying Gertrude and Antonio's company:
But if you're not careful Antonio will give you very suspicious looks. It takes a while for him to warm up to you. Gertrude tries to keep him in line, but you know how that goes...
Our vegetables are also only doing as well as they can with neglect. We have quite a few volunteer tomatoes in the front that are now making fruit; none of it is ripe yet. It is also the variety that Troy didn't like so I'm not really sure why I'm letting them get on, but I guess if I can let the crabgrass grow, I may as well let the tomatoes grow too.

Focusing on the positive, I picked five pounds of potatoes from Troy's plants the other day. They were de-de-de-DE-lish! Mmm mMM. Yukon golds; so so good.

And I guess the corn is coming along. I love the red tassel, but I have to say it keeps catching my eye when I pass a window and it is very distracting. Troy planted regular sweet corn and popping corn, but I do not know which this is. [ETA: Troy didn't plant any sweet corn; only popping corn. Apparently he told me this, but I forgot.]Now the mystery volunteer. These huge yellow flowers have also been catching my eye through the window. When I finally went to see what it was, I saw a melon (or squash?) plant bravely putting out flowers and fruit. We certainly didn't plant it and assume it came from seeds in the compost. If you can identify the fruit, please let me know!! I'd like to know what I might be eating!
[That's a bee diving into the flower head first.]

All for now...and it's quite enough.

-christina