Back in May, I planted three tomato plants, then pretty much forgot about them because Life. Well, I checked them the other day and HOLY CHUTES AND LADDERS BATMAN, there are little greenies on two of the plants–both the Black Crim and Juliet have baby tomatoes. The Kelloggs Breakfast, OTOH, has many flowers but no greenies. It is also shorter and less full than the other two, and had developed spots and yellowing on lower foliage that reminded me of blight, but could also be attributed to all the rain and cool weather we’ve had. I removed the suspect ?branches?, and will keep an eye on the plant–if it looks as though it’s succumbing to something, it’s out. The Black Crim and Juliet, by contrast, appear fine, and I want them to stay that way.
The mesclun, meanwhile, is still producing–it’s nice to go out and harvest salad greens, then eat them minutes later. I also have some sprigs of volunteer dill, flavorful stuff that works well with tuna salad and grilled salmon. The raised bed basil perked up as the weather warmed, and are now a lovely dark green. The container basil, however, were yellow and spotted from the wet, so I cleared a place for them in the raised bed, and stuck them in.
Thanks to lack of time and days of rain, the yard is borderline out of control. Many are the things that need trimming, and the weeds have established bases in various parts of the lawn and are busy sending out little wagon trains of seedlings across the land. I’ll be breaking out the sprayer this weekend in hopes of halting expansion. That said, the flowers look good, the hosta are HUGE, and the lilies are forming buds. Astilbes are flowering. Unfortunately, I lost the lovely little Rose of Sharon tree that had bloomed so nicely over the bast 7-8 years. It was in a low spot in the yard that gets absolutely sodden after heavy rains, and this past winter’s rains just destroyed the root system. It didn’t bud at all this spring, and was dead by the time I dug it up. I’m bummed–it attracted bees and hummingbirds, and from July on would be awash with pale pink flowers.
Much to do this weekend, assuming the rains hold off. Branch trimming and weeding and moving around some ferns that I planted too close to other shrubs. May do some minor surgery on the pine in the front yard if I have time to break out Bucky the Chainsaw.