Gardening in July

Our container garden is a happy garden these days. Lots of growth, lots of potential, lots of comebacks.

Here are the Golden Sunrise peppers. And seemingly out of nowhere, new growth has sprouted all over the tops of these plants. In a sense, this is what I mean by comebacks. I'd kind of resigned myself to limited production, despite healthy-looking plants. It's the old fear that despite doing what I think I should be doing (buying from good growers, giving plants appropriate sun and regular water, good soil, etc.,), that there's some impossible hurdle that I can never clear once I get plants home. However, perhaps it's the sun that's finally shining down on Massachusetts, but new growth is appearing and I'm looking forward to a larger crop than I'd originally feared.

Speaking of new growth, the strawberry plant is probably the most extreme example of this. It's been growing runners, or "daughter" plants for the past week. I've potted those, so that the little nub that in the case of a daughter or two was showing new roots is dipped into soil. Again, I'd kind of resigned myself to a very very small crop. We harvested about 5 strawberries... total. And with days in between. So Thora and I would pluck the ripest one, bring it inside, give it a rinse, and then with Dad, each take turns taking a small bite out of it. I've never tried strawberries before and was told that June was their most prolific month. But June in Massachusetts was the grayest, coolest, wettest in years. So I thought there was a chance that I'd missed my chance for a decent harvest. But I was consoling myself with these daughters. However, in the last day or so, I spotted the white and yellow flowers that preface actual fruit. So, perhaps all is not lost with this venture.

Sorry for the out-of-focus photo, but these zucchini are the little, yellow oblong shapes in the middle of the photo.


While I'm not sure where the growth will be coming from, these are the sweet, little purple flowers growing on the eggplant plant. I'm pretty sure that the fruit are slowly appearing out of the non-flowering little bulbs. However, they're so shy, I can't really capture them on film. Soon, hopefully.

And to my great joy, the echinacea are opening in numbers. And they're almost 4 feet tall.


More photos to come. Now that the garden is really doing something visible, I'm out there everyday marveling at the growth and changes.