Celebrating the Garden Bounties

It's so sweet to see each new Zinnia bloom, and now even the giants are coming out.  My husband loves how long they stay blooming, and we're both in favor of bright color spots around the yard.  

I think the packets we bought were supposed to be mixed colors; thus far, they've all been pink.  Not that I mind.  We just haven't seen much of the "mix" of colors.  Then again, we haven't planted tons, and we have some more smaller ones coming up, so we'll continue the adventure and see what colors come next.

And even though I showed you our tomato trials, I'm learning in life and in the garden to not only pour energy into the things that are in crisis, but also to draw energy and delight from the things that are working right.  

So this little melon?  It grows leaps and bounds every day.  The thought hadn't crossed our minds to grow melons at all, until Baker Creek sent us a free gift packet of Ananas D'Amerique A Chai Verte Melon seeds.  It has rave reviews, and we can hardly wait until it's ripe!

The white sheet underneath them is theoretically there to shield them from potential heat of the cement they're growing over, and I think it has helped.  We planted the melons in a narrow bed near a fence, with our back parking area bordering the other side of the bed.  I've seen it done that way before, where the vines of the plants just sprawl out over everything.  I may not be a proponent of a fully raw diet, but I think cooked melons would be pretty terrible, so we're glad the sheet helps keep them cool.

And see our baby watermelon???  {delighted squeal}  When I look at it in the mornings, it's bigger than the night before.  When I look at it in the evenings, it's bigger than it was in the morning.  I guess it has to grow fast, if it's going to get to the advertised thirty pounds or more.

Even though it has been super hot here (we've already had several days above 100F), the basil plants are growing fabulously.  This is our largest harvest yet, and several of the plants are just barely big enough to start pruning.  Two generations of basil are out there right now, and I'm considering starting seeds for a third generation.  There's just nothing quite so yummy as fresh pesto right from your own back yard, and I wouldn't mind having so much basil that I would need to freeze the extra pesto, or dry the extra leaves.