A Few June Blooms

While I wait for my vegetables to pop out, I'm enjoying some of the blooms that have appeared in my garden.

water lily from our goldfish pond

The goldfish pond has four water lilies in bloom. I don't have a picture of all four in bloom and will have to wait for the weekend to capture that shot since they only open in the morning. Sadly, I haven't seen our resident pond frog this spring. I hope he (or she?) returns. A couple of years ago we saw a second frog, a smaller one, but it didn't stay long and we haven't seen it since.

The butterfly bush has flowers; now they just need to turn purple. I've seen many white and yellow sulfurs fluttering around it.

endless summer hydrangeas

An Endless Summer hydrangea bloom in two shades.

cucumber plant

The cucumber plant has a blossom. It's always exciting to see blossoms appear on the vegetables.

coconut ice sunflower seedling

After planting them just last week, two Coconut Ice sunflower seedlings have emerged. They look very similar to the Chianti Hybrids (oh, please don't let me have mixed up the seeds).

The petunias don't seem to mind the heat. I come home from work and all the other flowers, like the hydrangeas, are drooping over, but the petunias are always perky.

Today I'm linking to May Dreams Gardens Garden Blogger Bloom Day. There are lots of beautiful flowers in bloom this month.

Where Did These Come From?

When I went outside to water my crops yesterday I noticed a few things I hadn't noticed the day before:

The first grape tomatoes seemingly appeared overnight.

The stems on one of the green tomatillo plants is all twisted and tangled up in itself. It looks really cool.

I got really excited when I thought this was cilantro, but I was tricked. It's parsley. These popped up overnight, it seems. Cilantro is our nemesis. We had trouble growing it last year, and the pot where we planted it this year shows no signs of life yet. I would love to be able to grow full bunches of cilantro. 

Berry Harvest and Plant Progress, Mid-June Report

Only one of our three blueberry bushes is producing fruit this year, and it's not much fruit either. Some of the blueberries have ripened and we picked them plus a few small strawberries from our raised bed. So far, the mesh netting we put around the blueberry bushes and strawberry bed has kept birds and squirrels off.

squash blossoms

tomatillos--green in front, purple in red container

The zucchini and straightneck yellow squash plants have blossomed. The tomatillos are doing extremely well also. Six weeks ago the tomatillo seedlings were so spindly and weak-looking that I wasn't sure if they would grow strong. Now the stems look thick and sturdy. We are growing green and purple varieties. The purple ones (in the red pots) are doing much better and already have blossoms.

Golden Bell (yellow pepper)

Early Girl tomatoes

The Golden Bell plant has one fruit. And the Early Girls are growing bigger every day. I'm so anxious to start picking tomatoes and tomatillos. I've been collecting salsa recipes and looking for other ways to incorporate tomatillos into our meals.

black krim tomatoes 6/11

purple beauty (left) and sweet chocolate (right)

Finally, I continue to track the progress of the Black Krim tomatoes and Purple Beauty and Sweet Chocolate bell peppers. All of the above were started from seed, and I've never grown any of them before. I can't wait to see what the fruit looks like.

some of my container garden