Finally, A Sunflower!

Over the weekend, the first Teddy Bear sunflower opened.

Then I came home from work Monday night to find that two more Teddy Bear flowers had opened!

...and although the other sunflower plants have not really made much progress, the Coconut Ice plants have finally developed buds.

On a different subject, there's a new tomato to add to the list we're growing this year: Supersweet hybrids. They're supposed to be small (about an inch wide) and sweet--SUPER sweet. We transplanted the seedlings to pots over the weekend. They're calling for blistering heat over the next week, so maybe that'll help them grow.

Weekend in the Garden: Rearranging

We grow the majority of our vegetables in containers. We do not have a lot of ground space for everything we want to grow, and we have found that tomatoes, peppers, and even squash and cucumbers grow nicely in containers. Our plants are on our deck, and as of today I counted 65 (!) containers. As the plants began to grow and spread out, deck space becomes limited fast. So over the weekend, we rearranged things to make it easier for us to move around when we water and harvest.

We grouped the pepper plants in one corner.

The squash plants are short, and it was often hard to reach them underneath the sprawling tomato vines, so we moved them on top of the rail.

We moved our grape tomato plants and a jalapeno, Sweet Chocolate, and Purple Beauty pepper plant to the center and created an aisle so we can walk more easily in between plants when watering, inspecting for aphids and other bad bugs, and for picking vegetables. It's easier to get to the squash plants now. The sunflowers (right corner of bottom picture) are near the back door where they'll get plenty of sun, and it should be more difficult for the squirrels to get to them. Squirrels have been after the seedlings and buds this year.

Our Black Krim and tomatillo plants are on the table.

The most interesting thing we did was put the cucumber plants on the edge so that the vines can hang down. Before, we had them tied up to trellises but that was taking up a lot of space and the curly tendrils would often weave their way into the window screens. We still have some dried up tendrils stuck in there from last year. Having the vines hang over is definitely more fun when it's time to harvest. We'll see how this arrangement works.

Everything is so much more organized now. I liked being in my garden before, but now that things are orderly and I'm not stepping on squash and cucumber blossoms, it's a lot more fun too.

July Blooms (and Non-Blooms)

I'm linking up with Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. Unfortunately, this month I have more non-blooming flowers than blooming ones, so I'll be getting my July floral bloom fix around the internet instead of in my garden.  First, here's what I do have in bloom:

The pink diamond hydrangea tree has started to bloom. These flowers start out white and by Fall they turn pink.

The butterfly bush has blooms too. These dark purple flowers are so pretty and have a pleasant, sweet smell. I've seen a few white sulfur butterflies, but no other kind of butterfly. These flowers attract bees too, and I do like my bumbles, so that's been nice.

Now for what's NOT blooming.

My mammoth sunflowers look weak. {sigh} Last year they started blooming in June. We're now at July 15, and I haven't seen so much as a bud. To be fair, the seedlings I started early this spring got clipped by a vile creature commonly known as a squirrel, so I had to start them over. These haven't been growing as long as they would have had the original seedlings not gotten clipped, so developmentally I guess you could say they're a few weeks behind.  A little fertilizer may be in order. 

More non-blooming sunflowers--On the left I have Coconut Ice hybrids, and in the square container I planted Chianti hybrids. I've never grown Coconut Ice before, so I have no basis for comparison. But I did grow Chiantis last year, and they were blooming by mid-July. The Chianti seedlings I started in early spring also got clipped, so these are the second try.  For the mammoth and Chianti flowers, I have done nothing differently this year. They get plenty of sun and are even in the same containers they were in last year. Maybe a little more time is all they need.

All my hopes for mid-July blooms rest on the Teddy Bear Sunflower. These are also new to my garden this year, and I spotted a few flowers trying to open last night. Maybe I'll have some blooms in the next few days. And I hope by next month to see all my sunflowers in bloom. 

Happy GBBD!