This year has been somewhat discouraging in the garden. First it was too cold to plant much. And then suddenly it was very hot and dry. This is the hottest spring I can remember. It seemed whenever I'd plant radish and lettuce seeds, the weather would turn too hot for them to germinate. Only one lettuce seed did, and it was in a pot in the shade of a parsley plant. I planted many new heirloom tomato varieties this year, and they began to finally get some little tomatoes last week, and most have them now. The lemon cucumbers are almost a foot tall and still no blossoms. The eggplant has lots of attractive blossoms and no fruit yet. But the plant is bigger and more beautiful than any eggplant I've ever grown. And I think I'm finally seeing the beginning of little bell peppers.
As usual, I'm probably the only person in the world that can't produce a zucchini plant that produces much fruit. So far my almost miniature plants produce about one blossom at a time. But at least I have some beautiful herbs in bloom. Besides basil, I have Texas tarragon, cat mint, catnip, cat thyme, lemon thyme, sweet woodruff, borage, two kinds of parsley, lovage, and bee balm among the veggies. And I expect to have some ripe tomatoes in a few weeks. The marigolds, geraniums, coreopsis and sea lavender add color, and, I hope, attract bees.
