So much has happened during my unintended sabbatical from the blog, that my only hope for motivating myself to write about it, is to haphazardly throw the metaphorical paint at the wall without much care for coherency. Brace yourselves for a long post, as I bring ya’ll up to speed, and then hopefully return to my weekly updates again.

The clover in the garden had grown beyond my expectations, and while it has served its purpose of providing liminal ground cover, my long term goals for the space include more variety. In alliance with that objective, I eagerly volunteered to rehome some of the flowers from my recently departed grandmother’s garden, before it was turned to grass. It felt like a nice way to remember her. With my aunts’ and cousin’s help, I brought back peonies, more irises, coral bells, cranesbill, sedum, and gladiolus. And with a friend’s aid, I planted each batch as best as we could. Not sure yet what might spring back next year, but I’ve been out each morning to water the newly planted in hopes of easing them through the transition.

Of special note, my friend also gifted me some cedar mulch to help retain moisture around the transplants, and holy guacamole, that has been a pleasurable scent to drink in.

I also moved the hostas (which seem to have spread a bit, huzzah!) back to the shadier corner of the garden, with the clay soil. My neighbor has very kindly agreed to gift me a bit more hosta, which I hope to pick up later this week.

There’s also some squash-looking monstrosity growing in the shaded clay, and it is my greatest hope that it turns out to be a surprise pumpkin. Time will tell. Unless it dies. Then we’ll never know. But it’s looking like it’s doing just fine.

There’s another surprise plant growing towards the front of my garden. It might be from the morning glory that I thought died and disappeared from the front porch. Or it could be seeded from any of the trumpet flowers that I take great joy seeing bloom on my morning walks through the neighborhood. I am very, very excited.

The violets are steadily taking over the old, not-very-successful iris bed, which brings me comfort in the strength of the native wilds.

The squash…gods, have I even written about the squash? My local bodega was giving away a whole tray of young zucchini plants (likely because they weren’t looking terribly happy) and I was eager to try my hand at rehabilitating them. I made up a whole new raised garden bed and plopped them all in. Along with a second bell pepper plant I bought on sale from the same bodega.

After a couple weeks, the zucchini still hadn’t died, but they didn’t look long for this world either. I received some excellent advice to give them more space (not just between clusters, as I had originally interpreted, but also within each cluster, selecting the best stem and removing the other younglings). It felt harsh, but the results were undeniable. Within a short time, multiple zucchini plants were growing larger, and producing flowers. And after that glorious show, they’re starting to die off. They may need more space than I had anticipated. With any luck, the strongest will survive and make one unit of food.

The zucchini’s neighboring pepper plant did start to make fruit, but it somehow developed (or received) a gash on one side, so I removed the fruit in order to encourage the plant to expend its energy on another. Interestingly, a few days after being plucked, the malformed pepper turned from green to red. I was never really sure at what point during development that happens.

The pepper growing on my first pepper plant has grown a bit larger (although maybe only half the size of the fruits we get at the grocery store), and it has started to change colors. I assume that means it is no longer growing. Once it’s a nice ripe red, I’ll harvest the bounty.

Oh, and I also bought a tomato plant on sale. I decided to try a method I’ve seen, of threading the stem through a hole in the bottom of a hanging planter, to grow the tomato plant upside down. Only after I enacted that plan did I read up on WHY people use that technique. Supposedly it helps protect against soil-borne disease (not sure about that, since it’s still in contact with soil), allows mobility and space-saving (but would it not be the same mobility and space-saving if planted upside-right in the same planter?), and eliminates the need for cages (I suppose that makes sense; nothing to argue…for now). Of greater concern, however, is that this method is recommended for smaller fruit varieties, because the larger fruits may cause strain to the stems. This is not a small fruit variety. If it ever decides to flower, we’ll see how things proceed.

The jacob’s ladder – my best friend, my pal, my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy – he flourished so well, I finally had to divide and repot him. And he was thriving yet again, until I missed watering him for a couple days and the heatwave fried him to a crisp. Both halves are still alive, but some arms are decidedly dead, not just wilted. I’ve been back to frequent waterings, and I’ll need to prune back the damage soon.

So much has happened outside, that in comparison it seems very little drama has occurred amoung the plants in the house.

The rosemary is dead, I do believe. Next year I’ll try planting one outside in a raised garden bed.

The snake plant propagation new growth is still reaching for the sky, and it seems to be growing so fast, compared to the period of initial root growth. I’ve started using a new jar with a wider mouth to allow space for the two.

And then there is Sebastian. What I thought for weeks to be the growth of a new limb, is in fact the blossom of an air plant. He’s flowering! Which is very exciting, and also a little sad, because air plants die not long after they flower. But what a time to be alive! Was never expecting this! I made the mistake of submerging the flowers in the water bath after they started coming out of their sheaths. That’s on the ‘Do Not Do’ airplant list. Apparently I need to submerge only up to the flowers. So, baby baths for the future. With any luck, Sebastian will produce 1-3 pups to carry on his legacy. We’ll wait and see.