As mentioned last week, the first dip into freezing temperature does not immediately halt all plant growth outdoors. Remember the bell pepper plants that were planted too late to produce fruit? Well, one of them made a flower! In ideal conditions, we would pinch off the early flowers of this ‘fast-producing’ pepper plant until it was a bit more mature. Once the plant was set for success, the flowers would self-pollinate, each containing both stamen- (male) and pistil- (female) bits. And voila! Seed-containing bell peppers fruits would grow from the flowers in roughly two weeks. I still don’t expect to get a single pepper fruit, but dang, I was gobsmacked to spot this one flower. It’s a gardening miracle!

Inducing far less appreciation, but still worthy of admiration are the weeds that have popped up around the weed barrier fabric, confirming that life finds a way.

Another unexpected fall phenomenon: the recently planted iris bulbs have already sent up baby shoots. Uh, Houston, we have a problem. Unauthorized liftoff ahead of schedule. Thankfully, my panic-driven internet dive suggests that this premature growth is not terribly unusual nor a problem. I read that mulching on top could help; I also read that covering up the sprouts would be ill-advised. I opted to leave them alone. When in doubt, I let Mother Nature choose for herself.

While not outdoor plants, I am highly surprised as the not-death of some Purple Heart cuttings that I had forgotten about. Left in shallow puddles of stagnant water, there was plenty of rot at the base of these plant babies, but the still-growing tips looked healthy enough. In a bid for another miracle, I trimmed off the decayed bases, coated the new bases with rooting hormone, and replanted the lot in a cleaned-and-sanitized pot of heavily watered dirt. In theory, inchplants at least can be propagated in soil instead of water, so long as the soil is kept very moist. Let us hope this method works for these poor neglected souls…and that I remember to water them more regularly.

And finally, we bid farewell to this pair of younglings. Alas, more victims of my early endeavors!