Summer Sowing

I haven't posted in a week because I haven't made anything new.  It has been all reruns.  I don't do summer well and really haven't felt like cooking.  Last night, my side dish was celery sticks.  I didn't even dip them in anything.  And yet, the process of cutting them felt like I had made a proper side for my broiled vegetable panini, using my first eggplant.

And this is where this turns into a Gardening post.  After a very bitter salad, I decided to rip up the rest of the greens in the front yard.  I have two plants in the pond that haven't turned bitter yet, but the front 2'x2' were old and not tasty.  Out they came.  I turned the soil and added some moisture control mulch. And then I dug a few more holes and mulched them.  And all of this was so I could - drum roll - put in pumpkin seeds.

There are four hills in the front yard and one in the shallow corner of the pond.  I plan to train that one across the back of the yard.  I managed to put one in an odd area at the edge of the driveway that gets watered by the neighbor's sprinklers.  The rest are going to need a lot of watering.

Meanwhile, my cucumbers from seed are very healthy in their pot and climbing the chicken wire I set up for them.  They're blooming, so I may get cucumbers soon…if the bugs I keep picking off it don't eat them first.  The cantaloupe is finally taking off as a plant and blooming, but no fruit yet.  I do feel like the leaves are too small for a species that produces a 2-pound fruit.

It will be about a week before the pumpkins sprout.  The weather is perfect for them, warm and a bit humid.  Next year, I'm definitely going back to tomatoes.  They require less water and the nightshade bugs have pretty much left my area, to be replaced by squash-loving bugs.

Oh, and the neighbor a few blocks down is growing vines onto their roof again!