Nearly every day when Tim gets home from work he walks in the front door, gives me a kiss, and then heads straight through the house, out the back door. He leans over the pumpkin plant and looks closely, turning to me to ask, "Does this leaf look bigger today?" I always say yes, because I've already inspected each plant two or three times.
I'm learning new things, too. The stalk of the tomato plant smells like tomatoes. The flowers on the white eggplant are purple. The leaves of the cucumber and the butternut squash plants look very similar, and if they weren't side by side in the garden I'm not sure I could tell them apart. The broccoli leaves are so waxy that raindrops puddle and then roll right off.
I've also learned that not every plant will thrive, no matter how much we want it to. A few days ago, Tim yanked a stunted tomato plant out of the garden to make more room for the vines of the butternut squash. And we've held out hope (perhaps too long) for a bell pepper plant that is failing to thrive. It's hard to say why its not growing--maybe it's been overwatered or underwatered or it perhaps it is just an unhealthy plant. If there is no improvement over the next week, this pepper will likely be discarded to give more room to the others.
It is more difficult than it should be to let go of that hope.
We have some bell pepper plants too and so far they aren't producing anything. It seems like it's a tough plant to grow from the gardening blogs I've been reading. Your pumpkin looks like our yellow squash plant. It has gotten huge and it seems like two plants worth of leaves even though we planted just one.
ReplyDeleteLovely to see your at-home garden progressing! Although not every plant will manage to thrive (especially given how challenging our weather has been), I'm rooting for you to end up with happy abundance in your back yard. And I can't wait to see what you do with this year's crops!
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