The garden at mid-summer

It's been a very hot and dry summer here in Maryland, but a few replenishing rains recently have helped. The front garden, a mix of native and non-native, is doing well. Now that my rain barrel is full again, I can give the plants supplemental water without guilt.

The big stories of the moment - hummingbirds and tomatoes. On Sunday as we were getting out of the car I saw that the cardinal flowers in the front garden were starting to bloom, and I wondered when the hummingbirds would show up.  No sooner did I have the thought than two appeared, one hovering over the cardinal flowers, the other perusing the purple blossoms of the chaste tree. Last year I had a female virtually living in the yard for much of the summer -- I wonder if she is one of the two? So now, the quest for a really good photo of a hummingbird begins anew.

The tomatoes have puzzled me for awhile. All have had clusters of green tomatoes for weeks, and none seemed to be ripening, although now the Brown Berry, the Yellow Pear, and the Costaluto Genovese have begun. But the Brandywines and other large tomatoes remain resolutely green. I googled "tomatoes not ripening" and came up with 3 pieces of advice: 1) be patient, 2) cut back on water, and 3) fertilize. It had never occurred to me that it would be possible to water a potted tomato too much, and I'm still not sure about this, but I am cutting back just a bit. I sure want those big green softballs to fulfill their delicious potential.

The driveway garden revisited

So how did the driveway vegetable garden fare? Reasonably well. The tomatoes were tasty though not prolific. The crop was certainly much better than if I had tried to coax them along in the part-sun of the backyard. The peppers were quite happy, continuing to produce right up until last weekend, when I decided it really was time to start dismantling the driveway garden.

As for the watermelon and squash, that little experiment was less than successful. Each plant produced two fruits. The watermelons grew to a decent size for a "personal" watermelon. However, when cut open both had mushy inedible flesh. And the squash, while they appear well-formed, only grew to about 4 inches long - hardly enough to bother with, though I suppose I should at least cut them open and see what their interiors look like. I guess there is a reason people don't grow these viney crops in containers! Although the squash blossoms were so pretty earlier in the season, perhaps I will just grow squash as an ornamental until the flowers fade.

Next year I'll do tomatoes and peppers again for sure. I'll try some of the tomatoes that are bred to be container size, but I'll also continue with heirlooms. This year my heirlooms started out leggy, having sat for too long in partial sun before I got them transplanted into their big containers. Next year I'll start with sturdier plants, and pinch and prune before they get out of control. And I'll think of something new to try in the driveway garden. Maybe sweet potatoes. Or...?