The garden in late June 2011
There’s a lot going on in my garden right now and the growth is impressive – it seems like there is recognizable growth every day. I love this time in the garden, as it is full of hope and promise. And the green colors are just amazing.
This year I have a good number of volunteers. Volunteers are those plants that just grow on their own out in the dirt, without any planning on my part. In my garden the source is usually something in the compost that I add to the dirt. Or seeds from last season that drop into the dirt, and then sprout the following season.
There are four volunteers in my garden – a cucumber, some kind of summer squash, ground cherries, and a tomatillo plant. I think this is a cucumber:
Cucumber flower from volunteer
And this is some sort of summer squash – could be zucchini, could be yellow crookneck, could be some other kind. I hope it’s crookneck.
Summer squash volunteer
If it is indeed a kind of summer squash, I hope to make something tasty with the squash blossoms.
A lone tomatillo plant grows in the back of the garden, and it’s flowering!
Tomatillo flowering
I’ve been told that you need at least two tomatillo plants in order to get fruit, but last year I had two plants and nothing happened. Both plants flowered but no fruit resulted. So frustrating! Maybe it will work out differently for me this year. I sure hope so, as I love tomatillos!
Finally, my ground cherries. So many of these little plants popped up this spring – probably close to 3 dozen, no doubt from dropped seeds in the ground from last year.
Ground cherries
They are even starting to fruit! I hope to make some ground cherry jam this year.
Let’s hear it for volunteers!
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Meg, your so fortunate to have gotten so many volunteers! I particularly love the photo of your flowering tomatillo, the bloom almost appears to have a dew drop falling from it. Looks like you are going to have a bumper crop and a really busy harvest season! I have never heard of ground cheeries….are the really similar to tree cherries? Wish I could be there to share in all your knowledge and experiments!
Thanks, Linda! I also love that tomatillo photo – I love their flowers, so pretty. Here’s hoping the plant will fruit. Ground cherries are actually a lot like tomatillos, just very small. They have husks and tiny seeds like tomatillos. They sort of taste like pineapple and tomato. Ih this post: Waiting for Red-o – you’ll see ground cherries from last year in the third picture down. Some people liken the ground cherry to the cape gooseberry, too.
Ground cherry flowers and tomatillo flowers are very similar, too.
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