The Midsummer Garden

This little spider was on a zinnia flower in a bouquet I had set out on the patio.

Because we have been traveling back and forth between Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas during the month of June, we have somewhat neglected our gardens. Between trips, I've managed to mow the grass but have not stayed home long enough to enjoy its neat appearance. Each time we returned home, the grass was in need of mowing again. After this last five-day trip, there were waist-high weeds in one of my 8'X8' herb beds (pigweed that had been hiding among the basil). I quickly pulled them and began the process of cleaning up the midsummer garden.

One of the weeds I hate the most, Phyllanthus urinaria, took full advantage of our absence from the gardens. With just a little neglect, this plant can blanket a once well-weeded area. My emotional response to this weed, however, illustrates the complexity of our relationships to plants. Evidently, Phyllanthus urinaria has medicinal uses.  Also known as chamber bitter or gripe weed (the latter being my favorite, as it perfectly captures my attitude toward the plant), this plant "is an important medicinal herb in tropical Asia, where it is used to treat kidney stones, gallstones, liver diseases, and viral infections. Modern clinical studies have found it to be promising in the treatment of various tumors." Online at the U. S. Library of Medicine, one can find a number of research publications suggesting the possible medicinal capabilities of the plant. Nonetheless, I try diligently to eradicate Phyllanthus urinaria from my gardens. Its prolific growth will provide researchers with enough material without my help.

Yesterday I dug some forgotten garlic out of one of my 8'X8' foot raised beds. By the time I thought of doing this, the leaves of the plants had turned brown and disappeared into the soil or on the grass which I had mowed recently, so with my garden-gloved hand, I had to poke deeply into the soil to find the bulbs of garlic. I left some cloves behind for resprouting. In early June, Tom and I harvested the garlic which Tom had planted in the big garden, and we hung the garlic in our garden shed to dry.

immediately after harvest in early June

garlic drying in our garden shed

Yesterday I was happy to see many honeybees buzzing and collecting nectar from our mountain mint. I counted at least twenty bees on the plants. Because there were so few pollinators early in the summer, I was particularly glad to see these bees, though I am disappointed over the lack of diversity among the pollinators. A few swallowtail butterflies and a little skipper or two have shown up briefly to check out the flowering zinnias.

All the basil is in full bloom and setting seed, the tomatillo plants are full of their papery green balloons, and the heirloom tomato plants are heavy with tomatoes. These indeterminate heirlooms ripen slowly, so we plan to can a few pints at a time, as we gather the ripening tomatoes, trying to beat the bugs and birds to the succulent flesh.

I finally decided to pull up all the strawberry plants we had planted in a bed along our patio. Although I hated to compost the plants, we just don't have another garden area ready for planting strawberries. In addition, this particular variety did not deliver the strawberries we had hoped. Quinault strawberries are evidently a popular variety; Tom bought the original plants at a local hardware store, the only variety available there. However, the plants did not produce many berries, and the berries they did produce were few, small and disfigured. As I dug up the plants, however, I noticed that the ground was hard and dry, even though we had added compost to the area when we planted the berries. Previous owners of this house and property parked their vehicles immediately behind this house, near the edge of the patio. The former driveway came in from a paved road to the back of the house where we have created herb and flower beds. We have tried to overcome the consequences of that vehicular traffic by digging deep and adding lots of compost to the garden areas, but I think the patio area needs more work.

And so I have my work cut out for the rest of the week and into next week as I dig up the soil around the aloe veras I have already planted there and add a lot more composted horse manure. Eventually, we will create a raised bed just for strawberries, in an area away from the house. I am thinking of planting verbenas in the area vacated by the strawberries. Those flowers require little care, and I won't care so much that the cats love to bed down in that area among the plants. Also, verbenas remind me of my childhood, especially the purple ones. I remember my mother had one little round bed of  purple verbenas at a rent house we lived in until I was about five years old. My grandmother Margaret Cole Dugat also grew verbenas in her flower beds in Old River, Texas. Purple verbenas and purple-globed amaranths--these are plants I particularly associate with my grandmother--those and red cockscombs.

We have much to do in our midsummer garden.

This variegated ginger plant is thriving where I have transplanted it.