Garden Update, July 9th

Ears of corn starting to appear. Carrots—those that germinated—growing happily. I did not have to thin them. The peppers are alive, and that's about the most you can say for them. Straw bales for experimental garden technique have started to fall over. Since there's tomatoes growing out of them, this is suboptimal. Straw bale tomatoes healthy but very small. Volunteer tomatoes absurdly large and prolific, which would be easier to deal with had not the pumpkins gone mad.

Oh, the pumpkins. I planted quite a few seeds, on the theory that since they were several years old and had been stored in the garage—notable for being a horrible place to store your seeds—most of them would not come up. I was mistaken, or perhaps my garden is precisely what they've been dreaming of, because they've almost all grown up. And out. And over. And I am rapidly losing any semblance of pathways as they grow into any open space whatsoever, including through one of my tomato cages when I was away from the garden for a few days. At least three Cinderella pumpkins have set successfully, and most of the other vines have female flowers in plenty.

There are lots of pollinators around, including a large orange bumblebee of a type I have not seen before. This probably accounts for the pumpkin sets. I suspect I won't know how many pumpkins I have until the vines die back in October and I try to trace which ones came from where. I know I've planted at least five different types, including Jack Be Little, Cinderella, Ghost (white), your standard jack o'lantern, and the standard sugar pumpkin. And they all want to be the star of the garden.

I am going to have the most awesome pumpkin display for Halloween...