My Kansas garden corner grows more leaves, and more green, by the day. Is May normally this green? I confess, I must have had my eyes shut in years past. What was I thinking, was my mind off traveling to another place and time? This year I feel rooted right here and it is beautiful.

Gardening/life can sometimes be a little chaotic. I have another confession, I never did get to plant the tomato seeds I bought back in March. I’m not good on the indoor planting thing – I procrastinated until I thought it was just too late. They say that perfectionism is the cause of procrastination. I’m sure it’s true; I know I’d not be satisfied if my indoor seedlings had failed to thrive.

In the above picture you can see tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spring greens (which have gone to seed) in raised bed 1. Rather than miss out totally on the summer vegetable season I took myself off to a local garden center a couple of weekends ago and invested in a few tomato plants and a couple of pepper plants. It wasn’t enough for me to just plant everything though. I’m totally overcome with curiosity about which tomato plants will give me the biggest crop. It’s a touch of Adam Savage (Mythbuster) mentality, without the explosions, hopefully!

I’ve ended up with 4 sources of tomato plants to compare 1) garden center 6″ pot tomato, 2) garden center 3″ pot tomato, 3) neighbor indoor planted in plug tomato, 4) self-seeded tomato which grew from vegetable discards. So far the self-seeded tomato plants have caught up on the much older indoor planted plug. I’m really keen to see if sewing indoors has any advantage at all. If not I’ll be delighted because I’ll not be procrastinating on tomatoes any more! Of course, it’s really bad science since they are all different varieties and had different compost to start off.

Pictured in raised bed 2 are lettuce, mini bok choi (with yellow flowers – gone to seed) and the leaves of radishes, which I am mulching down. My radishes didn’t do as well as usual this year, but I was able to share the crop with a couple of neighbors anyway. After the slow start of my lettuce this spring I’ve never quite ended up with the crop I expected. It’s a story for another time, but rabbits and such-like critters have been a plague to my garden this year.

I was thinking the other day about flowers in the garden. What are your favorite colors of flowers? Do you have a flower display you can see from your kitchen window? I’ve never had flowers on view from my window – maybe I like it that way with just green to see. I’m not sure.

In flower in my prairie garden right now are blue spiderwort, white Penstemon digitalis, and the yellow flowered Missouri native Oenothera missouriensis just starting to flower and visible right at the bottom of the photo. It’s the perfect time of year for sitting outside, enjoying the fresh air, and not having to worry about pesky mosquitoes. I think I need to get a book and head out to the garden to read, or maybe cook dinner and enjoy eating on the deck tonight.

I hope your own garden corner is thriving. Have you got photos up on the web to share? What is blooming for you? What are you hoping to harvest?

Related posts:

1. Garden Corner 06/11/09
2. Garden Corner 06/04/09
3. Garden Corner 03/26/09