Things are moving along,now that it's mid-May.

I've done a lot since the last update. Here are two photos from the 5th and the 8th:



I transplanted another set of young tomato and tomatillo plants, four varieties of basil, and a couple of chile pepper plants into the center-rear bed. I put the still-small sage, rosemary and lavender seedlings into the southern corners.

But that's just the beginning. You'll notice the tree-branch tripods along the flanks. At the back, I will run zucchini and/or beans up those structures. In the front, I've sown a variety of morning glories at the base of each branch. Those seeds are covered with plastic food containers until the nighttime temps return to the 50s.

I planted a succession of sunflowers under the tripods, arranged by height. As I kneeled down to sow the tallest variety, I was reminded that only two of the Rostov seeds were left in the package after the seed swap. Fortunately, I tucked a small bag of Russian mammoth sunflower seeds from the swap into that Rostov packet.

I put one of the stevia plants about which I previously wrote into a side bed. The other one is in a pot. A few plants that I wanted to preserve (read: save from the mowing crew) are also in pots. Heal-all was the first plant to get that treatment. I collected some of its seed from the yard two years ago, but I had not been able to get them to germinate (after taking them to Korea and back, mixed in with plantain seeds).



Other potted plantings include Anaheim chile peppers, Navajo tobacco, eucalyptus, euphorbia (from seed I collected from a plant that I had in Korea in 2006), Schisandra chinensis (an experiment; I have no idea if they'll germinate), star anise, sage, cilantro, oregano, and... well, that might be all. There are some new shoots of bittersweet nightshade that I put in a pot, also. Those came from the middle of that wooded area in the top photos. I suppose there's a bit of nostalgia invloved in keeping them. I was drawn to that plant, which grew in the hidden area between some arborvitae and the front of our house when I was a child.

Now I collect Daturas and always stop to check out wild nightshades...

Anyhow, what else? I transplanted the two prickly caterpillar seedlings that I grew indoors. I resowed calendula in a couple of spots where one of the mow 'n' blow guys crossed over a corner with the weedwhacker. I tucked some insurance seed in the transplant holes with the ashwagandha, sunberries, ground cherries, Mediterranean herbs and a couple of the tomatoes.



Finally, I filled in some gaps in the early-season beds with a little more spinach, calendula, carrots and broccoli. I also put three overseeded lines of nigella on the northern side of the tomatoes, just for effect. The peas are winding their way up crisscrossed lines of twine (which I've joked about as the gladiator sandal-style trellises).
So that's deal with the garden proper. The next bit will concern the wildflowers and vegetables that are growing in the wild wayback.