Hits and Misses

It's the Memorial Day weekend and I'll spend less time gardening than I hoped to. There was a baseball tournament. And other chores. And today is too hot to be outside working. I'm thinking pool.

This morning I picked a few broccoli florets for our dinner. It seems that will be it--our own steamed broccoli only twice this spring. Now it is getting too hot and they will not produce any more. I plan to pull broccoli plants out and seed some corn instead. We grew some corn last year but it was not very good. It might be that I picked it too late and kennels had become too starchy. So we'll try again this year with a different variety.

I am not a very disciplined or elaborate gardener. If I buy seeds or seedlings, I rarely take note of the species name. Perhaps I could have found a better producing broccoli. I have not written down the variety of cucumbers I'm growing this year; I just remember it has "sweet" in their name (last year's pickling cucumbers were too bitter in one end). And I love to find seeds in other places than seed stands or catalogs. For example, my shallots and acorn squash originally came from a produce stand at Safeway.
I recently picked some seeds from jack-jump-up viola growing in our neighborhood near a sidewalk. I'm saving them for fall or next spring. Also pictured is an old sweet potato tuber originally purchased for consumption, but since it has started sprouting, I'll put it somewhere in my garden. I do not count on actually harvesting new sweet potatoes of this size, but I know it will grow lots of vines that will smother weeds.
This collection of heirloom tomatoes comes from Costco and I'll try to save some seeds from the yellow ones and grow them next year. Wish me luck!