With temperatures up to the 80’s and 90’s in the month of June my pumpkins and corn have been leaping out of the ground.

I also have some sunflower type perennials that grow like weeds here. The birds planted them for me many years ago and I’ve spread them so that now I have a good number of them. They particularly like this spot in our front yard. I wanted to put them by the fence as decoration as I had tried hanging baskets, but they were stolen. At that point (many, many years ago now), I decided to just plant something in the ground. If people steal them, well, they are just “pruning” them. :)

They bloom all summer long - and their first flowers open about June 5 or so.

I was worried that the corn might not make “knee high by the fourth of July” but it is well beyond knee high.

At least MY knees.

Some of it is getting to be waist high. We’ve had such warm weather - unusually warm for us here in Poland—that it has grown very fast.

I’m sad that I don’t have more plants, but sometimes I plant them too thickly and then either it hurts the corn because the soil isn’t rich enough, or I have to thin them.

This time I planted seeds what I considered the right distance apart. Unfortunately, not all of the seeds came up.

However, it is just the two of us here, we should have plenty for eating in August/September.

I babied my pumpkins for the first week they were in the ground, watering 2-3x a day because of the heat. Then I watered 1x a day and lately less than that - until I was able to water every couple of days. As the plants grow larger, however, I will end up watering more and once I get some fruit set, then I’ll have to water more and more.

I did see one flower about to open on one of the pumpkins. However, because it is a male flower, it doesn’t mean that I will see a pumpkin soon.

So while I hadn’t planned on putting any pumpkin plants in the ground, I have 12 and a few volunteer - probably gourds.

My heart hasn’t been in my garden this year. However, I can’t say that I’ve spent a great amount of time on it. And I will enjoy the fruit once it comes! I always do.

The flowers - I love them - they are carefree - we only water them. They are Heliopsis helianthoides as far as I can tell. They grow well all over Poland. A neighbor down the street has a bunch - and I suspect that is where ours got their start.

And now you know!

The cool thing about a garden: It grows and changes “all by itself”, unlike a quilt.

My quilt will stay in the same condition as long as I don’t touch it.

However, the garden…no. It’s going to look quite a bit different in about 3 weeks. I’ll try to do another update then and show you!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

On the home front - garden update