2026 CW30 - Indoor Garden, Underwater?
Good evening fellow flora enthusiasts!
This week, Sara and I are writing to you from a beach vacation, but that doesn’t mean the garden blog can’t prevail! Prior to leaving for a few days, I had the opportunity to gather some photographic evidence of the progress the garden has made. Here’s to not missing a Tuesday blog post!
Underwater Gardening
As I walked around inside the house one evening last week, I realized there is one key assortment of plants that we have yet to share with you all! I have kept fish for quite some time (ever since college) and have always enjoyed keeping planted aquariums. I have let our 29 gallon tank in the library go without maintenance for some time but have begun to spruce it up! I’ll save a major update/reveal for once the renovations are completed, but for now here are some teasers.
Here we have a Peppered Corydoras (I’ll try to include the fish in the Pests and Pets section from now on) nestled on some river rocks beneath the Dwarf Sagittaria grass. Alongside the Corys we also have an assortment of snails, including this vibrantly patterned Leopard Ramshorn Snail (also nestled among the Dwarf Sagittaria).
In the coming weeks be on the lookout for more updates from our aquatic garden!
Farm(ish) to Table!
Not a week goes by during the summer where we do not eat at least one meal with partial inspiration from the garden!
This week, Sara made a delightful whole chicken roasted in a homemade garden-grown Pesto! This is a great combination. Pesto is by far one of my favorite garden products, and it is very convenient that Basil is by far one of the easiest things for us to grow down here. Still, we never seem to have enough!
Trellising Fools!
By far the productivity topic of the week was Trellising! We’ve been putting many of these tasks off, and our vining plants have been begging for them!
Here we have a combination trellis supporting Luffa Gourds on the south side and Moon Flowers on the north side. This 16ft cattle panel was a bit of a beast to get bent and wedged between the existing vertical trellis and the fence, but it makes for a really cool trellis tunnel. It will be interesting to see which of these vigorously growing plants wins and takes complete control of the arch!
In a slightly more whimsical showing, Sara crafted this extension to her Pole Bean trellis with some free leftover materials from a project at her mother’s! The trellis is sound, but I think we’ll have to add some taller stakes to keep it straight next week! Right now, it looks like something straight(?) out of a Dr. Seuss garden.
Front Beds Follow-up
Moving around to the front beds which were recently put through a complete renovation (see last week’s blog where we tore out and completely replanted these beds), we can check in on the Bubblegum Supertunias from Proven Winners. Since being pulled from their shipping containers these plants have more than quadrupled their blooms, and we look forward to them covering the entirety of these beds in a matter of weeks!
Also, an annual tradition around the front beds is this volunteer Vinca which protrudes from a gap at the corner of the sidewalk every year. Most gardeners would pull this “Weed” from the crevice, saving the annuals for the garden beds, but we enjoy this little trooper and allow it to grow on as long as it can! It is honestly impressive to see this tenacious plant push through the summer heat with no irrigation surrounded by concrete.
Backyard Blooms
Around the back we have some mid-summer strongholds continuing to put on shows! The Moonflowers are still producing impressive amounts of the dinner-plate-sized white blooms. Alongside those, the [new to us this year] Princess Flowers are just now filling out their first sets of deep purple blooms, towering above the garden.
In the beds immediately next to these, Sara’s arch of Black-Eyed Susan flowers is really filling out! We have an assortment of lighter and darker blooms spread across this cattle panel, with plants growing up both sides. By next week these two sets of plants will have completely met at the top of the trellis, soon to be providing a shaded tunnel for us to traverse.
An Update from the Veggie-verse!
Not to be completely distracted by the flower updates, the vegetable garden is still going strong!
Here we have some Jalapeno peppers ripening on the plants in preparation to become an assortment of Chipotle seasonings and sauces. For those of you that did not know, Chipotle peppers are simply Jalapenos allowed to ripen which are then smoked. In the next bed over, the Eggplant continue to produce massive fruits! We are eating these and quickly and as often as we can, but we cannot keep up! We have already begun preserving some of these for wintertime meals later in the year.
In a more recent addition, here we have an Okra Bloom on display! These deep throated flowers are gorgeous but require an early garden tour to be seen! These blooms open first thing in the morning and close up early in the day. We are just now starting to hit our stride with the okra for the year (Okra LOVES it to be blistering hot outside) but are already getting a handful every week. Back on the trellises, the Luffa Gourds are already seeing some fruits reach full size! We’ll remove a few of the younger fruits for cooking, but most of these will be allowed to reach full size and dry on the plant resulting in the famous naturally occurring sponges. These can be used to clean everything from dishes to humans!
Pests and Pets
I wouldn’t consider any of this week’s animal visitors to be pests.
In our own garden, we had the usual visitors in the form of Bees and Ladybugs scattered about the garden perched on Luffa Blooms and Princess Flower Buds.
In a guest appearance, we also have some Bees perched on open sunflowers in my Mom’s garden.
As a significant deviation from the usual assortment of insects and furry friends, Sara captured this image of a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk resting on a chair on the back patio this week. I have always enjoyed seeing the birds of prey at environmental centers, and it is very cool to see one up close in your own home! Check out those Talons!
And as always, we close with an appearance by our garden supervisors. This week, all three supervisors were on the clock as Yoda, Scout, and Henry patrolled the backyard together one evening.
