The Tomato Plants Are Growing Nicely!

June 9 - June 15, 2025

Weekly journal of a Midwest gardener…

Monday, June 9, 2025

Garden club met at a lavender farm¹. Clear blue skies, a gentle breeze, a light lunch, people who love gardening, and rows and rows of lavender. Yes, as lovely as it sounds. One of the club members gave me some common rue (Ruta graveolens) to plant in my garden, guaranteed to attract black swallowtail butterflies. “Once you have it, you’ll always have it.” A warning or a promise? Probably a little of both. I have the perfect spot for such a plant.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

I weeded in the Vegetable Garden Cathedral for about 90 minutes before breakfast. My mini Cobrahead weeder was a muddy mess afterward, but the raised beds looked much nicer when I finished up. Was I a muddy mess, too? I wore disposable gloves and used a kneeling pad. I wasn’t pristine when I finished, but I also wasn’t covered in mud. Anyway, today’s striking bloom was some reddish-pink roses visible from the veggie garden.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

This was one of those days when I behaved like an Edwardian lady, changing outfits several times as I moved from harvesting and weeding, to lunching and erranding, to mowing and trimming, to relaxing in the evening, and finally going to bed.² Today’s striking bloom was an oakleaf hydrangea. Big, creamy blobs of blooms.

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Did much gardening take place today? No, not much. The garden grew on its own while I tended to some other errands and tasks. However, I did finally water the houseplants, which had gone a few days longer than normal without watering. It happens in the busy summertime. But they survived the neglect. They generally do. Do some of them want to go outside for the summer? Maybe. For a month or two? We’ll see. No promises to them.

Friday, June 13, 2025

Before the morning rain, I cut back all the Amsonia. This is a job that requires special clothing because the glue-like sap is sticky and stainy. I have a pair of pants that I’ve worn for years to do this, and that’s pretty much the only reason I keep them around. Those pants are a mess. Well, anyway, job done for this year. After getting all cleaned up, I took pictures for my Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post.³

Saturday, June 14, 2025

Today, under threatening skies (it never did rain), I picked peas and harvested lettuce, then pulled out some lettuce that had bolted. In their place, I sowed two short rows of green beans, the second crop for later picking. I also picked a bunch of lavender for a small bouquet to put on the kitchen table.⁴

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Happy Father’s Day. As I was leaving church, I noticed Easter lilies blooming in a flower bed that once seemed to have only ‘Stella de Oro’ daylilies⁵ in it. No doubt someone had the good idea to plant out the Easter lilies from a previous year in that bed. They are hardy for this area! I went out and checked on the ones I planted from past Easters in my garden. They have fat buds on them and should be blooming in a few days.

That’s a Week!

And that’s a year, too, since I started this newsletter on Substack. I went back and read the first post. I was a bit wordier back then, and I hadn’t yet discovered footnotes.⁶ I’ve steadily gained a few new readers each week, which is lovely. Doing this every week, I’ve also created a journal about my garden life (sort of) for myself. I plan to continue for a while, and hope you’ll continue reading this for a while.

What Else Did I Write or Show Up This Week?

There is always a new podcast episode of The Gardenangelists… see below! I also wrote my Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post and posted about another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Cassandra Danz.

Quotable

“June is the gateway to summer.” - Jean Hersey

Have a great gardening week!

Other Stuff By Me and About Me

Check out Welcome & Links!

Shopping for garden goodies or books? If you use one of my affiliate links (often to Amazon or Bookshop.org), I earn a tiny commission, at no extra cost to you.

Please share this newsletter with fellow gardeners who might enjoy it. Thank you!

If you like what you’ve read here and haven’t already done so, please subscribe to join me in the garden every week.

1. The lavender farm was Dollie’s Lavender & U-Pick Flower Farm down by Franklin, Indiana.

2. While doing all that stuff in and around the garden, I listened to the audiobook of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray Mysteries No. 1) by P. D. James. I liked it! On to the second book in the series, The Skull Beneath the Skin.

3. My Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post auto-posted on June 15th at midnight.

4. On Saturday, I drove to a family reunion in southern Indiana. The ditch lilies were blooming along the side of the road, just like they are blooming in my garden. Their appearance always signals to me that it’s time to go to the family reunion, which is always the same weekend of the year. I remember long drives down to southern Indiana for past reunions, always seeing the ditch lilies blooming along the side of the road as we drove down. Of course, nowadays with a much better and faster highway for most of the trip, I don’t see as many ditch lilies until we get to the old two-lane highways for the last third of the trip. But they are there eventually, calling out that it’s reunion time, it’s summertime.

5. I wrote a blog post once about ‘Stella de Oro’ daylilies in which I might have called her a tramp. Harsh words!

6. Do you like the footnotes? I think of them as “something extra” for the more engaged readers who are willing to keep scrolling to check them out.