Why Does the 4th of July Feel Like the Midpoint of the Summer?

June 30 - July 6, 2025

Weekly journal of a Midwest gardener…

Monday, June 30, 2025

I have some advice for any gardener. Do the dirtiest, sweatiest task you need to do in the garden last, so that straight away after, you can call it a day and get yourself cleaned up. Today, that job was taming a rather wild area growing around the base of one of the pawpaw trees. I trimmed off lower branches, and pulled and cut off weed trees hiding beneath, along with some asters.¹ I sent all the trimmings and thinnings through the Marvelous Mulching Machine and used the chipped up leaves and branches to mulch around the newly planted hollyhocks and other nearby plants.²

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

We got about a quarter inch of rain in the early morning, so it was too wet for me to do much in the garden. Instead, I turned my attention to doing some inside jobs. You know. Like cleaning. Straightening up. Cataloging books, etc. Later, I went to CourtsYard & Greenhouse and found a few plants to buy. I put them on the back step with the plants I bought yesterday at Miss M’s Garden Center.³ After watering in the evening, I collected seeds from some columbine.⁴ That done, I can now deadhead them.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

This was the first time this season that I watered the Vegetable Garden Cathedral. I used an oscillating sprinkler early in the morning—it was just starting to get a light when I turned it on—and let it run for about an hour.⁵ My reward this evening was a couple of peppers. Elsewhere in the garden, green bean plants are blooming, but no green beans yet. Summer squash seems content to stay small. And my neighbor said he’s been losing green tomatoes to raccoons. All my tomatoes are still green, too, so I had to face the embarrassment of buying some at Costco.⁶

Thursday, July 3, 2025

I watered the front lawn, another first of the summer. Or rather, I turned on the irrigation system and let it water it automatically early in the morning. There is no irrigation system in the back, so I rarely water that lawn, and you know what? It usually does just fine because it is more shaded.⁷ I mowed and trimmed front and back so the lawn looks great, though a tiny bit dry. What I need now is a couple of pop-up storms to water my garden for me!

Friday, July 4, 2025

Why does the 4th of July feel like the midpoint of the summer? I don’t know, but it does. I spent the morning tidying up the front border and fertilizing all the container plantings, both in front and in back. Then I finally pulled out the last of the violas in containers on the front steps and replanted them with Mecardonia ‘Magic Carpet Yellow’ that I bought a few days ago. I still need to pot up or plant out the thyme and rosemary I bought, as well as a few other miscellaneous plants, including a bunch of caladiums that I potted up in May, about two months later than I should have.

Saturday, July 5, 2025

I stepped into a hazy back garden early in the morning⁸. It was hazy enough that I paused and looked all around to make sure nothing was actually on fire⁹. From all the noise last night, I know many of my neighbors and people in surrounding neighborhoods shoot off a lot of fireworks for the 4th of July, but for the haze to still be hanging around in the morning? Wow. We need some wind and rain now. I think the birds, which were making quite a racket in the garden, agree with me.

Sunday, July 6, 2025

I spent a few hours sprucing up the back patio. I shifted around a few pots, potted up the rosemary and mint, and planted out a few other recent purchases, like an Orientpet lily and an ice plant. I also distributed all those caladiums I bought as bulbs from Costco around the patio. They all sprouted. They all look great. And they should all be up-potted to bigger pots, which I don’t have. I may need to plant some of them in various places. We’ll see how that works out.¹⁰

That’s a Week!

What is the difference between a rabbit hole and a bread crumb trail? I go down a rabbit hole to find out all kinds of information about a topic I’ve decided is interesting to me. I follow a bread crumb trail to pick up little tidbits to use here and there. This week, I followed several bread crumb trails to add all kinds of interesting older books to my to-be-read pile. Now I’m reading books by E. M. Delafield, J. L. Carr, Barbara Pym, and once the book arrives, Helen Ashton. I’m also going down another Lost Lady of Garden Writing rabbit hole, where I’ve found a most interesting author from the Midwest. I’ll post about her on Wednesday.

Quotable

Would you like an adventure now or would you like to have your tea first? - J. M. Barrie (and/or Lewis Carroll)

Have a great gardening week!

What Else Did I Write or Show Up This Week?

Oh, snap. I failed to post anything new on my blog. Bad Carol. The garden fairies will not be happy about that!

Other Stuff By Me and About Me

Check out Welcome & Links for more information about where to find me in other places

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!

1. I cut a few branches off the pawpaw that had fruit on them. My bad. I hope there is more fruit higher up in the tree or the raccoons are going to be oh-so-mad at moi!

2. While gardening, I finished listening to The Memory of Lavender and Sage, by Aimie K. Runyon. I enjoyed listening to this book, which has an Under the Tuscan Sun feel to it, but it takes place in France, not Italy, and features some gardening and herbs! That perhaps explains my use of “moi” in the first footnote.

3. At Miss M’s I bought two more varieties of thyme, an ice plant (Delosperma)) and a pot of Blue Star Creeper (Isotoma fluviatilis). At Court’s, I bought two kinds of mint, some rosemary, and several pots of Mecardonia ‘Magic Carpet Yellow.’ I’ll plant the Mecardonia in the containers that currently have pansies in them. Those pansies are begging to go to the compost pile.

4. Several years ago, I wrote a blog post about ‘Tower Blue’ and ‘Tower Pink’ columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris). People still find that post when they are looking for seeds or plants of those two varieties, and then email me asking if I ever save the seeds, since it is nearly impossible to find those seeds or plants now. The good news is that I do sometimes save the seeds, like I just did this year. But since this columbine often crosses with others in the garden, my blue is not as blue as it could be, and I won’t guarantee what shade of blue someone will get. Hayefield Seeds (Nan Ondra) lists two such columbines: double blue (currently out of stock but she’ll notify you if she gets more) and double pink (one packet available as of this week). I’ve ordered from her many times. She’s quick to ship and has unusual flowers!

5. Yes, I am quite aware that an oscillating sprinkler is not an efficient way to water, but setting up a complete drip irrigation system? That’s not high on my list to do.

6. When I finished putting my Costco haul into my vehicle, an older lady asked if she could take my cart. As I handed it off to her, I warned her to be careful in the snack food aisles because that cart seemed to attract snack foods. There could be no other reason why I bought some of those snacks. She thanked me for the caution and said she’d be extra careful.

7. The front and back lawns have another difference, other than the fact that the front is sunnier than the back. I haven’t allowed the lawn service that I used to have fertilize my lawn use any herbicides in the back because of all the crocuses. I have allowed it in the front until last year when I cancelled the service.

8. I picked the first summer squash on Saturday, along with one cucumber, a few peppers, more currant tomatoes, and a few sprigs of dill. I saw lots of tiny green beans and many green tomatoes, so it won’t be long before I am picking those too. I also harvested my lone cabbage, which was starting to split. I still think it will be good to eat.

9. Later, I read this update from a local television station, WISH-TV: “Light winds and an inversion are trapping smoke from fireworks near the surface in Indianapolis. This is creating very unhealthy air quality, which is among the worst in the world as of 5 AM Saturday.” No wonder it looked like the neighborhood was on fire.

10. While out working around the patio on Sunday, I finished listening to A Long Way From Verona by Jane Gardam and started listening to Mythic Plants by Ellen Zachos