In the beginning of the season I tried something I read online. If you take some store bought celery and cut off all the stalks and leave about 2” at the base, you can soak the base in water for a couple of days and then plant it and it will regrow. I did this and it worked, but the celery was weak and thin and quickly flowered. I did start some from seed (down at the bottom of the picture above) and though I had heard that growing celery is difficult, that came up SO MUCH BETTER than the regrown celery that I won’t bother trying to replant a celery stump again. Live and learn! I can’t complain, that first plant did what it was supposed to and did feed me with it’s first flush of growth, didn’t it?
In the photo above you can see a volunteer tomato down at the bottom that I haven’t even bothered to support. It’s a sturdy little plant and it’s got some fruit on it. I’ll throw a stake in the ground tomorrow if I think of it so it doesn’t flop over right there in the front yard. There are chives right behind that, an amaryllis (random, right?), magic carpet spirea, thyme, and lavender. I planted the loquat tree in the ground (upper left side of the photo) and I’ll see how it does over winter. I don’t expect it to survive. If it dies, I’ll replace it with another fruit tree because I think that’s a good spot for one. I would have kept the loquat in the pot, but it was starting to suffer and I didn’t have a larger container for it.
Last year I had morning glories all over the flagpole and mailbox. This year they are coming up all over the bed. I’m tearing them out as they wind around the other plants, but the ones that are trailing on the ground don’t bother me. The touch-me-nots here in full sun are getting full and bushy (to the right and below the mailbox) and the basil right between them is trying like crazy to flower. I keep pinching it back and harvesting from it, but boy does it like that spot! The butterfly blue scabiosa behind the mailbox took a LONG time to come up from seed and are just now blooming even though I sowed them in very early spring. I love how tall the Jerusalem artichoke are getting and it’s hard to see but there is a tomato tied up to the flagpole this year. Not as captivating as the morning glory madness, but hey – I get tomatoes! 
This area creates a little peekaboo hole between the elderberry bushes to see this side of the yard from the street. We’ve got berries coming on the bush on the right side of the picture. I wasn’t sure we would because the pollinator didn’t bloom, but I guess that would have just given us even MORE berries. Doesn’t seem to be required for fruit production. Boy, this yard looks a lot different now than it did back in 2010. Why does it look so much messier now? I think I need more color. I want some big red flowers!
There are more of the Jerusalem artichokes on the left! I can’t wait until they bloom. The plants are really huge, I hope the tubers are awesome. I’ve never tried them (or grown them) before. There is a monster volunteer paste tomato growing in the keyhole. I was hoping it would stay compact so I could contain it in a cage, but the keyhole garden is way fertile and the tomato took off. It’s facing the street (of course) and it’s spilled out over the side and is wearing the cage like a bangle bracelet. there are a zillion tomatoes on there, but they are all green. The pepper plants are tall but have very few fruits on them. I need to spray them with Epsom salt again. Maybe that will help with the fruiting.
So this is my first attempt at growing corn. It closely followed some chard that I over wintered and saved seed from. I don’t know that the ground was quite fertile enough for such a close succession with corn, but I figured I would try. One stalk has what looks like 2 ears on it. They seem very small. I’ll post an update when I harvest. Look at that crazy pole bean tee pee on the left! There are scary spiders in there… beware…
And I was actually afraid that I had harvested too much of the horseradish in the winter and that it wouldn’t come back. Bahahahaha!
The rest of the back yard veg gardens. I feel like I could have gotten more out of them this year but I fumbled the ball a bit along the way. Too much mulch… not enough sun… I’m eating out of the yard just about every day though so I have to take success where I can get it.
This little beauty is one of three paw paws. This one got chopped in half by my dog earlier in the season, but is coming back strong. I can’t wait to taste fruit from these trees!! Anyone else growing paw paws? Anyone in NJ want to share so I can see if I like them? haha! It’s going to be a few more years before I’ll be able to sample my own.