When the Garden Is the Keeping Place for Produce

This amused me today.

This is what's left in my produce drawer, three carrots and a container of raspberries that I picked this morning.

And this is what's left in the fruit bowl, one head of garlic.

No, a grocery shopping trip is not right around the corner for me. And no, we're not going without produce. Someone who keeps a garden might understand why we have very little produce stored in the fridge and fruit bowl this week. Right about now, this point in the gardening season, I am harvesting almost all of the fruits and vegetables that we eat daily from our garden, berry patch, and orchard. That makes me smile.

But I was particularly amused when I opened the fridge and saw practically nothing, especially because I know how well we eat every day. 

When I do go grocery shopping next week, the only produce I am likely to buy are bananas (those will fill the fruit bowl for a few days) and carrots (it's too soon for garden carrots). We also have some canned and frozen produce to still use. We really do have a lot of fruits and vegetables on hand, both in the kitchen and in the garden.

The Flowers I Started From Last Year's Collected Seeds

I just wanted to share photos of how my flowers from collected seeds turned out. 

Last year, I had Patriot Mix petunias, a mix of red, white, and dark purple blossoms. They looked something like this photo.

We had such beautiful sunny and warm weather in May and June of 2021. The blossoms looked great for the 4th of July. This year, not so much. It was cold and wet for all of May and most of June. Petunias don't like cold and wet. The leaves yellowed and the plants looked like they were on their last legs before warmer weather finally set in, here. There were hardly any blooms at all by the 4th. In addition, the colors were not what I had hoped they would be.

So, with the petunias, I saved a bunch of the seeds and planted some of them this spring. This is what I got from some of the seeds, white, light purple with white spots, dark purple, and very dark purple. 

and

The medium purple with white spots is interesting. It has had several blossoms and each blossom has its spots in a different place, but white spots nonetheless. On this bloom, there's just a single white spot on the corner of one petal.

and

The marigolds were more like what I expected, an assortment of gold, orange, and burnt red blossoms, some double and some single in layers of petals. This is very close to what I remember from last year's flowers. I planted these last year with the idea that they would be our late summer through early fall flowers. This year, I've got them in pots and am hoping for the same gorgeous autumnal display that I can move around to decorate porches and other areas. I have a small pot of the marigolds in the pumpkin and sunflower patch, perched on a stump. The color from those marigolds adds just the right cheer as I await the formation of pumpkins.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share how the saved seeds turned out for me.