This is a summer of travel for me. A bit for work, a lot for fun, but very few days at home. After my last post, I flew to Denver for a week. I returned to more wildness, more chaos, and more hidden harvest.

Allowing this kind of wildness to take over shows me which plants thrive on my neglect. I become aware of just how much weeding and pruning and sculpting I do in the especially unkempt areas of the yard. Time to find a solution for those areas. Other corners are well-planted with the right plants in the right place with the right weed suppression (mulch or Boniato Potatoes or both).

I returned to more ripening vegetables. I now pick a small bowl each morning, plus all the Okinawa Spinach and Lemongrass I can use. Today, I gathered my first collection of these lovely Garden Peach tomatoes from a shady area of the yarden. They are thick and juicy and sweet, and I am absolutely saving some seeds for next season.

My new passion flower, in full sun, is happy and covered in caterpillars. The little plant has a strong stem and is kicking out new leaves daily, even as the caterpillars fill them with holes. But providing a home to local species is one of the reasons I bought this beautiful plant, and I know it will bounce back after the caterpillars eat their fill. I’ll let nature do its thing and trust I’ll see more of these beautiful purple flowers in the future, soon with the addition of bright-orange Gulf Fritillary butterflies.

The Purple Bush Beans and Cherokee Wax Beans are thick with pods.

In the shadier areas of the yard, Sugar Snap Peas and Everglade Tomatoes continue to flower and produce fruit.

The yarden is a mess right now, but it’s working. The weeds are down, the desired plants are up, and it all just needs attention and time and, eventually, a landscaping overhaul that focuses on aesthetics.

I had one full day to clean it up yesterday. But it was hot, sunny, and a perfect day for scuba diving, so I went on a play date with schools of fish instead of working in the garden. Oh well. Maybe I’ll find the time before I head off on my next adventure.

I spent the last six weeks in Minnesota visiting family. I returned to a glorious mess of a garden hiding a harvest within the branches.

I start by inspecting the USF plant sale additions, new to my yard and untested. Prior to leaving, I nestled the Jaboticaba into the ferns, the wettest place of my yard. It is damp and healthy this morning. The passion flower needs a larger trellis. Purple blooms crawl across the ground. The Everbearing Mulberry is full of fruit.

Satisfied, I grab a shears and a bowl and go to work on the harvest. Yellow Pear tomatoes, sprouted from the seeds of my most generous plant last year, fill a full bowl.

Sweet 100’s offer handfuls of candy-like fruit. Purple Cherokee and Better Boy tomatoes cling to the branches, concentric circles evidence of inconsistent watering and sun cycles over the past few weeks. Most have holes and pests and will be composted.

I pluck eight juicy Hungarian peppers, a pile of chilies, and a few jalapenos.

The spinach and lettuce mixes have bolted, dying flowers waving in almost breeze. Kale held on and I clip a bowl of leaves. Okinawa spinach is everywhere, their thick stalks offering a feast of green and purple leaves. I clip a few and leave the rest for future egg scrambles.

In the overgrown grass around the garden bed, I brush a plant that releases a wave of scent. I have Papalo volunteers, a Cilantro-scented herb that I thought I lost in January’s freeze. I hunt through the weeds and find three more.

Cherokee Wax and Purple Bush beans fill a second bowl. I missed the Sugar Snap peas, although a number dried pods hanging off the vines offer seeds for replanting. The beans and peas are tangled mess of vines, some choking out tomato and kale stalks, others climbing over the fence to the neighbor’s.

Everywhere, Boniato potato vines fill the beds. I planted these right before I left, filling in any garden gaps with this virulent strain that survived a hurricane, freeze, and my neglect. Once again, they have proven to be tough little weed blockers, and have claimed every patch of sunshine available. Eventually I’ll dig them up and enjoy piles of sweet-tasting potatoes, but for now, I appreciate how well they keep the weeds suppressed. They can stay.

In the middle of it all, a large pineapple, a couple weeks from ripe.

Over the past few weeks, I acclimated to the Minnesota summer. This Florida stickiness is rough. By the time I have finished a cursory review and harvest of my abandoned yard, I am dripping with sweat, covered in mosquito bites, and I itch all over. It is not quite 8:00 am and I am ready to shower, close up the house, and turn on the AC. But I’ll be back at it tomorrow.