It's already nearly summer, and I'm writing only the 7th blog post so far this year. It seems my focus has shifted a bit, more towards reading/research, and into posting my photos as “Flower of the Day” on Twitter and Instagram on a near-daily basis.

Certainly the gardening itself has not been on hiatus! April and May were really busy. An excellent balance of warm sun and precipitation has resulted in lush growth everywhere in our yard. I'm trying to be vigilant with fertilizing, watering when it isn't raining, weeding, trimming, and thinning/repotting my quick-growing seedlings.

I've given particular attention to tomatoes and radishes this spring. There are 8 tomato plants this year, 7 are an heirloom cherry variety grown from seed, and I purchased one of the Better Boy variety as a 4" tall seedling. I treated these with Maximato fertilizer, and am happy to see them rapidly growing taller and leafier, with flowers opening on the largest one.

This spring's radishes are mostly the French Breakfast variety: long and magenta, more spicy-flavorful than store-bought red radishes tend to be. These were ready to harvest after only 25 days from planting. I'd definitely recommend them for any container garden that has a full-sun area.

Other edibles doing well at the moment are herbs: basil, lemon balm and sage, although the heat makes them bolt into bloom instead of producing more leaves at this time of year. The flowers are pretty though, and just as tasty.

Currant berries are finally showing up. I wonder if birds ate any berries that resulted from previous bloom cycles, or if the plant was just not mature enough yet to produce them? The blueberry bush was likewise recently blooming, there are a few very tiny grey berries so far. Blackberries, which grow wild here in coastal California and have been part of my front window hedge for years, are still green but some are bound to ripen in the next couple weeks.

Steve and I were in Hawaii for a week at the end of May. When we got back, I was relieved to hear that there had been a bit of rain in our area, and that in general it had been cool and cloudy, so the soil of most of my plants didn't dry out. It was also a lovely surprise to see that roses, daylilies, columbine, snapdragons and irises had all opened new flowers. The privet hedges started to bloom soon thereafter, and are still going strong. Bees buzz all over the frothy white flower clusters.

Not long before our trip, I visited a favorite local bookstore, and picked up The Complete Book of Container Gardening, and California Native Plants for the Garden. I've started to read the native plant one, and hope to add some of the species mentioned to my own garden, over time.

A co-worker mentioned a native plant sale (unfortunately it was held was while I was out of town). I said I'd love to look at such plants but probably wouldn't buy any since I don't have space for anything new at the moment. She replied that I could always “ditch some underperformers”. This is an approach to gardening that I don't often consider: I try to keep even unattractive, bug-eaten, half-dried up old petunias alive. The only plants I pull up and discard are invasive ivy and bamboo that choke out the roses and hedges, or wild grass and weeds that show up in the yard and in my containers. But the idea of giving up on some of the sad-looking, slow-growing plants, in favor of hardy natives (or any flowering/edible species I haven't grown before) does seem sensible, so I'm going to take a close look at the garden while out watering this evening, and consider if there are any plants I don't particularly value.