It's been a while since i've updated! Life has been a little wild recently, but I think i'm finding a new rythym.
Garden Recap
My garden this summer was not the greatest, unfortuntly. My tomatos and peppers were ravaged all summer by leaf-footed bugs and tomato hornworms (the eggplant powered through, though), and my zucchini plants did not produce one single zucchini?? That shocked me. Last year i was drowning in them! And i specifically grew slicer tomatos, asian eggplant, and the zucchini to make ratatouille. :( Was looking forward to homegrown ratatouille. oh well. Hopefully next year will be better.
On the plus side, when we first moved into our house in winter 2024, I sprinkled native wildflower seed in my garden beds to overwinter. Usually the first growing season they don't produce flowers, so I didn't see any flowers last year; but this year I had tons of black-eyed susans, Lanced-leaved Coreopsis, and Echinacea Purperea. I also found a lot of Purple Love Grass growing naturally in my yard as well!
My peach and mulberry trees are doing amazingly! They've more than doubled what they were when I bought them (I got a set of 3 trees of each that were arounf 12-18 inches off of etsy) and the peaches flowered this year, but I did pinch the buds off because they're just a little too small for fruit right now. I did leave one persimmon on my Fuyu that I got even though I shouldn't have, but when I tried it, it was soo good. I've never tried asian persimmons before, just wild american ones, and I get the hype. It was so sweet and juicy, with a distinctly honey-like flavor.