Summer already on Victoria Day weekend

Well it is so hot here I am waiting until evening to plant the morning glories. It was too hot to eat lunch on the deck even under the umbrella. I am anticipating a very hot dry summer!

Amazingly, the pumpkins are up already:

There is one at about 1:00 off the end of my left foot. I took this photo a couple of days ago, and by noon today, there were second leaves sprouting, not to mention even more pumpkin seedlings. I am certain they are pumpkins, as they are all the same and in a row. This year, I am going to try to train them to grow over onto the grass to the right, so that I can grow more veggies in the rest of that garden. Herding pumpkins will be a new experience for me.

I need more garden space because, as usual, I went overboard buying seeds. I won a gift certificate to McFayden's Seeds in Manitoba, and my order came on Friday. Herbs, heirloom tomatoes,  nasturtiums, marigolds, beans, morning glories and much much more.The thing is there are fewer seeds per packet than I remember from 25 years ago when I ordered from Stokes. Hmmm ...

But then, there are always garden surprises. Tucked under these strawberries is a chestnut seedling:

A squirrel had to come quite far with the seed - one long block away is the closest chestnut tree. My other two chestnut seedlings, in the compost heap, disappeared mysteriously over the winter.  I think I'll take this one down to PEI for our garden there - eventually.

Thankfully I didn't accidentally weed the phlox while I was planting the pansies and the Engish daisy (to the left) and the rock cress (to the right): 

One year, I enthusiastically pulled up many incipient thistles only to realize too late that I had weeded all the poppies I had planted the year before. Good labelling goes a long way to preventing such gardening disasters.

Speaking of strawberries, I have already eaten five. I had planned to share with my significant other, but somehow, once plucked,  the berries just veered irretrievably into my mouth. They are about a month early this year.

I feel a yen for lemonade so I will close now, brave the heat of the deck and resume reading Eric Metaxis' biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - seems appropriate for a Sunday afternoon.

Cheers ~