The lateness of my cherry tomatoes and other Wyoming gardening tales

On May 29, I wrote about Eudora Welty’s garden in Mississippi, prompted by a post from another Mississippian and musician Jason Burge. In May, hope is in the air and in the ground. My daffodils and tulips were fading away, replaced by a mass of asters that took it upon themselves to reseed my front garden. Asters are tough. I’ve been deadheading them all summer, taking care not to grab a blossom currently occupied by a bee. Bees love my asters, whether purple, blue or pink. Such a beautiful little flower from such a spindly stem. They’re a wildflower and you can find them out on the prairie. Wonder how much of our locally-produced honey can be credited to astrum which is the Latin name for star. They are shaped like stars in the sky and they are stars of my garden. Aster is in the sunflower family, Asteraceae. Sunflowers also grow wild in Wyoming. I planted a variety of sunflower in my big flower pot, now surrounded by transplanted petunias. My sunflowers have not yet flowered and they probably shouldn’t be in a pot but at least I know what they are. I took tons of Plant ID photos and had it identified as everything from knotweed to a large variety of poison ivy. At one point, they were identified as Jerusalem artichokes. I dug some out by the roots hoping to find a Jerusalem artichoke that is neither an artichoke or from Jerusalem. I just found a tangled mass of roots that were wrapped into a batch of petunias which also came out of the pot. Petunias, of course, are the workhorses of a garden, blooming all summer, attracting bees and the first hummingbird moth I had ever seen. Such a creature. It buzzed me and sounded exactly like a passing hummingbird. I have grown tons of pink four-o’clocks or I should say that the four o’clocks grew themselves. I had them in a pot last summer and when they died with the frosts, I took the twigs and stuck them in the ground. There was no sign of them for awhile and then boom, there they were and the plants are about three-feet high and festooned with pink. Also sprouting nearby were three deer tongue plants which are odd grasses and sprout sprays of tiny flowers. The sprouts actually look like corn. No surprise, corn is also the grass, Zea mays. Deer tongue are considered an invasive species which I can see because they are propagating themselves. One final word on my 2023 garden. I planted only one veggie this year -- a red cherry tomato whose name I can’t recall. I grew them from Seed Library seeds and they got a late start that curtailed pollination and led to some late-appearing cherries that may not have time to ripen on the vine. My bad. I usually get plantlings about four- to five-inches along. They need the head start.  They didn’t get that this year. Frost will be here within the next couple weeks. Lesson learned.