This morning I went out to run my hose bib drip irrigation. I would love to have a fully automated system, but that’s just not realistic for my garden at this point. We have a nice drip & spray head system that does the trick. For me, its fine to get out and check the beds as I run through the various watering zones.

When I started up the system in one of the vegie gardens, I noticed a squash leaf was blocking a spray head. I went to adjust it, which is pretty simple with this system, and as I peeked behind the leaf, I saw my first two tomatoes ripening. (Yes, I did write about a week ago re: a couple of tomatoes ripening, but I don’t know how much I count those tomatoes. They are on a very stressed plant that won’t do much more.) The tomatoes I found today are on a bush full of fruit, so we’re in for the motherload soon. This plant cultivar is ‘Stupice’. I’ve been growing Stupice tomatoes for about 4 years in a row now. They produce incredibly well in Seattle. The fruit rarely cracks, it has relatively thin skin, the flavor is great, it is disease resistant and the fruit clusters are lovely. Its pretty reliable.

And, as I was weeding, I noticed that my passionflower vine has found the energy to arise from its deep roots. Some years the top growth makes it through the winter & I would have a vine filled with lovely blooms by now. After a winter like we just had, it has to struggle up from the roots. I didn’t expect much (or actually anything) out of the plant this year, but it looks like we’ll get some late beauty from it this summer/fall.