Interstice of Sun

Interstice: A space between things or parts, especially things closely set; a narrow chink; a crack.

We had no rain on Monday -- or, at least, we had 31 hours with no rain, with Monday afternoon conveniently landing in the middle of that interstice.  I was able to squeak out and get the last remaining bed planted with the petunias and marigolds that I bought on a sunny day, back before the rains started in early May.

(South side of the fence: all flowers.  It doesn't look like much now, but -- fingers crossed -- it will be lush most of the summer.)

I don't hate petunias and marigolds, but they aren't particularly adventurous in a northern American garden. However, they are cheap (about 100 plants for $20), and they grow without requiring much maintenance, and they are ruffly and pretty.  Going quite against my all-inclusive heart's preference in the past, which is to have two or three plants of every color, I stuck to my head and chose all white petunias. (The marigolds, I admit, vary from bright yellow through orange to rich dark burnt sienna.) Marigolds have the added advantage of naturally killing nematodes (and I think other microscopic pests) in the soil, so they are an organic pesticide to plant around tomatoes.

(North side of the fence: mixed marigolds and vegetables.)

And I did plant tomatoes, provided by a friend who goes to the trouble of starting Heirloom Tomatoes from seed. From West (bottom of the second photo) to East (lost in the distance), we have Sun Gold Cherries (the same sweet ping-pong-sized fruiter we so loved last year), Black Krim (a different meaty dark Russian tomato than the Paul Robeson I planted last year), Stupice (to fill in for gourmet heirloom, like the Pink Brandywine last year), San Marzano (romas) -- and then, at the far end after a long gap of no tomatoes, a Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato. Last summer I planted the two cherries next to each other; they intertwined so luxuriantly (although planted three feet apart), that we couldn't tell if a golden fruit was a golden cherry, or still-immature red cherry. This year, we'll know.

(In the Topsy-Turvy, one last holdout, a hybrid Early Girl.)

That left only a part of the bed that gets less sun (when there is sun) -- more than six hours a day between now and about a month after Mid-Summer's Day, but the shadow of the roof glooms increasingly long after July.  So, not enough sun for tomatoes just when they need it most. Instead, because I had the seeds anyway, I planted a line of cucumbers and a longer line of green pole beans.  Dotted periodically with healthful marigolds, to provide pest prevention and color until the veggies grow in.

I had one more tomato plant, which I put in a topsy-turvy on the other side of the house. Last year I had a cherry in there; this year, a small beefsteak tomato, Early Girl.  This one, I purchased.

You might wonder at the wisdom of planting tomatoes -- the bountiful reward of summer, easing one's transition to the shorter days and colder nights of fall -- in a house which we may or may not be living in by then.  The Early Girl was my tongue-in-cheek gauntlet: from flower to fruit in 50 days, it claimed.  Are we going to be out of this house by July 20th? Bring it on.

Of course, that presumes we have some sun.  We've had over an inch of rain since June started, and today's forecast is for an "unusually heavy rainstorm" lodged on us by a stalled jet stream.  The slugs are happy at least.