Buds are abundant! Jude’s zucchini is blooming large golden-orange flowers with soft, yellow zucchini fruit attached. His four cucumber plants all have delicate, yellow flowers – more bright yellow than orange – and miniature cucumber with little pokies on their skin. Rex’s chili red peppers have sprouted a dozen or so little white flowers; some have already changed to small green chilies. All the boys have tiny, yellow buds on their tomato plants, and I’m excited to see the variety of tomatoes that come this season: roma, cherry, beefsteak, and sun-gold.

On another note, the boys are having a wonderful summer together. They spent a lot of time with their cousins and a lot of time together swimming, wrestling, swimming and wrestling in the blow-up pool not too far from the gardens. Like true brothers, the play is light-hearted, sometimes competitive, sometimes annoyed and ruthless, and then back to light-hearted again. That’s what brother-buds do, I guess: play and fight, play and fight.