I’ll start with the good news first. The tomatoes are about to lose control (and I think I like it). We’ve already been able to harvest enough grape tomatoes to make a pasta dish, and hundreds are waiting in the wings. Romas are ripening as we speak. There are green beans everywhere.

Gumdrop, the first harvest of the season

Some of our herbs continue to amaze. We have a thyme bush next to a tarragon tree, and a luscious forest of parsley.

But some of the herbs aren’t doing so well. Whether they’ve been wilted by heat, strangled by the monstrous pumpkin plant, or just went to seed too soon, we’ve had to say goodbye to the cilantro, chives, and dill. I have a feeling I’ll be replanting some of those this weekend.

OK, so here’s the sad story. Remember back when we were planting, how we dug up the little girl’s garden and then replanted it for her in her own little third of the plot? All has been well so far. Her third is bursting with flowers and vegetables, and, in the back, sunflowers. Now these sunflowers were getting really tall. Like 8 feet tall. And they hadn’t exactly bloomed yet. But they were healthy and strong and anchored her side of the garden.

When we came home from Wisconsin yesterday, we noticed immediately that they were gone. We saw one of our neighbors later that evening and asked if he knew what had happened to them. Did the rainstorm break them down?

No. He cut them down. Since he’s one of the sellers in the building, I have to assume that he read in some real estate book that sunflowers are a total turnoff to potential buyers. Like, in that chapter where they tell you to bake cookies for open houses, they also mention KILLING ALL THE SUNFLOWERS.

The little girl is out of town with her mother until the end of the month, when our neighbor has promised to confess and handle the consequences. In the meantime, perhaps we can plant some yellow gerber daisies back there and tell her the sunflowers shrunk?