Putting on my positive pants - garden update (photo heavy)

 Morning, everyone.  After yesterday's rather dismal post (sorry), I decided to focus on what is making me happy.  There's loads of happy stuff in my life but I'll focus on the garden.

Another tomato plant getting the idea and spreading the good news.

Ripening tomatoes send off ethene gas (says Google), a natural plant hormone that helps the other fruit to ripen.  Once a few get the hang of it, they all seem to.  So this is Very Good News and I'm hoping there will be more to pick by the end of the month now, especially as this warm weather looks set to continue, albeit at a more moderate level.

One of the delights of the summer is to do an early morning tomato picking and fry them for breakfast.  It takes me right back.

The tumbling tom is popping out all over with tiny babies - they are so sweet and delicious once they ripen.

Bush plants do give smaller fruit but the flavour is great.  Better than sweets any day!

It's a bit hard to see in the photo but the sweet corn is now sending up male flowers.  Lovely jubbly!

If each plant just gives me one corn cob, it will be worth it!

The bottom right makes me laugh - somehow, three plants are growing up from the same point.  No idea how but am guessing there were a couple of slower germinating seeds trapped below the surface in the seed pot.

There's not much I can do about it now except wait and see how they develop.

Loadsa courgettes coming on and the whole plant still looks ornamental, sculptured and attractive.  First year of pot courgettes has been a great success so far and they are delicious.

Cucumbers 4 and 5.  I will stop counting soon!   :-)

The main mint that I repotted and planted roots for is not emerging yet but the chocolate mint is doing very nicely and is lovely in my not-Pimms drinks.

Edit:  I've just been out to water and there are little minty leaves peeping up.  Yay!

These three rosemary plantlets are the cuttings I took last year, or was it the year before?  Anyway, they are all doing nicely and I have to now leave one there and replant the other two elsewhere.  I'm going to put them in plots for their green and ornamental qualities, I think.  They are pretty and make the air smell lovely.

This is the lavender I thought had died.  How wrong I was.

It's pretty much time to start harvesting the flowers.  It's my all time favourite fragrance.

The ornamental grass is at its prettiest now.  It moves in the slightest breeze and gives some welcome height to the bed.

I bought and potted both bamboos last year.  The waterfall bamboo looked really brown after the winter but has now greened up again.  I think I might need to start cutting out some of the canes soon.  I wonder if I can stick them in a pot, like willow, and they will root.  Must look that up.

The other bamboo, the black one, is now sending up canes that are above my head height (including the pot itself) which is brilliant and just what I wanted.  Diane told me that it could grow up to two metres which would make it by far the tallest thing in my mostly container garden and that's why I got it in the first place.

One of just three apples left on the new Braeburn.  The others all dropped.

The pepper is doing nicely.  You can't tell from the photo but there are now nine little peppers developing, all looking really sound.

Geraniums/pelargoniums as always pretty.

Val's birthday present plants - very rewarding.  I love gifts that last and last.

It's hard to get a good angle on this and, next year, I need to choose plants that trail more rapidly for this container, I think.

I've had these fuchsias for years and every year up they come, faithfully.  The one of the left is a later flowerer but the buds are appearing now.

A poor photo because of the sun but these are all cuttings, all looking healthy and with some roots developing.
Some are fuchsia cuttings from Dad's plants and the others are tomato side shoots that I will plant on soon and see how they go.  Will they give me some later fruit for free, I wonder?  Watch this space.

And, finally, not from the garden (I wish!), Jen gave me these at Slimming World to say thanks for holding the fort last week when she had Covid and couldn't get there.  So very kind of her and these are going to be stunning when they all open.

Another thing that is making me even happier is that Beth and Alex are coming over for lunch today.

So many reasons to be happy, despite the disappointments in life, aren't there?

As always, finishing with a plea to take great care as the very hot weather intensifies.  Stay in the shade and keep hydrated, won't you!