Hello there on this hot and sticky May day! Do you see my pea plants, sprouting amongst the leaves?

Here are the bell peppers on either side of the teensy pea patch.

And here is my garden, not completely dug or planted yet, but all blocked off! A very nice job my neighbor did, too!

Here's what's blooming today: Philadelphus, also known as mock orange. The fragrance is overpowering in wet years, but this year it's a tease, very soft unless I water the bush that day. This makes sense to me; when I lived in Phoenix I told someone my irises were blooming and he asked how I liked the scent.

What scent?!

Then he told me that daffodils ALSO have a scent. Coulda knocked me over with a feather! Now here I am in Kansas, discovering for myself that those "scentless" flowers are actually two of my all time favorite fragrances.

The difference is water, both the amount the plants get and the amount that is in the air. In Phoenix it just isn't humid enough to allow irises and daffodils to have a noticeable scent, even if you water them a lot; but here in Wichita there always seems to be enough rain and enough humidity--probably from the rivers--to allow such things. So it makes scent--errr, sense--to me that the mock orange will respond similarly, and the more I water it, the stronger scent it will have.

More blossoms: potato flowers! Who knew they were so pretty?

This was a hard day's work in the sticky heat for the neighbor. After he finished laying the blocks in place for my garden border, he wired up the three pallets to make the dividers in the bins, moved the bags of leaves to keep the dogs away from the tree (where the fence is not as secure), moved the small compost pile and part of the big one to the middle bin, and moved a pile of sticks to the last bin. By that time he was pretty much done for the day!

In the process of moving the compost, he unearthed some of the potatoes. I reburied them afterwards, and found---ta daaaa!!!---

Our first harvest of new potatoes! Not enough to be more than a morself, but hey! here they are!

May you also find small treasures in unexpected places today.