The 4th of July was the kind of day every garden needs — to my mind, at least once a week or so. It rained all day, not a hard, raucous rain, but a soft and gentle one. A rain that caressed the plants — from leaf to root — encouraging them to new heights.

And, of course, it gave the weary container gardener a day’s reprieve from having to hoist the watering vessel.

By Sunday morning the rain was a misty memory, and by the afternoon I was able to get out on the balcony and take advantage of the last day of the three-day hiatus from workers doing their best Spider-man impressions on the south face of our building.

I surveyed the planters and pots and took stock of what needed to be done to fill in the thin spots. I think I’ve mentioned before that I had extra plants in a flat that I held on to in case I needed to replace anything… Good that I did, after the rocky times of late.

I also had a number of seedlings, still in their little peat pouches, which I couldn’t identify because the labels had been washed away. I’d been waiting for them to grow to the point where they had a blossom or leaves that I could identify. I didn’t just want to put them in the planters since I’d been trying to balance the palette and scale. I thought if I plopped them in willy-nilly I’d wind up with all one color — or one height.

A few are now identifiable and can be incorporated into the planters. (I replaced the marigolds that died with gold and orange ones that sprouted from my seeds.) As for the rest, I suppose a little surprise down the line might be considered part of the fun of gardening. So, I gave it my best guesstimate based on the leaves that have emerged and got all the unidentified seedlings potted, too.

Also, I was glad to see that some of the herb seeds I planted as replacements for the herbs that were done in by the harsh sun have sprouted: parsley, cilantro, dill.

And, the first flowers are emerging on one of my heirloom tomato plants. Yay!

Visions of caprese salad already are dancing in my head.

[Photos: tomato plant, cilantro, marigold]