Just another garden post

love my garden.   Even when everything else is going horribly, I can find solace there.  Perhaps I am like the crazy cat lady, except with plants.  Its spring so everything is starting to pick up- its even rained a couple times so I just come by to visit and magically my plants are watered.  

So I know the internets are just dying to know what I have growing this year so I will tell them!

First exhibit: my one survivor strawberry.  All the rest died from neglect last year.  

Here is the view facing north- things look really great from this direction; a couple small broccoli plants on the left, chard and beets on the right and herbs and flowers in the back.

But then you inevitably have to turn around to find this:

Look at all those weeds!  Those are on my to-do list for the weekend.
While I was picking some flowers I heard a rustling and looky there!

 

Here leezerd leezerd...

  

There you are! Posing so nicely!  He didn't seem to nervous about the crazy lady with the camera.  And then on the way out I spotted some poppies in a fellow garderner's plot.  I love poppies!

This concludes our garden tour, please come again!

Pictures!

This post is from back in June.. I'm not sure why it never got published.  I must have gotten distracted!.

I'm pretty sure that I promised pictures  month ago so here they are finally!

So I'll start with the flowers/herb section.  On the left are most of the herbs and the flowers are on the right.  Herbs include cilatro (flowering), oregano (front half of the giant bush), lemon balm (other half of the giant bush), peppermint and mojito mint (buried under the the giant bush), sage (can't see it behind the lemon balm) and rosemary (in the very back).  On the right are the flowers- calendula (orange ones in the back), zinnia (can't see it), cosmos, mexican sunflowers (haven't bloomed) and then chammomile (sprawled out on the path).  The macro picture is the zinnia. So pretty!

Here are the peppers, ocra and eggplant.  The peppers are looking sad.. they always do until around August when they suddenly start making tons of peppers.  I will wait..  The ocra is even more pathetic.. it hates this dry heat and clay soil..  The eggplant has lots of holey leaves but has still made several nice sized fruits.

The tomatoes look great! I have not done a perfect job on picking off the suckers but much better than last year.  They are at least climbing the string instead of just sprawling everywhere.

This is the jack and the beanstalk beans.  These plants are HUGE and flowering all over the place but I have only gotten 2 beans!  The flowers keep falling off and I don't know why. Too hot?



yay watermelons!  These are Derrick's babies.   They are yellow fleshed fruit and supposed to taste tangy!  Then there's the corn.. It is freaking huge but making lots of yummy sweet corn so I am not complaining (too much).

Here's a macro shot of the silks and a little visitor (death to the cucumber beatles!!)  And finally the corn tassle.  So pretty!

Is it spring yet?

So I've been a little bit busy and gardening has not fallen by the wayside but my blogging about it has.  I had quals in December so all my spare time went into prepping for that.  Its over though so now I can hopefully get back into regular garden blogging. Thanks to Paige for the reminder ;) My last post was in September so I guess I should try to summarize the last 4 months. .. I grew lots of tomatoes and made some really bland sauce.  I think it needed more herbs or something.  I also grew a pumpkin that didn't ripen until about Thanksgiving.  Its still sitting in my kitchen.  Its not a pie pumpkin but I can't bear to throw it away.  For the winter I planted peas, broccoli, garlic, green onions and beets.  Still waiting on the peas to make peas. They got a little frost bitten and have been slow to recover.  The broccoli, onions and beets have been very yummy and easy. Last year I had a big problem with aphids in the broccoli. This year I companion planted with garlic and mint and it seems to have done the trick.  No aphids!

OK, now for future plans! I have decided to dedicate the back fourth of my garden to herbs and flowers.  Thus far I have oregano, peppermint, parsley, cilantro, rosemary and in the future there will be basil.  I may also companion plant some basil in the with tomatoes.  I also want to put some wildflower mix back there to attract pollinators.  RIght now I have daffodil and freesia bulbs poking through.  As for the veggies, I have seeds for San Marzano tomatoes, some yellow watermelon, cantaloupe, green pole beans, black beans, corn, sunflowers, bell peppers and maybe some other stuff that I forgot.  I am going to try to grow with beans with the corn as the 'pole'. Last year they were next to eachother and the beans on the edge climbed up the corn so I decided that might be a good way to save some space and the corn probably appreciates the extra nitrogen from the beans.  Hmm.. I think thats it for now! I need to get my tomato seeds started..

Peas, Dead pumpkins and babies

I pulled up and harvested the last of the peas over the weekend.  I also bought some flowers and herbs for my hanging baskets.  I found some lemon balm at Ace and it smells absolutely divine.   The flowers are pretty too- I will try to take a pic soon.

I have sad news. Today we had some pretty strong wind and at least one of the pumpkins is dead, stem just broke off the rest of the way.  With the way the wind is around here I think the rest of them will probably die too before they get around to even flowering.  So sad.  Perhaps I shall go buy some replacements at Ace..

I checked this evening and I have baby corn! And a few more baby tomatoes as well.

My, how you've grown!

So its been about a month since I have posted any pictures (oops!) and my how things have grown! And I have lots of news and updates to report!

OK, so lets start with the overall picture:

This is actually only about half the plot. The corn, sunflowers, beans, pumpkin and watermelon are behind me. Anyway, the ocra is the empty looking space in there. It still hasn't really taken off yet. I've heard it really likes the heat and it has been cool(er) lately.

Next, a story about my tomatoes. My roma tomatoes have been flowering like CRAZY but I had yet to see an actual tomato. I noticed last week that the blooms were just falling off!! I was so sad. I thought maybe my soil nutrients were off, but a little internet research suggested that it was due to the heat wave we had the week before. Anyway, as you can see in the picture below I have at least one baby roma! yay!!

Oh, and one more story. So I was all excited that I was going to string up my tomatoes and have tomatoes growing up this 6 ft high strings, etc. I failed to realize that romas are indeterminant so they won't climb, just make giant bushes! Which is fine, I am just a little sad that they won't get to make use of my great trellis! The cucumbers are enjoying it tremendously though.

I also have a baby 'mystery tomato' from the picnic day batch. yay!!

Below is the chard. Oh great beautiful chard that I have no idea what to do with! I have discovered one yummy recipe that involves wrapping it around fish but other than that I am at a loss. Anyone with good chard recipes please hook me up!

I have peppers!!! So. excited. I bought this plant from Ace- some kind of hot peppers (red something, maybe you can read the tag in the pic ;) )

Here we have soy bean on the left and black turtle beans on the right. They are growing lots but no flowers yet.

Here are the limas and the remains of the peas on the left and pumpkin and watermelon on the right. The Green Arrow peas have been wonderfully delicious and productive. The pumpkin is growing really well. I thought I had lost it during the high wind storm we had last week. The main stem got a little broken, but apparently it doesn't need the whole stem to feed the whole plant. Watermelon is looking kind of pathetic. I got the seeds from a watermelon from the grocery store. I'm not even sure what kind it was. It was small and really tasty. Hopefully not a hybrid though. I am tempted to go to Ace and get a new one...

My corn is so pretty! It and the sunflowers have created their own personal jungle. Some are starting to form tassels. The real test will be when the corn comes and the squirrels notice..

L: Cucumber flowers! So far most of them look like male flowers, although they are still small yet. I don't know, I have never grown cucumbers before. If I can figure out the flowers I want to try hand pollinating.

R: Potatoes! They are blooming. I didn't know that potatoes bloomed- I guess I never really thought about it. These are another sort of experiment. I took organic grocery store potatoes and stuck them in the ground. How do I know when they are done? Does the plant die and I just did them up? I need to do some google-ing.

OK, just one more- the strawberries! I have two different types. The first are the ones I got from my neighbor. They are growing well, putting out lots of yummy berries and lots and lots of runners. Even the runners have runners. Crazy. So if anyone wants any strawberry plants just let me know!

The other variety I have is Fragaria. I got these from Ace. They are supposed to produce throughout the summer and do not produce as many (if any) runners. They have also produced lots of yummy berries.  Here is an almost ripe ones and the remains on ones I had a nibble on.

Whew! That was a long overdue update. I am amazed at how much everything has grown up in just a month. Before I know it I will have produce up to my ears ( I hope!).

Beetles and Sprouts

The past week in the garden has been very exciting!  Here's a list:

• Planted soy, black and lima beans; limas and soy are mostly up; still waiting on the black beans


• Planted clover in back beds


• Planted pumpkins and watermelon; came up yesterday


• Cucumber beetles (spotted and striped) are out with a vengence (as of May 1). I squished lots of them as they nibbled on my sunflowers.  When their numbers seemed to dwindle I put my actual cucumbers out. So far so good


• Bought hot (chile and something else) and chocolate bell pepper plants to replace those lost to frost.


• Bought fluffy pyramid flower plants to add some color.


• My tomatoes have flowers!!!!!!!


• I have peas!!!!!!!!


• I'm only mildly excited about those last two..

So everything is gradually greening up and filling in all the empty space.  yay! I will try to post some pics eventually.

Tulips and Sunset

I went out one night to try to take a picture of my tulips blooming, but they close in the evening. BUT I did get to see the most beautiful sunset!

 

And then I came out the next day to get the tulips at their best. They are a wonderful intro to spring!

 

Its almost spring!

Things are starting to come alive out in the garden! The tulips are almost blooming:



The rosemary is blooming:


And the pansies finally decided to bloom after like 4 months:



And just for fun, a picture of my hanging planters that have baby spinach and lettuce plants in them!