I have been waiting for my basil to sprout, and a bunch of stuff sprouted but i couldn't tell if it was basil or weeds. Finally, today you can tell.
these are basil
these are weeds
this is a basil seedling surrounded by weeds.The variety of basil is 'Sweet Genovese' so i imagine different varieties will look different.
Zucchini leaf. I am not sure if the white coloring is just the variety or if it is some kind of disease. Because, you know, i always think positively like that.
Pumpkin plant, and some baby leek volunteers. The pumpkin plant that we started inside met a bad end (somebody broke it clean off, stepped on it i suspect) so i threw in some seeds. They have grown relatively quickly but i am still not sure we will have time to actually get pumpkins from this variety. 120 days to maturity, blah.
I staked my tomatoes. I am attempting to prune them this year, i am hoping to keep some order in the garden with this pruning thing. Some of them have a blight already, like the one on the right in the picture. That is a marigold in the front.
Here is the flower of the marigold. This is an heirloom variety named 'Harlequin'. The flowers are very beautiful but you sometimes learn why things have fallen into 'heirloom' status. The plant is huge & bushy with just a few small flowers....like this one for example.
That's fine for the vegetable garden but i wouldn't want it in my flower border. Maybe they will bloom more later in the summer? 
Dill is very pretty.
I didn't actually plant it, these are all volunteers from last year's dill.
This is a lousy picture because i took it out of the back bathroom window as C got ready for bed, but i put it here as proof that at one point in the summer the garden was actually *weeded*. In fact i weeded two Sundays in a row. This is big.
I have not posted here this summer. I have been working in the veggie garden but i have not been happy about it. The raised beds were nearly gone after last year, so they not only needed to be weeded, but also redug, reshaped, and have compost added. Which doesn't sound so bad but somehow it took me, like, weeks. I swear. I don't know *why* it took so long -- i actually stayed home from work for a few days to do it and it *still* didn't get completed.
Somehow it seems like this vegetable garden is a full-time job. Well, i already have one of those, or two if you count the kids. I am doing my best to keep it up this year but i am considering just plowing the whole damn thing under next year. I hate it when it gets away from me and is a total mess. My husband hates it. I hate my husband. (no, not really, just sometimes).
On the other hand, for the kids, i do think it is really good to grow vegetables. Especially when they are growing up in the city -- they have so little connection to the land. The twins, at a year old, have never even seen a cow. That's pretty crazy, huh? We don't get out much. Next week we are going to visit family in PA and they will surely see some cows there. My mother will think i am insane -- "let's go look at some cows!"
So i am torn about it, really. We will see how it goes this year. Weeding two weekends in a row is promising...i hope i can keep it up.
I actually managed to start seeds this weekend, with C as my little helper. New this year, she didn't want to get her hands dirty (!!??) so she wore some ridiculous gloves of mine -- i will have to see if i can pick up some kid's size gardening gloves.
We started:
Tomatoes: Aunt Ruby's German Green, Great White, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, St. Pierre (that is this year's novelty! ) I am sick of cherry tomatoes so i didn't plant any this year. I hope my Cherokee purples sprout because the seed was several years old.
Eggplant Thai Long Purple
Chile peppers "Ancho Grande" (a freebie)
Marigolds -- "Harlequin", a striped heirloom, and a variety of tiny ones that i saw at Greenfield Village and stole, uh, collected some seed from last year.
Pumpkin "Musquee de provence" which i think from the picture are the very tasty ones we used to get in France.
Yes, i started pumpkins inside, because the 'days to maturity' of this pumpkin said '120' which seemed like a lot. They are in those peat cups so we will see how that transfer goes.
Yes, we started marigolds inside also, for C's pleasure. Because "i no yike 'matoes."
All seeds were from Baker Creek this year.
I still have not done a garden plan. Hell, i still have not taken down last year's tomato cages. So i don't know what else we will plant. Lettuce, beans, basil, sunflowers, summer squash likely. Beets maybe. C wants corn which should be popular with the squirrels. So we will see.
Next week is our spring break, and i hope the weather is temperate enough so that i can get out there & clean out all my gardens & mulch....
It is January. I guess i should start thinking about what seeds to start, and if i need to order any. Maybe i will do that.
So here it is mid-October & i was cleaning out the flower garden. Lo and behold i noticed that my 'Persimmon' tomato, which had previously produced two dry, rock-hard items that could barely be classed as tomatoes, was now laden with huge juicy offerings. I mean really big ones, and very tasty too. Not sure what happened there, but i did enjoy them! I would say now that i would grow it again, if i wanted an orange tomato.
Also the green tomato, 'Aunt Ruby's german green', got some sort of blight & dried up. So though it was prolific before then, it is a mess now.
We grew a giant zucchini! It was so big C could hardly lift it. The neighbors said we should've entered it in the state fair...however we were really hungry so we ate it instead.
If you recall, i was too busy being pregnant to actually start seeds, so i got all these from a local plant sale. The twins arrived safely and now i am too busy being mommy to actually weed the garden. However in the intervening time i was able to throw some plants in the ground and eat some tomatoes. Here are my (albeit brief) impressions:
-Arkansas Traveler. My hubby picked the first one of these and i didn't believe him when he said it came from our garden -- it looked like a storebought one. They are about the size of a peach and perfect perfect perfect looking red tomatoes. The taste is kind of average though, i wasn't impressed. Probably be a good tomato to sell or something, but i like a tomato with some kick.
-Aunt Ginny's Purple -- not much kick here either, and the plant wasn't very prolific. Another average one.
-Aunt Ruby's German Green -- OH MY GOD I LOVE IT. This is my favorite this year, i will have to find where to buy the seeds. These are huge and flavorful and there are alot of them. They really are green when they are ripe, though, so you have to keep checking and feeling them. They look lovely in a tomato salad or as pasta fresca. Here are some pictures:
-Black from Tula -- another good one. This one almost made up for the fact that i didn't have any Cherokee Purple this year. Prolific and tasty.
-Great White -- another good one! OK, all the good ones are together in the list. A big tasty sweet yellow one! It is now my favorite yellow tomato. Well, ok, 'white', but can i say in the yellow family? I will grow it again and again and again and again....the pic is of Great White & Black from Tula.
-Mortgage Lifter -- this plant got choked out by weeds so i got nothin'. Dommage....
-Paul Robeson -- the squirrels love it. I had one not-quite-ripe tomato from this plant, that i managed to pick first. I did not think it was as good as 'Black from Tula' but it is hard to compare....simply not enough data. Maybe it just wasn't ripe enough. Thieving bastards. I swear one day i am going to get a gun.
-Persimmon -- not sure what happened here. Partly the plant was choked by weeds.... but i did get some tomatoes. They were kind of hard & leathery, and didn't taste very good. Looks pretty chopped up with others though. I think something went wrong, i don't think it was the fault of the variety.
-Yellow Pear -- was mismarked & was in fact Red Currant (or some related variety). Well, screw that. The squirrels liked these too, and they are welcome to them. I mean, they are cute as a salad garnish but other than that i don't have a lot of use for currant tomatoes.
My garden, though, is chock full of them -- the 'White Currant' from last year seeded themselves with a vengeance. I didn't quite manage to pull them out and as a result they are everywhere. Which is in fact kind of convenient, because i have plenty of tomatoes to give away and i didn't do anything to get them. Saves face, somehow.
just a cute pic. All the sunflowers are volunteers, coming up in various places in the vegetable garden. The sunflower on the right is 'Lemon Queen', a 'decorative' variety that i planted last year. The one on the left is the one from the birdseed. C loves to fill the bird feeder but tends to drop seed everywhere, so these are coming up all over the place. Oddly enough, i think they are alot prettier than the so-called 'decorative' ones.
Something ate most of my squash seedlings, and a few of the others. The basil has not sprouted at all. The weeds are growing just great.
Gardening sucks!
summer squash, cukes, beans, zinnias, and lettuce did, anyway. Still waiting on the rest of the stuff. Hopefully we will see more of them after this weekend's gentle rains (because i have not yet managed to set up a sprinkler, so nothing has been watered since i put it in, oops) Of course, more weeds will sprout too, but whaddya gonna do?
Here is a lousy picture, i mean i could explain the thing of the leaves-as-mulch and all that, but i will keep that for another time. I will try to get better pics soon. None of the seeds have germinated yet so there is nothing to really see, except some tomato plants and whatever is left over from last year.
I got some heirloom tomato plants (9 in total) from a local plant sale, i will have to look up what i got because i don't even remember. It was not what i planned to get.
So what is in there?
-Those tomato plants and a bunch of volunteer tomatoes from last year. We will see what actually comes of it.
-Leeks from last year (they are getting kind of fat finally).
-Beets (mix of three kinds, will list later...they were planted too late though)
-Rainbow Chard (ditto on planted too late, i guess we will just eat the baby greens)
-Lettuce -- merveille des quatres saisons & black-seeded simpson, like last year, also planted too late. But actually we have some volunteers from last year that we are currently eating at dinnertime
-Arugula volunteers from last year
-bush beans, royalty purple pod
-cucumbers, white wonder
-summer squash, blend of 7 varieties, will find & list later
-basil, sweet genovese
-dill, i forget which variety
-silver thyme & greek oregano plants
-some sunflower volunteers
-flowers for cutting -- cosmos (seashells blend) and zinnias (state fair mix)
-marigolds, for keeping off the bugs. This year i got a flat of the orange two-toned ones, called 'disco queen'...just to be different from last year.
Nothing is planted in the center oval, just some marigolds, because C loves to fill the birdfeeder & watch the birds. So we will keep the shepard's crook which refuses to stand straight and the tiny birdfeeder there (so she can fill it every day! Oh the fun!)
How am i going to keep this garden from getting away from me, when twin boys arrive in three weeks (knock on wood)? I won't, it is not possible. But my neighbors needled me until i planted veggies, because they want enough to share, and promised to help with the watering & weeding. So, when it all goes to hell, i can blame somebody else, and that's really the most important thing.
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Edited to add -- if anyone actually reads this anymore, i should answer the question that will undoubtedly be asked: how do you plant a garden when you are 34 weeks pregnant with twins, and thus cannot bend down? The answer is you crawl around a lot, and hope noone is watching you. You may laugh, but it works...
I have to list the varieties i have here and now, before i forget and it is never done. So we have one plant each of:
-Arkansas Traveller
-Aunt Ginny's Purple
-Aunt Ruby's German Green
-Black from Tula
-Great White
-Mortgage Lifter
-Paul Robeson
-Persimmon
-Yellow Pear
I have actually never had any of these before (except the ubiquitous Yellow Pear) so it will be interesting. I hope i will have time to record my reflections on these tomatoes here. I am upset because i have no Cherokee Purple, which is my all-time favorite...they did have them on the list at the sale but by the time i got in, they were all gone. We were there, in time, before the opening even....but some people had already gotten in the day before because of an error in the paper. So i was really annoyed. But i am hoping that either Paul Robeson or Black from Tula will prove an adequate substitute. I have little expectation for 'Aunt Ginny's Purple' which is described as 'deep pink productive beefsteak'. Well, if it's pink, it ain't purple. Maybe Aunt Ginny couldn't see very well...
The volunteers i have in the garden are probably from the White Currant tomatoes from last year, and i see one Brandywine volunteer. There is one that i am hoping is a Cherokee Purple but i am not holding my breath. I am surprised there are no Yellow Bell volunteers, but maybe the leaves on that bed were just too thick....
"C, do you want mommy to plant strawberries in the garden this year? So you can have strawberries in summertime?"
"No, I no yike it."
"You don't like them? Really? Well, ok...."
"I want cookies."
"But I can't grow cookies in the garden."
"Candy?"
"No, not candy either, sorry."
"M&M's?"
Well, dh and i had a small discussion about the vegetable garden. Ok, it became more of a fight, and rather an unpleasant one at that. He seems not to understand why i (1) want to plan it now and (2) don't think i can just do everything. Let's not go there.
"Why do you have to start seeds anyway?" he says "it is just a mess and takes up space. Why can't you just buy some plants and put them in, they don't have to be heirlooms and all that you know, and A can take care of it if you are too busy"
Heh, where do i start with that??? I had to leave the room in sheer disgust.
Men.
It occurs to me, though, that if i *do* grow just a few tomato plants, i will then have a supply of vine-ripened, bug-ridden, half-rotten tomatoes available to throw at my husband if necessary. Hmmm......
Ordinarily, it being january i would be spending hours perusing seed catalogs trying to decide which tomato seeds to buy this year. But so far so good on the pregnancy front, and we are expecting two babies in June. So i don't foresee doing a vegetable garden this year, unless for some odd reason my husband agrees to take it over.
So, my garden plan is the following: In March, or as early as humanly possible, the boy and i will throw a very very thick layer of mulch all over everything -- flower beds and vegetable garden alike. Thus hoping against hope to keep down the weeds. Then, in early May, we will plant a geometric, victorian carpet planting of annuals in the veggie garden, and simply ignore it for the rest of the summer. I promised C some strawberry plants, so i *may* plant those in the center.
But now, actually thinking about paying for the number of annual plants necessary to make such a planting is rather daunting, even if you can get 3 flats for $21 around here. I didn't actually compute it but i am thinking like 20 flats might be required? Not, ahem, cost effective. Especially with the upcoming big event (knock on wood). And all that mulch is going to cost me a bundle already, but i can't do anything about that, because if i don't mulch i might as well just forget the garden entirely.
So i will have to start the flower seeds....and that is what this blog will be about this year, an annual flower garden, planted in garish Victorian carpet planting 'spendor'. Did i mention i hate Victorian carpet plantings? But i honestly can't think of what else to do with that space, except let it run to weeds. So i am open for suggestions... I will not change the title of this blog, hoping for a nice vegetable garden in the summer of 2008.
Undoubtedly there will be volunteers from all the tomatoes that rotted last year, so...perhaps my carpet planting will have tomatoes growing through it. That should be....interesting...uh, we'll call it 'eccentric'.
Ah, this blog joins the long list of abandonned blogs sitting around in the blogsphere. Perhaps not totally abandonned...but how can you really blog about the vegetable garden when it is winter? And i do not know what the plans will be for it for next year, if i will do a vegetable garden or not. That will depend on the outcome of a new venture. We will see.
So perhaps next year i will just use the template of the vegetable garden and plant a bunch of colorful annuals in obnoxious patterns. I hate that, but it's certainly quite Victorian....
Anyone have any clue what i should do with all of these? C seems to enjoy using them as projectiles...
A few days ago:
Today:
Look at this mess!
I noticed this as i was leaving for work this morning, and when i came back in the afternoon i thought i would take a picture of the damage and spend some time speculating as to the culprit. However, when i went back there to take the picture, the identity of the culprit was immediately clear.
The damned things don't even run away anymore when they see me coming. They just saunter, slowly, because their bellies are so full that they can't actually move fast. It is really irrirating. I am going to have to break the squirrel trap out again, and trap them all before the cold weather comes and they take refuge in the attic. Yuck, what a chore. And sorry, Catherine, i was going to send you some sunflower seeds but i think they ate them all.
Perhaps i will take up my neighbor on his offer and just borrow his pellet gun...
