April 2, 2009
I took a photo of all my seed packets today, I did! I just can't be bothered to edit and post it right now (it's late, other things to do, yadda yadda yadda). Instead I give you my Polaroid from Tuesday, which is actually apropos of what I did today: namely, turn the dirt in most of these containers....
April 1, 2009
I finally cleaned out my Inboxes last night after being in California for about 10 days, and I came across the April NaBloPoMo e-mail. The theme is GROWING (UP), which kind of makes sense for April; by this time last year, I had several seedlings well on their way. This year I've yet to plant anything (yes, I know, I'm way behind in gardening as in many other things), but I PLAN TO. So I gave some thought to...
December 29, 2008
July 14, 2008
Just a quick note to say I ate the first tomatoes from the garden today, and they were TASTY. The Beaner picked a bunch of half-green, half-orange ones without my permission, but he also got one 95% ripe beefsteak tomato and one 90% ripe Sprite grape. I ate the former raw and the latter sliced in a quesadilla....
June 3, 2008
From an e-mail I received yesterday from the Morris Arboretum (where Al, the Beaner & I are members):...
June 1, 2008
I was out surveying my garden domain on Friday night, feeling really happy with how things were growing, when upon closer inspection of the largest orange pepper plant, I spotted a bunch of tiny green bugs covering the new growth in the center of the plant. ACK, APHIDS!!...
May 19, 2008
I mentioned that I'd done some more chicken-wiring after the bird attacks of Saturday, and that I would be posting photos shortly. I've started a garden 2008 set on Flickr for this purpose. The photos are in chronological order starting with the first seed planting back in March, so the latest photos of bird damage and chicken wire-covered planters are at the end....
May 17, 2008
The starlings were mocking me. I understand that now. I spent the morning on the back deck, transplanting the orange pepper seedlings and repotting two yellow pepper plants in more container-friendly soil (I carefully took the plants out of their containers, mixed some seed starter and coir-based potting mix into the topsoil/manure & hummus blend that was already in there, and then replaced the plants), and the starlings shouted at me from the former sparrows' nest they'd taken over the...
May 5, 2008
I'm now kicking myself for not photographing the sunflower seedlings that sprouted in the compost bin (where I'd planted them about 10 days ago) this weekend. I went out to survey my kingdom this morning and found every seedling save one (that apparently just came up last night, in a divot) looked like it had beheaded by a weed whacker. Some stems where broken cleanly in two places, and it looked like something had been digging a bit in...
May 1, 2008
I'll start May's NaBloPoMo effort with an update on my garden, if for no other reason than to remember it later. (Wait, that's pretty much 90% of the reason I write *anything* here.) After planting the tomato and pepper seeds back in March, I discovered, via an incredibly helpful post at You Grow Girl, the difference betweeen determinate and indeterminate tomatoes. It turns out I've been growing the wrong kinds of tomatoes for years. Determinates = smaller, usually bushier...
March 11, 2008
Gayla asked in a recent post on You Grow Girl why we garden. I commented that I do it mostly for the results; I find the process itself fairly frustrating rather than comforting/calming/soothing, as most true gardeners do. Nevertheless, I saved up some toilet paper tubes (and one paper towel tube, which I cut into thirds) in which to plant the pepper seeds that I'd also saved, and some tomato seeds that I'd bought....