not exactly three sisters...

my current favorite garden view:



featuring, edamame (front), tomatoes (middle) and pole beans, dutifully climbing their trellis (not to mention offering yummy green beans).

fall garden '09

this year, thanks to teresa (or her husband?) i am getting the fall garden started early. we are moving to a different house on august first, and were told that we can start gardening there any time. since it is just across the street from our place, i have taken advantage of that offer.

cosmo came home from pre-school (in the spring) with a bunch of tiny tomato starts in a dixie cup. i already had all my tomatoes in, so we planted his in the new yard. i didn't expect much from them, but they have really taken off (they are currently twice the size shown in this photo)!




i also transplanted some of the (very slow growing) leeks over there, and recently, four tomatillo plants from jack. the soil in the new garden seems good, but it appears to be lacking in organic matter, so i have been throwing compost in with everything i plant, and perhaps i'll do a cover crop in the late fall or early spring.

yesterday, with some rare time to myself, i cut a path in the new garden space, and planted beets, lettuce, bush beans, basil, cilantro and peas. hopefully i can find some broccoli plants at the farmer's market, and maybe a dill or two. i will probably plant arugula and carrots within the next few days.

last year's fall garden was a big disappointment, but i think i just started it too late. can't wait to see what happens this year.



in other news, the garlic is out of the ground! some of the bulbs were smaller than i'd hoped, but overall, they did well. most were too small for seed garlic, so i'm getting more to plant in october (double what i planted last fall). right now, the garlic is hanging to dry in our shed (where we store things like empty boxes).



we also tasted the first of our ripe cherry tomatoes this week! they are yummy, and those plants are loaded!

daisy envy

last spring, EARLY spring, i started some daisy seeds indoors. i adore daisies, and wanted tons of them in our garden. the seeds did great, and i had enough plants to give away, and so, lara next door got one. it occurred to me, when i saw daisies blooming in other people's garden last summer, while my plants were still tiny, with no buds, that they might take a year to get established, and bloom the following year.

this spring, i noticed one daisy plant come up from last year. one came up in lara's garden too. here is hers:



here is mine:



not that i'm bitter. no. not at all.