update

it's mid july, and the garden is thriving. it has been cooler here than expected, but we've had our share of very warm days. we have tomatoes growing on every plant, and have harvested the first few cherry tomatoes. the first one we ceremoniously cut into thirds so we could each have a taste. they are sweet and delicious!

were still eating peas, but they are almost done. the green bean plants are climbing high on their teepee poles, and a few small beans can be found hiding under the leaves.

the carrots look great above ground. no idea what's going on underneath. the beets look less healthy, and our kale is rather pathetic. i suspect a combination of poor soil, and lack of sun. the plot is not technically in full sun. luckily, the bed with the tomatoes seems to get enough. we've enjoyed a steady harvest of lettuce, though i imagine it will be bolting soon. we've been cooking with all the herbs we're growing, and i even got another thyme plant from the farmer's market, because the little one i had just couldn't keep up with the demand from our kitchen.

peas and carrots
the edamame is growing taller and seems to be healthy and happy. japanese beetles have been visiting the bed, but so far, they haven't done too much damage. i've been hand picking them off as i spot them.


we've had a constant bloom of flowers all around the yard, including a stunning (and very tall) breadseed poppy i received from the neighborhood plant exchange.


right now we have day lillies, echinacea (purple coneflower), cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, nasturtiums, chamomile and the brown-eyed susans are about to bloom.


cosmos

cosmos

cosmos

nasturtiums

is it time to start thinking about fall crops? i started more of the purple bunching onions, and have some garlic ordered for october planting. maybe i'll try some kale and chard in a different location. i'd like to make a cold frame, and overwinter a few hardy edibles.

how does YOUR garden grow?

peas please

it's pea season. cosmo has harvested the first few, and shared a couple of the peas with us. he loves them, and gets so excited when another one is ready to be picked. i remember his first peas off the vine last year, in houston, at the mandel community garden.





there is not much in this world that is prettier than a pea plant. those squiggly tendrils, reaching for the sky (or a strand of string), heart-shaped leaves, cupped around the winding vine, delicate, understated blossoms, and that pod! so adorable, with it's little elf cap. pluck, unzip and part the shell, to reveal nature's perfection. an organized row of tender green spheres. pop 'em in your mouth. just like candy.



in other news, the edamame came up about four days after planting! we had torrential rains here the day after i sowed them, and i worried they would wash away. but they were fine. it was clear and sunny the next day, rained the following day, and i guess that was just what they needed. here are shots when they first popped up, and today, with their second set of leaves (already? ahh, they grow up so fast...).





we've got cherry tomatoes setting on the vine, and i have been harvesting the purple bunching onions that i started from seed. we enjoyed some last night, with a medley of roasted vegetables.







it figures that the healthiest, fastest growing plant in the garden is one that planted itself, in the compost. here is one of the pumpkins (or melons, or squash?) taking off in the compost.

the good kind of tired

i just came indoors from over 3 hours of working in the garden. it's been around 90 degrees for the past couple of days. earlier this week i dug up a 6'x7' bed in our backyard. yesterday i turned it, added compost, and turned it some more.



today i took the hoe to it, formed it into 4 rows, and planted edamame. i was inspired last week by the most recent issue of organic gardening. it sounded so easy, and cosmo loves edamame (as does the rest of the family). i quickly ordered seeds and inoculant (from johnnyseeds.com) and planned out the plot (the inoculant is a soybean specific rhizobial bacteria that helps the plants capture and fix atmospheric nitrogen in a form the plants can use. --source: organic gardening, july 2008, p.32). i didn't bother asking the landlord for permission. i was afraid he'd say no. fait accompli, facts-on-the-ground, whatever you wanna call it; the bed has been dug, the seeds have been planted. in about 90 days, we should have fresh edamame. many acres of soybeans are grown in this country, but like the corn, most of it needs to be processed to be eaten. it seems to me that the best way to consume soy, is to eat the fresh beans.



in the process of digging up the yard, i found many treasures, including a small gold chain, a bunch of bottle caps, rusty bent nails, a marble, a bone, rusty swing-set chain, eyeglass lenses... i've been told by several neighbors that a circus used to be located on, or around, the spot where our house is. i was hoping to unearth some circus artifacts, but i'm pretty sure what i found was mostly household debris.

thinning seedlings/homemade bug spray

one thing that i am not cut out for is thinning. i just don't have the heart for it, and i need to remember this when i sow seeds. here is a row of carrots before and after thinning.




(you might also note all the small stones in the soil)

i tried to thin to 1-2 inches. i think i averaged about a half an inch, at best. i hate to pull up healthy plants. we've had some serious storms here in the past couple of days, and the soil in some parts of the garden is just washing away. i am particularly worried about the beets and the carrots. i built up a bunch of potting soil around them yesterday, today it was mostly gathered in the corners, and low spots of the garden.

in other news, i noticed some little bugs eating my green bean leaves,



(a close up of the bugs)

they looked to me like the type of bug a ladybug might eat, so i gathered a dozen ladybugs from a blooming shrub in the front of the yard. a generous supply of aphids inhabit that bush, so the ladybugs feed there. i captured them in cosmo's bug-observation-container, and released them onto the bean plants. they kept trying to crawl back onto me, instead of the leaves, and then they all quickly flew away. so much for imposing my agenda on other creatures (who, shockingly, have their own!).
plan B: i made a bug spray from a recipe i found in organic gardening. it consists of: garlic, onions, cayenne, dish soap and water. i tried it on the beans, and left a couple unsprayed, as an experiment. i haven't noticed an increase in the bug activity, and the beans are growing well. i need to keep applying it though, since it has been raining so much. something is eating the kale too, but i expected that. plants in the brassica family always seem to get nibbled on. i also noticed some small, purplish, aphid-looking critters on the tomatoes, but no damage to the plant so far. guess i will just wait on those.

i rescued a trunk load of beautiful stones from a dumpster in the neighborhood. someone was doing some sort of landscaping/masonry makeover, and a lot of limestone got thrown out. i've been looking out for some for a while now. i will use it too outline garden beds. i am creating a new one, which i hope to write more about next time.

first blossoms

the vegetable garden has a few blooms now.

the chamomile i bought from the farmer's market is tall, with dainty flowers on top. the ones i started from seed are smaller, and not yet blooming.

we have our first proud nasturtium blooms, and the two pea plants i started indoors are now blooming. the rest are still catching up.



many of the tomatoes have put out a few blossoms. i was told to pinch them back while they are this young, so that the plant can grow stronger before putting energy into the fruit. i decided to pinch some, leave some, and see what happens.


it's incredible to see the plants i nurtured from seed, begin to reach the stage of producing their own seeds. one of the many wondrous, ordinary pleasures of gardening.

i'll take my salad live, thank you.

cosmo is not one to eat green leafy vegetables, but he enjoys picking leaves and putting them in his mouth. lately he has been pulling up various plants from the grass and saying, "i can eat this?"
i hope i have made it clear that he needs to check with me before putting plants in his mouth...he loves eating wild onions, and, wisely, following with mint leaves from the neighbor's yard (ours are still too young for harvesting).

walla walla

i know some gardeners around here have not yet dared to put their tomatoes in the ground, for fear of a late frost. i am not one of those gardeners. i transplanted 4 of the tomatoes i nurtured from seed, into the garden on april 23. it was early, and a big risk, so i constructed some protective systems. i had heard of using a "wall o' water" for early planting, so i got a package from a big box store. it was a burpee brand, called hydro shield. when we filled the first one up with water, to test it out, the cell dividers started breaking, and the thing wouldn't stand up. i wasn't about to put one of those things around my precious little plants, and risk it collapsing, and crushing their fragile stems. so, i took them back, and poked around online until i found a brilliant solution: do it yourself wall o' water using plastic bottles in a ring around each plant. we don't really use a lot of plastic bottles, and i needed a bunch of them, so i went to the recycling center, and snagged a bag full of 1 and 2 liter empty bottles. i made a ring of them, taped them together, placed them gingerly around the newly transplanted tomatoes, and filled them with water. the theory is that the water heats up during the day, and keeps the soil and the plants warmer at night. thermal mass. so, the larger the bottle, the more protection. i didn't have enough bottles for all four plants, so one of them just got a couple of layers of bubble wrap.



my plants were really tall and leggy. i didn't have proper lighting conditions indoors, so they just kept getting taller as they reached for more light. when i saw the hundreds of healthy, short, stocky tomato plants they were selling at the farmer's market, i wondered why i had even bothered starting my own from seed. then i remembered how much fun i had watching them grow from tiny sprouts, right before my eyes in the office, next to the desk. and i learned that i could bury a significant portion of the stem when i transplanted, and that roots would form along that stem, which would strengthen the root system for the plant. so, that is what i did.
i put stakes and cages around them right away too, so as not to disturb the roots later on, and i gave them some food about 5 days later.

they did really well in their homemade "hydro vests" (as my neighbor lara was calling them), and showed no signs of transplant shock. i filled the holes with sun-warmed water as i was planting them, and they had also been spending some time outside for several days, "hardening off." we had two nights when i worried the temperatures would drop below freezing, and on those nights, i covered them, along with the peonies, and some nasturtiums (cosmo helped out, and thought the tomato "ghosts" were funny). none of the plants were damaged, not even the one in the bubble wrap.







after that last frost warning on april 29, it has been consistently warm here in bloomington. i planted 5 more tomatoes in a sunnier spot in the back yard. i did not protect them with anything, nor did i enrich the soil with compost or peat. so, we'll see what happens. so far, they all look great.