Garden Update

Posted on | June 7, 2007 | 8 Comments

Cross-posted to tadandmel.com.

Our garden is doing so well! I’m a bit afraid that the squash is plotting a hostile takeover. And look how tall the tomato plants have gotten! I swear they grew another 6 inches over the weekend while we were gone (in Pennsylvania for my cousin’s wedding – congrats Matt & Natalie!) with all the rain that we had (leftovers from the first tropical storm of the season). All that sneaking out in the morning to water them and whisper “grooow! GROOOOOW!” surely helped too. Click on the pics to go to Flickr and see the details of what we planted. Hopefully in another couple weeks we’ll have ‘maters. And squash – and peppers – and cukes! Holy smokies look at the cuke plants!! They are totally outgrowing the box! And if we have anywhere near the amount of tomatoes that I think we will, we may have to have a salsa-making party!

We’re definitely doing some better planning for next year’s garden – we’ll add one more bed and we’ll put in some salad greens, snow peas, beans, and maybe some broccoli and cauliflower. More herbs too. You can’t have enough basil and parsely, dill and cilantro. And mint for mojitos!! While the garden has been growing, we’ve had such fun watching our little budding ecosystem and all the creatures who have arrived to take advantage of it – meet Friend Toad, Friend Chameleon (I think?), Friend Dragonfly, and Friend Ladybug (who, BTW, ate every last aphid off my mom’s rose bush – good little ladybug!) There is also a Black Skink who doesn’t show his face too often – and disappears super quickly, so we haven’t been able to catch him on film.

There’s an egg which I found in one of the herb pots when I was transplanting too – I carefully buried it again and tried not to disturb it – what lays eggs in the ground? Turtles? I haven’t seen any of those. The chameleon maybe? I had a thought that it was Toad, because that’s where he likes to hang out; but don’t they lay eggs in water (tadpoles??) I know, I’m showing my ignorance here! I hope it hatches – I want to see what it is! Here’s another of one of our friends hiding in the salvia in mom’s garden.

I love this shot – can you spot him (or her – sorry little one, I can’t tell!)?

And here’s a shot of some blooms a week or two ago:

Which have since become this:

How exciting!!

I do have some questions though, for those of you who are garden savvy (because really, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. Help me please!) So here’s a beautiful zucchini, about ready to be picked, I think. But what’s the deal with the flowers-on-the-stalks versus the flowers-that-seem-to-be-actually-growing-zucchini? I don’t even know enough to know if that’s a dumb question, I just wondered. The blooms are huge and beautiful, but only some of them are attached to baby zukes. What’s the deal?

And then there’s the cucumber plants (burpless, or so it says on the plant tag. Do cukes cause burps? That’s not my real question – I’m getting sidetracked.) My real question is this – the two fomerly tiny cuke plants are growing like weeds – overflowing the box, crawling up the hanging tomatoes, and even threatening to take over the compost barrel in the corner. There are tons of blooms, both past and still blooming – but no baby cukes to be seen. Where are the baby cukes?

Ok, and just one more, but I think I might know the answer to this one. The peppers aren’t doing nearly as well as the tomatoes and everything else. I have a theory – fact one is that the squash plants are almost totally covering a few of them, so they aren’t getting nearly as much sun as the other plants. Fact two is that the ones that aren’t covered by the squash plants probably still don’t get as much sun, because of the tomatoes on the right blocking the morning light, and the fence on the left, which limits the afternoon/evening light. Am I on the right track? There are a few growing peppers, and it might be that the plants are fine, it’s just that compared with the big dreams of their neighbors, they can’t possibly compete. Maybe they have smaller, less grandiose ambitions. Grow a just a few tasty peppers for some stir-frys or salsa and leave it at that, no need to go for full-on garden domination (did I already use that joke? Still not funny? Sorry, it’s the best I can do on an almost Friday morning after a long week!) ;)

As for the knitting, well.

Pride comes before a fall. Never fear – I am winning (I think).

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