Green Fingers and Toes

Not quite, but I did decide to revive this blog again so that I could chronicle my latest attempt at urban gardening.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about it on my BBW blog, and although I tweeted a few pics today, I know most people are not all that interested in whether my tomatoes have blight or how well (or poorly) I staked them.

Another great thing is that my cell phone has a camera and I can upload pics this time around.  A few years ago there were cell phone cameras, but I was still using my already obsolete crackberry that had everything but a camera...and I am not sure if I even had a digital camera yet.  Anyhoo onto the pics:

This is the Marian tomato plant, recently repotted. No fruit yet.

The trio of pepper plants. The outer two were smaller than the middle when first purchased.

This will turn red at some point. First full fruit from the pepper plants.

The early Early Girls, recently caged. Repotted two weeks ago w/out any fruit.

Look closely to get a glimpse of the Juliets. Also were repotted just two weeks ago w/out fruit.

I'm feeling pretty good about their progress given that I started very late.  I bought these already started from the Home Depot back in June right before Father's Day.  I waited a week to repot most of the plants and then immediately fertilized them with the fish/seaweed liquid fertilizer.  I learned my lesson from my first time attempting tomatoes, so I fertilized them early to prevent the bottom rot.

There has been a lot of rain this week, so literally overnight, the two plants in my backyard (the Early Girls and the Juliets) spread like crazy.  I bought the tomato cages for them today after another quick dash of fertilizer this morning.

My peppers are growing well (at least the smaller ones are), but the middle plant has sprouted its first fruit, so that is encouraging as well.  My brother suggested that I separate them so that the outer plants share the same container and the middle one gets its own, but I will wait and see how things develop over the next couple of days.

I just got around to re-potting the Marian tomatoes last weekend, so I will have to see how it does.  I only had the two very large pots, so this one had to go into a smaller 12" pot.  However, I am experimenting with it by keeping it in the front yard where there is less sun (maybe about 6 hours versus 8 hours in the back yard).  I want to keep it there so that I can visually keep track of its water intake, which has been a little more than half a gallon a day.

I had a fourth tomato plant, and off the top of my head I cannot remember what it was called...but it does not matter since I gave it to my parents.  I re-potted it right before Father's Day and it already had some fruit on it.  My parents went on vacation for a week and left it in the care of my brother, who watered everyday as I instructed.  I fertilized it once while they were gone, which was about 10 days ago.  Today, I noted that a few of the fruits are already turning red! 

I am not sure if this is due to the fertilizer or the age of the plants since I bought them already started.  I am going to guess that the plants were probably started at the nursery in April or early May.  Next year I will start them myself from seed (fingers crossed) so that I can better track their growth. 

And one last word about starting plants from seed--so far the herbs are not doing much.  I planted them the same day I repotted the Marian tomatoes, and of course I did it all wrong from failing to wet the soil before sowing the seeds to keeping them wet and not letting them dry out.  Not sure that the rain did anything but futher swish them around in the pot.  My hope is that something will sprout (the mint and/or the basil), although I do not remember if the mint ever grew last time.  We shall see.

OK, more pics and updates next week.

Composting and Other Tasks Accomplished

I bought a plastic composter from Costco a few weeks ago, and last week we finally put it together. We then proceeded to fill it with weeds. I can't wait to see how that turns out.

I have a few other items to add to the mix, such as spent coffee grinds, melon rinds and dead flowers. Of course, the weeds take up most of the room in there, so we shall see how quickly everything decomposes, and whether the result will be anything worth having.

I wanted a composter because we generated so much yard waste and I hated to just throw it all out in the garbage. Grass clippings and spent flowers seem like the type of thing that would provide nourishment to the soil, so I prefer not to just get rid of them. Yet, with a practically full bin this early in the season, I'll end up throwing a lot of it out anyway.

We dug along the fence line like my neighbor always does, but it doesn't look as nice. That is because Rick did it, and his idea of neat is not quite like everyone else's. But he tried, so I can't be too upset about his effort. My other neighbors marveled at the effort, probably because they won't even try to do the same on their side. They have people who mow their lawn for them, so I can't imagine that any real landscaping efforts are a part of the contract.

The day lilies came back along with the ever-present Sam weed. I still hate both of them with a passion. My in-laws were here and the children hacked away at the pre-growth, so we'll see if that has any impact on them. I pulled some at Sam, but he is a cunning weed, and will find other ways to annoy me. And of course, I've been pulling weeds out of the peach tree bed. The peaches are coming in, but I did not fertilize them, so we'll see if they mold on the branches in a few weeks.

I have not started any of the other plants yet. I do plan to start the tomatoes, peppers and sunflowers very soon because this year I plan for each to grow in the ground. Although we'll be gone for a few weeks, my hope is that after they sprout and harden at my parents' home (assuming that my mother does not mind daily watering), they should be strong enough to transplant by mid-June.

I may do onions and potatoes again in the pots this year. I actually had a potato growing in the same pot a few weeks ago. I may also get the beans and zucchini planted this year as well.

I don't have any grand plans--I just want to get things accomplished. I'll be working this summer, which means that my attention will be divided and may prove to be disastrous. Last year I totally lost interest in the yard, although I did not lose total interest in the veggies (it helped that the hub got excited about them). I am a little late in getting started this year, but I am hoping that it will make me a bit more dilligent this time around.

OK, I could go on and on, but I have other work that I am avoiding that I must finish before midnight. Ciao!

Hello Again

This is not even going to sound like last year's premature cheeriness. In fact, this year, I return with a healthy amount of cynicism about my efforts to have a decent looking yard this year. The dreaded day lillies have returned, along with Sam the evil kudzu. Also the maple weeds are at it again, but with the pollen and the side effects from the Clariten, all I can expect to do now is wait.

The lack of interest in my yard is symptomatic of my general lack of interest in most things. I am in some weird terminal depression that has kept me unable to accomplish much of anything other than my job, and even that requires too much energy. The only reason why I even decided to post in this blog is because Blogger now counts every post, finished or not, and I went in to edit a previously unpublished post on how terrible my yard looked in July. It is April 2006, and the complaints are essentially the same.

I won't continue to prattle on about my yard, but if I get the spirit at some point, I hope to report good things later this summer. Maybe I'll have some peaches or tomatoes to write about. It is time for me to start a few plants, so maybe I will set a goal to have that done before June.

Ciao!

Moving on from 13

That number has been staring back at me for weeks, so I am writing to change it so that the next time I visit Blogger to write something, it doesn't say that I only wrote 13 posts about my garden and my yard.

I complained a lot. I wanted to do better. At some point, I lost interest and Rick decided that he cared more about the tomatoes and the peppers (he waters them every day). I've pulled weeds and continued to pull them until I realized that they mocked me.

I didn't buy any flowers this year. So my front yard looked worse than it had in a long time. Certainly not as weird as it looked last year when I experimented with yard art. I bought these plastic tables and set some plants on them, then I set a large pot with three plants in it next to the tables. It looked crazy, and that it probably why my nosy neighbor called the city on me.

My side yard got cleared of the weeds, but the weeds are still everywhere. They are beyond my control, and I am tempted to just let them take over. Then I look over at my neighbor's yard (the ones who got all of that pretty landscaping done this summer) and I see that their grass is not only greener but also knee high and patchy, and then I don't feel so bad. Neither one of us has any idea how to take care of a lawn.

Summer is over. Fall is right around the corner and my most important accomplishment is that I've painted my living room a pretty shade of Navajo white.

Life is good.

Harvest Time

I did not accomplish everything, but sometimes a little goes a long way. It's time to reap what I sowed!

The tomatoes have been weird again this year, even though I was careful not to crowd the pots. I guess I need to try to pot even fewer in the same pots next year. The leaves are yellowing, so that probably means that I can't expect to see any more blossoms this year. Thus, my tomato yield will be about 20.

My peppers are doing ok, but not nearly as well as they did last year. I had two pepper plants, and I still do not have as many peppers as I did last year. One plant came from seeds I saved from a store bought pepper, so I know that will work again next year. I'm already saving seeds from the minis to try them again next year. They are the cutest!

The onions seem to have worked well so far. I had no idea what to expect, so I yanked one of them out of the ground to see what I had, and I had two onions! Now, I'm wondering if I could have had more, so I left the other plants in the ground to see what I might have in a few weeks.

The potatoes are rather small, but it looks like I might have more than I bargained for by the end of the season. I pulled six from the ground, but they were at the top, so I haven't even gone down deep in the soil to see what else is there. I might end up with 40 or more little taters, perfect for mashing come fall and winter. Not bad at all.

I never got to see what really happened to the carrots, because now the entire pot is submerged in green, slimy water and I don't even want to go near it. I may try to see what will happen this fall, but I'm not so sure that it will work. I still have collard greens, which appear to like cooler weather, so maybe I'll drop a few seeds in a pot and wait to see what will pop up by October.

The biggest disappointment this year was the peach tree. My grandmother had a peach tree for many years and I don't recall a single season when she did not have peaches. I don't recall any hungry squirrels or that many birds, and I certainly don't recall that she did anything special to maintain it. So what is the problem with my tree? I'm thinking about taking a few of the dried moldy fruit to a garden center to see if someone there can diagnose the problem for next year. I am committed to having that tree survive and thrive!

That's that for now. No deer sightings recently, and I have yet to see the fox that lives in the woods. I did see an ugly opposum last night, so we still have the more common forms of wildlife. I just hope that they don't like vegetables...

Worst House on the Block

My neighbors have now improved the look of their property, by planting flowers and weeding, so now we have the ugliest front, side and back yards. Despite my intention to improve the outward appearance of our home, I haven't done much of anything and it is now the middle of July. While Rick has diligently mowed the lawn, his efforts to do anything else to keep the yard looking neat leave much to be desired. And as the summer wears on, and as our yard gets worse, it is clear that if left to our own devices, the best we can look forward to is a continuation of the status quo.

Thus, it is time to call in the professionals.

Against my better judgment, we will need help, and lots of it. It will mean chemicals to control and evenutally kill Sam. It will mean removing hedges and digging up stumps. It will mean that the mole who has taken up residence in our yard will need to move on.

We can't help that neither of us is suited for yard work. I am lazy and Rick has no sense of style. He mows the grass, and he even got all excited about weed control, but his concern was dandelions. Sam was left to flourish along the fence. Every now and then, Rick attempts to clip the hedges--with very uneven results. He came in the other day with scratches all over his arm and left behind a nearly hacked to death azaelea bush.

After I viewed his handiwork, I realized we are ruining our yard. Rick will haphazardly trim things, and I have too short an attention span. At best, Rick should stick to mowing the grass and as for me, my only talent is maintaining someone else's work.

It is all rather funny when I consider how excited I was for the summer because I had so many plans. I had intended to grow more vegetables, more sunflowers, and to plant some pretty annuals in the side yard and tree space in front. None of that happened. I planted two dwarf sunflowers, which have now bloomed and died, so I have two very ugly stumps on the front porch. My tomatoes are a big wieldy as I forgot to stake them early on, so on two plants there are tomatoes hanging dangerously close to the ground. I have two pepper plants, but one plant only has two peppers on it (can't explain it at all), and the carrots that I planted have probably molded (I planted them in plastic pots with no drain holes...) I have no idea when onions are ready for harvest, and the same thing goes for white potatoes (which are actually green).

Yes, a multitude of issues, and here I am in front of the computer instead of outside in the yard. Frankly, I lost interest too quickly this year, and I think it had a lot to do with my unfinished flower beds on the side of the house. And Sam, the virulent kudzu. Oh and the moldy peaches. And I can't forget the mole tunnels, which have now killed significant patches of lawn in the back.

How did we get so lucky with all of these problems this year?

A Lot of Growing Going On

I have to check, but it has not been an entire month since I last blogged because I know that I saw Bambi and his little brother in my back yard within the last two weeks. I need to finish editting that piece.

Anyway, I have other work to do, but of course, I chose to procrastinate. It is a reflection of my priorities, which I have now determined are directly proportional to the amount of money the work derives. The prospect of payment only causes me to delay, even though I am broke, busted and in desperate need of cash.

So I write about my garden woes, which are really bad this year. My peach tree has rotten peaches, which is a major setback. I had intended for this year's crop to be edible and flourishing based on the results from last year, but it was not to be. I think that I killed them by adding the blood meal to the mulch earlier this season. I guess my efforts to dissuade the squirrels worked because they are not eating the rotten peaches.

The weeds are worse than ever and I have no idea how to deal with them. I really want to call in a pro, because I can't spend all summer pulling at Sam, but that costs money and as I am broke, I am all I've got for now. The J's got her father to come over to landscape their yard, and I'm so jealous. He doesn't work in DC (how convenient), so I'll have to live with with the worst yard on the block for a fourth summer.

Then, by some odd twist of fate, the moles that dug up Mr. G's yard last year are wreaking havoc in my yard. There are swatches of dead grass and when you walk near to investigate, the ground caves in underneath, which must be the tunnels. What else can happen?

Well, the tomatoes and the peppers are growing. In spite of my neglect, they are doing well. I hadn't fertilized them, but when I went to move them out of the yard (and away from the mole), I noticed that each plant had born fruit. Of course, my worry is that when I go to eat them, the fruit will not taste as good as it did last year, but imagine that in spite of my bad gardening, I have something to look forward to later this summer.

Not bad.