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Winter is rapidly approaching. For whatever reason, we seem to have missed out on fall. This makes me very, very sad… The days turned from sunny and hot to cloudy and bitterly cold. Sadly, Scott and I spent a morning harvesting what was left of our produce and disposing of our greenery.
Our backyard went from this…
To this…
I wrote this post back in July, but never managed to actually get it posted. In honor of my grandpa’s request, here is a bit of information about our little garden…
You know you want to play along…
What is growing larger by the day?
Taking up room it wasn’t permitted to?
Making life uncomfortable?
It’s days of expansion are numbered.
It brings joy and hassle at the same time.
If You Guessed Our Garden, You’re Right!
As you can see from this image, our garden is growing strong. With twenty tomato plants, four cucumbers, ten sugar snap peas, eight bell peppers, twelve spicy peppers (banana, jalapeño, cayenne, and more!), two zucchini, two basil plants, eight feet of lettuce, tarragon, parsley, cilantro, dill, oregano, rosemary, and thyme, our little back patio space is utilized to the max! In fact, things are a bit out of control.
The cucumbers are spreading all over the fence, into the neighbors patio, and overcoming our sugar snap peas.
The zucchini are slowing encroaching on our only pathway to the gate.
And the tomatoes are now about 10 feet tall.
This is all a bit much for a eight-month pregnant woman to take care of—I can hardly fit amongst the plants!–but the produce they’ve produced so far is absolutely fantastic!
Saturday morning we woke to this rather disturbing image. It might seem somewhat innocuous, until you look closer.
Notice the cake crumbs distributed around our patio? Apparently, someone decided to train the squirrels to find food in our backyard.
They were more than willing to dash across the rooflines,
down the electrical poles,
and straight into our backyard, where they were quick to learn that we were host to an abundant and easy-for-the-taking supply of food.
Closer inspection of our gardening results yielded this disturbing find.
We tried to repair the damage, but it didn’t somehow it just wasn’t quite the same.
All in all, the overall view wasn’t too damaged though.
So, rather than admit defeat, we brought out more of our flower seedlings to start the hardening off process.
Hopefully, the outdoor critters don’t find my rather attractive (if I do say so myself) zinnas quite so appetizing.
In addition to hardening off our little flower seedlings, Scott was more than willing to reinforce our rather rickety fence with his home-crafted window boxes.
We planted herbs in one box and lettuce and salad greens in the other. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that these can also grow to fruition.
Scott also noticed that some of our vegetable seedlings were starting to outgrow their first plantings.
With such long roots, we really needed to transplant them to a bigger pot.
We choose these not only attractive, but economical containers for our growing tomato plants.
Now our little plants are safely housed away for longer term storage (at least until it warms enough for them to be planted permanently outside).
And our garden is starting to look a bit more attractive, hinting of the tasty treats yet to come. Only, don’t tell the squirrels; Scott has threatened them with the return of the BB gun.
Notice the marigolds scattered along the fence line? Apparently, this is a little-known technique for keeping nosy squirrels from finding out about newly-planted seeds, according to an unamed reputable source.
Today more of our bulbs opened, so I had to take a few shots. I guess this is the reward for being patient and cold during the long winter, but it makes me all the more antsy for summer. Enjoy!
I’ve become somewhat of a seed collector. It started last year when Lonica and I grew virtually our entire garden from seed, so naturally we had to buy some.
Then for Christmas, Lonica bought me “fancy” seeds, including heirloom tomatoes and lots of different kinds of peppers.
In Arizona, I bought some wildflower seeds that I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else (stuff like Cowboy’s Fried Egg and Mexican Poppy).
Then I signed up for a seed train. For anyone who hasn’t heard of this, its basically a ponzi scheme for gardners, but hopefully nobody ends up losing their retirement. You take a list of people, in our case ten, and the first person on the list gathers whatever random seeds they have to contribute and sends them to person #2(labelling the seeds in little baggies). Person #2 then takes whatever he wants from person #1’s seeds and adds his own, sending it to person #3, and so on. This continues until the last person, who then sends them back to person #1. On each subsequent round any “repeat” seeds get removed after everyone has had a crack at them. I emailed someone in Kentucky that said he was looking for “riders.” Oh how I love the random things on the internet. For weeks I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it, because he never responded, but one day I received a bubble package packed with lots of really interesting seeds. I’m adding my own, taking a few, and passing it on.
Oh, and did I mention that the seeds I got at Christmas were just the beginning? Because some were back ordered, every week or so I get more in the mail. It is the gift that keeps on giving, and my habanero seeds should get here next week.
This mass of seeds wouldn’t be such a problem if I had room to plant them. Our apartment wasn’t designed for the kind of agricultural operation I’m in the mood for. Without lots of land, there is just no way to use up an entire package of zucchini seeds. We learned last year that one or two zuke plants will make MORE than enough.
Lonica is also concerned that there aren’t enough mouths to eat such a quantity of food. Just today she said something like “Who would even eat all the tomatoes from the 10 different varieties you’re going to plant?” What nerve! First, I would. Second, storage, canning, sundried. Third, I’ll be restraining myself to plant only 10 varieties, I have double that. Planting space will appear, they will have a home.
She isn’t worried about having too many flowers however, we already have 8 varieties planted (just up-potted them today into peat cups) with at least that many more to be sown in the next few weeks.
Below: marigold, calendula, petunia, geranium, thai poppy, gaillardia, zinnia, and paper daisy under the lights (aka my greenhouse under the stairs).�
One thing is for sure - with this many seeds, the 2009 garden shouldn’t be lacking variety.