31 May 2008
Time for some garden pictures, I think. It's been pretty grey outside lately -- great, because it brings some rain for the plants, but it does make it difficult to take pictures. Luckily, the sun came out for an hour or two this afternoon, so I took the camera out while I did my weeding.
Perennials blooming! These irises are the first, although I guess the lily of the valley started a while ago too. I've also got something red in the front (I've got a garden in the front now! It looks fantastic! I will take pictures another day.), but I can't remember what it is. I was worried the irises would bloom while I was in Ohio, but they waited for me.
The gardening theme this year is 'things I thought I didn't like.' The most obvious is my new fondness for flowers in general -- I mean, I've always liked them, but last year I couldn't be bothered to tend to anything that wasn't a vegetable. I've also really come to appreciate my hostas:
These are along my backyard (I didn't include them in my map, but they're on the alley side of the fence), and I really took them for granted last year. I was glad to have something that could stand the punishing sun and dry weather, but I sort of saw them as 'common' and let the tall grass invade and basically ignored their existence for the most part.
This year, something in me has changed, and I'm really loving them. They're just so healthy! They were quick to emerge from the ground this spring, and these ones are already so big and hardy. But they're also really delicate in a way, very soft, and the variegation in the different kinds (there are four or five different varieties along this strip) is really pretty. So, there you go. I like hostas now.
And, of course, there's the veggie garden. That's not a new love this year, obviously. The plants are in their infant stage now, I would say. Not quite toddlers, but they can hold their (figurative) heads up. In this photo, you can see the onions front and center (there are carrot seedlings in front of them, but they're not very visible from this distance). The radishes are behind the onions, and the greens (lettuce, kale, and chard) are to the side.
Here's a wider view of the veggie plot. I think the only thing you can't see in there is the pepper patch. My potatoes are up (hooray! They were taking a while.), the bush beans are up, the peas are looking healthy and starting to grab on to their supports. I thought I might have done in my Brandywine plant (hardening off was just so boring), but the new growth seems alright -- the leaves are much darker now and aren't as susceptible to sunburn as before. The other two tomato plants (Mr Stripey and Cherokee Purple) are already blossoming! I haven't been able to get an internet consensus on this -- should I nip these blossoms in the bud? The plants are only about a foot tall, and I don't want early flowers to stunt their growth or affect the overall output of the plants. I don't think this happened last year!
Ah, the worries of a pretend farmer.
Hostas really do always come through. I'm so happy for them when they make little flowers. Your garden is lovely!
posted by yoel at May 31, 2008 04:42 AM
Everything looks great! Jeez, this inspires me to get my tomatoes in the ground.
posted by Julie at May 31, 2008 05:00 PM