Great Big Garden Update

Are you ready for some garden photos? Because that’s what I’ve got! Pictures of the garden and some rambling to go with them. I do like to talk about growing things.

First up: tomatoes. This is my Cherokee Purple plant, but Mr. Stripy has a couple of tomatoes this size too. Nothing on the Brandywine yet, but it’s got plenty of blossoms, and it’s been a week or three behind the other two from the very start.

Those three tomato plants are in the main veggie garden, but there are quite a few growing elsewhere in my yard, which I’ll get to. My middle-aged neighbour stopped me in the alley the other day to ask how I got my tomato plants so big. ‘What do you put on them?’ he asked. Uhh, nothing. ‘But yours are, like, this big, and mine are only this big [half the size]. You gotta be feeding them something.’ They just get a lot of sun, and I water them a couple times a day.
I felt really proud after the exchange, firstly because somebody who has at least two decades on me was asking MY advice on vegetable gardening. Secondly, because I’m growing all heirloom varieties, while he’s got hybrids, an they’re still outperforming. Let’s hope my plants continue to make me proud!

Here’s the main vegetable plot at the moment. In the section nearest the camera, there are snow peas, which I think I’ve mentioned are the most delicious peas anybody has ever grown ever. I just planted another row inside the supports, so I’m hoping to keep the crop coming a bit later into the summer. I think I’ll also try to replant nearer to autumn, since they like cool weather. Also in that section are my bush beans, which are flowering and starting to form beans. There’s carrots. . . onions. . . and Kale and Chard: The Next Generation just sprouting at the very back.
In the middle section, I’ve got the three tomatoes (plus basil up front), broccoli, and the greens (kale, chard, and lettuce) in the back. In the third section, the potato plants are being ridiculously big, and there are also brussels sprouts, more broccoli, eggplants (one ‘Hansel’ variety and two white ones that my mom got for me — they’re still pretty small), and a variety of peppers.

Speaking of peppers. I like how the chili peppers grow straight up instead of hanging down. It’s like they know how dangerous they are. I can’t wait to chop these up and then accidentally touch my eyes. They’re not the hottest of the hot, hot peppers, but they’ll be pretty darn spicy.

A teeny tiny poblano pepper. This plant has withstood some cucumber beetle damage, so I’m glad to see that it’s carrying on. I’ve also got a jalapeno plant, which is doing well, and there’s one bell pepper in this garden (two more in the front yard).

I never thought I would take a photo of a spider, but I have. It’s guarding the potato plants. I think of them as ‘pin spiders’, because their legs look like pins (clever, eh?), but I have no idea what they really are. Some sort of vicious cucumber-beetle-eating variety, I hope. That probably means that they’re fruitarian spiders who like to spend their time day-dreaming and watching the clouds.

Moving on from the veggie plot. . . I have to stop going to the garden center, no matter how big their ‘SALE’ sign is. This cucumber is a recent purchase, but the flimsy looking tomato is one of my Brandywine seedlings. Better to let it do what it wants in a pot than to just have it die. At least it’s cute.

The zucchini are entering their lumbering giant phase. I swear that cherry tomato plant (a volunteer from last year’s fruit) was neither so tiny nor so close to the zucchinis when I moved it there. I’m waiting for my butternut squash to take off and fill up the rest of the empty space. I did just pull up those weeds, though, so they’re no more. It’s a very weedy part of the yard.

Flowers! And spaghetti squash. I think there’s at least one edible in every garden plot. The snapdragons are being very snappy, although those tall one in the back need to be staked up; they’re so lazy. The thing in the back is a moon flower, and the middle is full of seeds I planted. They’re taking their sweet time, I’ve got to say. Not the biggest overachievers ever. The skinnier ones are bachelor buttons, there are zinnias in the middle (but most of them didn’t bother coming up at all), and I’ve got poppies in the back. There is one poppy plant hiding in with the snapdragons that has accidentally formed buds and everything. If it’s not careful, it might bloom and make me happy.

The back garden has filled in a bit. I was weeding this recently (in the lovely, lovely shade, just like in this photo), and herb gardens are particularly satisfying to mess around in. Such nice scents. All the perennials in the corner back there are hugely overgrown. Must divide them next year.

So, this is from the new side yard. My mom’s generous (and pretty and talented) friend gave her dozens of perennials from her own yard to pass on to me, and these are a couple of the ground cover. They’re hanging out by the ‘creek bed’, just looking cute. Despite the amount of manual labour that went into creating the side yard, I’ve got to say that it took less money than it might have. Most of the plants came from my mom’s friend, or from my mom herself. My mom supplied me with some rocks from her yard, and the smaller landscaping-style rock was free from somebody on craigslist. And all the woodchip came from the free pile that the city makes, a few blocks from my house.

Last photo! A few more plants in the side yard, including a ‘Striped Cavern’ tomato (really, stop going to the garden center). I love the rocks around the foundation of the house, but they’re only on the original 1917 foundation. Too bad.
Phew. That should be enough garden for a while!