garden

i am bummed that i have been so lame about documenting the growth of my garden! but i am repenting right here, right now.

i came home from my crazy trips to ripened tomatoes! finally!!!!!

when i was on my trip i got this photo from cheryl

please note that there a peaches
i had 10 peaches this year
they are SUPER sweet.
and there is something super awesome about picking peaches in your back yard!

i got home from the airport and went immediately out to the backyard
this is what i got!
so so so awesome

then about 1.5 months later i decided to take photos of the garden

every morning, for some reason, i go into the study with eyes that are still having a hard time opening and i look out at this view
this is my kingdom, i guess
i just love to watch the progress
from here i can see almost all of it

here is a close-up from the study on the garden in mrs. jackie's yard

this is the zucchini

one of the dahlias from the garden
i have left the study and am now outside . . .
can you imagine the zoom that would take this photo from the study?

more of the zucchini
please note the additional bed i built this summer

the basil garden

the first of my fall '09 planting

i was really excited the sunflower grew
and that it attracted monarchs!

this is the view from the mrs. jackie's alley steps
looking at both gardens

little "tiger asian" melons growing

just to help you get a feel for the size of these guys

i am really hoping that i win this rodent war before this guy starts to ripen

roma-land

the zucchini, like usual, has grown over my fence and is taking over mrs. jackie's yard

thankfully, she doesn't seem to mind.

this is a athena melon

all the stuff in mrs. jackies garden grew late
which means that we might not have much melon this year and that the tomatoes are late
but next year that garden is going to be off the chain
we used leaf mould instead of compost and topsoil for soil
because it was free
so, now it has composted
and next year will be great!

the giant tomatoes in the garden in mrs. jackies yard
there was the HUGEST tomato ever
and it started to turn red
and i was SO excited
it was way bigger than my hand
and i checked on it one day
and some stupid rat had eaten it

here is another one
this is a tomato that was growing over the fence into the stairwell to the alley
i was excited about this carmello too,
and then some stupid rat!

and then there is this
i can't decide if this is a rat OR a bird
at any rate they are in trouble
i have declared war
i also found mouse droppings in my kitchen towel drawer
so, today i went to home depot and bought some WMD
i am pretty sure i am going to win this war
and it is going to be WAY more effective than the war on drugs
and way more necessary

this is the wall'o'tomatoes in the mrs jackie garden
they are dense, productive and mostly romas . . .
they make for some killer slow roasted tomatoes.

i use this concept, essentially, to make them
but i have variations...
obviously

and this is where it gets depressing
i think i overdosed all my fantastic heirloom, vint lawrence tomatoes,
on wormpoop
WHY DO I DO THIS ALL THE TIME???!!!
just please remember this,
liquid worm poop must be diluted 10-1!

these are the craziest sun gold tomatoes you will ever find.
i didn't plant them, they just showed up in my garden
they were not effected by the overdose of wormpoop
they grow and produce like crazy
i am pretty sure that i won't have to plant any next year either
and i am not going to!
they are tasty, but i am not going to waste precious grow lights
on tomatoes that grow spontaneously

the herb and strawberry garden
plus a heliotrope
which smells like vanilla

strawberries from seed

this year i decided everything i grew had to come from a seed
and it all did
everything you are looking at once was a seed in my hand
crazy to think about
that those 10 ft tall tomato plants were once a super tiny seed

oregano

a gardener's delight