Garden Pictures June 2010

2009/2010 Tomato Plants

Late May 2009

June 25, 2010

I planted our tomato plants much earlier last year (I think it was the 1st weekend in April) This year I waited until later (April 19) and with the very wet and cool spring, I'm glad I did. I'm still waiting for the Sun God to turn up the heat. My tomato plants are really on the leggy side this year - not as full and bushy as last year. I should follow my daughter's advice and not look at them so often. Maybe a long weekend away is calling us.

Parking Strip Gardens

Recently we had our street resurfaced. I asked the contractor on the job if he'd lift the cement from our parking strip. Not only did he do it but he also took away the concrete as well (what a nice guy!) We plan to plant lawn and crape myrtles there in the fall giving us something to look at other than the street and parked cars. I have always been a fan a tree lined streets and was told that years ago our street was once like this. While surfing the net one day I stumbled across another great garden blog called Greenwalks. It's about Seattle parking strip gardens. The pictures are lovely and I find it very inspiring. The trees and sod will eventually be planted in our parking strip but in the meantime four zucchini plants are loving the full sun out front and it makes me happy to know there will plenty to share with our neighbors.

Picture from Greenwalks

Garlic

We love garlic and it's been one of the easiest and most rewarding things to grow. We initially had a hard time finding garlic at our local garden stores so I thought about planting garlic purchased from the supermarket but after some research found out that often growth inhibitors are used to stop garlic from sprouting and can be made from hormones or chemicals. I ended up buying our garlic from the local farmers market selecting the largest bulbs. I've read that if you plant large cloves they tend produce large garlic bulbs and so far this seems to be true. We tend to plant our garlic in the fall (Oct) and harvest now through July. When the greens turn brown and yellow I know it's pretty much harvest time.You can also dig around it and feel the size of the bulb to check before you pull it out.  I'm thinking about planting more cloves now to see if they will grow. How wonderful it would be to have this year round from our backyard! 

 Garlic Three Ways (Thanks Hungry Mouse!)

1. Roasted garlic
2. Garlic-infused oil
3. Roasted garlic compound butter

From And Sow My Garden Grows

From And Sow My Garden Grows

Messy *but* Happy Garden

Pretty exciting to see big changes in the garden. The weather has finally warmed up and the veggies are responding to it happily. The nasturtium is spilling out of the beds and onto the ground and we have little zucchini & crooknecks coming along and there are lots of little green tomatoes on the plants and today I noticed the cucumbers starting to appear as well! I love the look of a messy, full garden  and because of this, the kids often tuck seeds away with permission where ever they want. I enjoy seeing life in the garden growing in random order without rhythm or rhyme. I guess you can call me a rule breaker gardener.  I grow mint in our garden bed (yes, I do) and as you can see I have onion blooms. I've been told they need to tied off or clipped but I love their whimsical look and they attract a lot of bees..so the blooms shall remain for now. Everything seems to be growing fine and healthy and until things prove otherwise, I imagine I'll always plant like this. What rules do you break in your garden and are how does it work for you?

From New Album 6/6/10 1:38 PM

From New Album 6/6/10 1:38 PM

From New Album 6/6/10 1:38 PM

From New Album 6/6/10 1:38 PM

23 Tomato Plants

No more tomatoes! My new mantra. I keep saying this but found myself yesterday at our local nursery resisting the urge to stick more tomato plants into my cart. I was alone and was enjoying the moment. I fought off the lemon boy and black krim tomatoes successfully from making their way into my cart but the black cherry tomato plant had to come home with me. This summer I definitely want bruschetta with a variety of cherry tomatoes. We have 4 cherry tomato plants now going strong. I've read wonderful things about the black cherry tomato from fellow garden bloggers and apparently they are pretty prolific growers. This makes 23 tomato plants for us this year.  What kind of tomatoes are you growing this year??

1. Ace
2. Celebrity
3. Cherokee Purple from seed x 2
4. Heirloom Brandywine from seed x4
5. Super Steak x 2
6. Beefsteak x 3
7. Green Zebra
8. Abe Lincoln
9. Giant Belgium
10. San Marzano x 4 by seed
11. Sweet 100 Cherry
12. Red Currant Cherry
13. Black Cherry