Monday, September 25, 2006

Coming Soon, The Greenhouse Edition

As the season is winding down, I'm finding that starting a garden and starting a blog are not all that dissimilar. Both are works in progress that evolve over time. And though you may think you have a vision of what it is you're working toward, both a blog and a garden ultimately take on a life of their own that you work more in service of than as master to.
Well, suffice to say I'm hooked on both blogging and gardening, and am sorry the season is coming to a close. The good news is I scored some space in our community greenhouse, so I'll be blogging about my (mis)adventures there...

On the topic of garden blogging, I'd like to express my appreciation to Farmgirl of In My Kitchen Garden & Farmgirl Fare fame. Not only have I gained a wealth of knowledge from reading both blogs (including a fabulous Savory Tomato Pesto Pie recipe), but she also took the time this week to shine a little light on this fledgling effort. Mostly I've been toiling away here in obscurity, and I appreciate her words of encouragement as well as the exposure. Thanks to her kind words, I received two comments (a bumper crop for me). Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, I've been unable to publish those comments. Hopefully they'll be up soon. Meanwhile, thanks Farmgirl, Mama T and Contrary1 for stopping by. Please visit again!

More good news from our little garden plot. We were among the winners of our neighborhood association's "Garden of the Year" award. How great is that?

Now here are some of this season's favorites. . .

This Cleome did not disappoint. I could have beaten it senseless, and I believe it still would have kept right on blooming. My kind of plant.















A fellow student from the gardening class I took this past winter gave it to me. It's an annual, but it's quite the seed-generator, so I'll be growing this one in the greenhouse.


I just love Oxalis. I bought a few pots at the Philadelphia Flower Show. They made great indoor plants (folding up like little sleeping bats at night), and then happily made the transition to the great outdoors, too.



I'll be bringing them in this fall with the hopes of preserving them for next year.




Portulaca is another fave. Hope to have this growing all around the patio some day.














Picked up this Coreopsis and Ornamental Pepper at our community plant sale. The Nastursium I grew from seed sort of took over, though. Note to self, go easy on the Nastursium. A little goes a long way...



My greenhouse adventures should start up in October...

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Back Forty: an update

The squash didn't make it after all. Not sure if the exhaust from our dryer did them in. Or if it was a lack of female plants. Or if I indeed overpacked the plot. Will try again next year after having rigged something to divert the exhaust elsewhere. If I had more space, I'd line dry. But I'm using the term "back forty" very loosely here.

With that being said, we've done quite well with our tomatoes.


This was our first harvest, enjoyed about a month ago. We've got plenty still on the vine, however the weather has not been conducive to ripening, so we'll see. Once I'm sure the tomatoes are done for good, I'll pull them out and replace them with some seedlings I've started for fall: beets, spinach, turnip and radicchio. No idea if this is going to work, but I figured the experiment was well worth the $10 seed investment.