Monday, September 04, 2006

Garden report

We're so busy with getting ready for City Day on Saturday that this post will probably take me several days to type.*

I spoke too soon about about our cauliflower! Almost every plant now has a little white head starting! Tanya's theory is that they were just waiting for more rain.

Our tomatoes are done, though. Everyone's been complaining about their tomatoes turning black. I thought we were staying away from that, but then a huge branch from the apple tree fell and squashed our tomato bed. When I crawled around under it to see what I could rescue, they were all starting to blacken. And the plants were not recoverable. So, we brought everything home. We're enjoying incredible tomatoes in great abundance this week. Jaan and I turned the green ones into six batches of filling for the "date" bars I remember from my childhood. (But we only made one batch of the cookies now; all the rest of the filling went into the freezer for later.)

We're still harvesting basil, peas, and the last bit of lettuce. Our pumpkins are growing nicely, and we finally have a green pepper almost ready to pick.

Also, the flowers that I planted around the entrance to our stairwell are doing well. Right now we have huge, beautiful asters blooming. I'm already planning for next year. I'm going to try to get exactly the same kinds of seeds for petunias and asters; they were wonderful. We have the primroses for early flowers, and I want to add some margarita. Marigolds and calendula also do really well in our flower bed here. What else would be good? Something that blooms long and profusely, that doesn't need too much sun?

*I started on Thursday.


Jaan and the squash
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Particularly because I know how much you enjoy plants and gardening, I loved the garden report. Hooray for the cauliflower!

What about zinnias for next year? They can get leggy, but do produce bright blooms in profusion. I also wonder about any type of sage or salvia or possibly blanket flower--used on the roadways here; it reseeds itself in Florida. Pansies and violas would probably be good early flowers; their sweet faces do not like the heat. And I wonder what Northerners can tell you about bulbs. It seems they would do very well in your climate.

As I am certain you remember, at this time of year we struggle with heat that burns everything out and makes the report of your gardening successes notably refreshing. We love you....

Lindy Johnson said...

Enjoyed the garden report. We went almost all season without having damage from the deer. Last week they decided they couldn't resist any longer. The crashed through the pea fence to eat the beans one night and then decided tomatoes and lettuce would be nice. We still have lots of cucumbers, squash and pumpkins. Since they bring their fawns it's hard to get too mad. Petunias last forever up here but they smell awful (to me!). Enjoy the end of the season.