Garden Week #5

Some day soon I will again post about something other than my garden. Today is not such an occasion. What can I say? I'm excited! Away we go . . .

First up is my main container. Not much has changed, but the basil is finally starting to recover.

Now let's talk about the blueberry plant. As a whole, it looks the same. But look what it's now covered with:

Blossoms! Beautiful unbloomed blossoms. I love them.

The potato awesomeness continues. Watch them grow!

And now for the slightly tragic part. I kinda-sorta completely forgot about my tomatoes and marigolds, which means they did not get the proper amount of (read: any) water. Oops! I transplanted them into their new home anyway. Look at the patheticness:

The good news is that they are recovering after a vigorous watering. So is everything else that looks droopy in these pictures. I rearranged the complete patio set-up. I like:

Today I got home to find a note on my door from the complex folks telling me I needed to remove the "metal cans" on my porch to help keep the apartment complex "looking beautiful." Since my neighbor has a cardboard cut-out of Smokey the Bear on his porch and another had a plastic snowman hanging from a noose for more than a year, I called to complain. The management just said they "didn't know" what was in the containers, so they assumed they were junk. Nevermind that I live on the first floor and a one-second glimpse into them would have revealed beautiful flora. All is now settled, though, and my plants are here to stay, until I forget to water all of them.

I hope the weather is beautiful wherever you are!

Garden Week #4

I have excitement from the ol' garden!

First and foremost, MY POTATOES ARE GROWING! (Yes, caps were necessary.)

Aren't they beauteous? I need to plunge my hand in there to figure out how big they're getting. The plants are sure looking sturdy.

There hasn't been much change with the blueberry plant, so no picture.

The trough-like container is flourishing, for the most part. My poor little basil is not enjoying the insane, gale-force winds we've been experiencing. I'm hoping he'll rebound. The mint and parsley are doing well. The arugula is crazy. I've eaten from it twice, and look how bushy it is.

My cilantro seeds are adorable sprouts:

As are my spinach seeds:

And look at my first two snapdragon blossoms! Apparently this plant makes white flowers.

Here's the whole patio area in the way I've rearranged it.

I also bought some marigolds and two tomato plants (Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes and brandywine, an heirloom slicing variety) to put in the other trough. I plan to put them in this week and then add another tomato plant that I will purchase from Herb Day on Brookside, coming up on April 10.

I still need to plant a couple of squashes (I'm thinking zucchini and pattypan) and my carrots, but I fear I may need to acquire another container. Methinks another trip to Atwoods is in order.

Garden Week #3

Gee, Brigid, your garden is looking a bit . . . funny . . .

Well, the first day of spring brought a very special gift of snow and sleet, so I had to move my tender baby plants indoors to shield them from the sub-freezing temperatures. Please try to ignore my apartment's terrible lighting and focus on the lush greenery of my container garden!

I can't believe how much my arugula has taken off! Refer to this post for comparison. And wait, what is that I see?

Tiny spinach sprouts! It'll be salad time before I know it. There's still no considerable change with the taters or the bloobs, but my fingers are still crossed.

I hope you're all keeping warm this weekend! The hideous weather, which came in on the tails of the year's most glorious 70-degree day, rescheduled Saturday's UnBirthday Party for Friday night instead. Mark your calendars, because it's still going to rock your world!

Watching my garden grow

A week ago yesterday, I planted Phase 1 of my container garden. I've decided to take pictures every week to monitor how she's doing. Check out what I've done so far:

Here is my complete "garden" on Day 1. The container nearest the blue chair is empty but will be filled with tomatoes and peppers when the weather warms up. Here it is at the end of Week 1:

OK, so it pretty much looks exactly the same. Let's take a closer look.

This container is the most fun so far. On the far left you see arugula. It is already yummy. Next to it is pineapple mint, which I couldn't resist buying. I've read that I should probably grow it in its own container, but, well, clearly I am not. In the center is a snapdragon plant that will begin flowering soon, I hope. In the empty space above will grow spinach, and below will be cilantro. The seeds are in, so it's just a waiting game now. The darker greenery to the right is half a dozen small strawberry plants. I've been dutifully removing the flowers as the instructions said. Below it is a little basil plant. And on the far right is curly parsley. Here's the same container a week later:

Not much has changed, but there is a little growth.

Here is my blueberry plant. I couldn't find the little bushes recommended to me, so I decided just to go for it with the larger plant. As you can see, it's leaning kinda crazy, so I need to work on that. It came that way, but I think I can fix it. A week later, we have:

It's subtle, but can you see the little red pre-berries (yes, clearly that's a technical term)? I know my taller half will enjoy this dude.

Lastly is my totally unimpressive potato container. No, you can't see anything on Day 1...

Or at the end of Week 1. However, you will all be mightily impressed when I am able to consume purple and russet new potatoes. Bwah ha ha!

So that's my garden so far. I will post more pictures throughout the process.

Planning my little garden

Yesterday my mom and I took a container gardening class at Tulsa Community College as part of their Continuing Education program. My mom has been gardening her entire life, as has her mom and my great-grandmother before she passed away. Green is in our blood, though it wasn't until about a year ago that I cared to dig around in the dirt myself. What can I say? I was a prissy child.

A month or so ago, I made an ambitious list of plants to grow, though recently I've been rethinking it. Can I really grow that many kinds of vegetables? I've decided that I can. The class made me feel like I'm ready for it. We'll see if the joke will be on me later.

One of our handouts is a nifty list from Oklahoma State University's Extension Service detailing when to plant everything in our temperamental Oklahoma weather. So here's the plan so far:

Next week, I will plant:

• Spinach
• Potatoes (yep, I'm going for it!)
• Maybe carrots
• Strawberries
• Herbs (I'm thinking parsley, basil and dill)

In April, I will add:

• Bush beans
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Summer squash

I'll also do a couple of flowers, but I haven't decided which ones. I really enjoyed snapdragons last year. I'll probably pick up whatever looks pretty and could cohabitate with everything else I've picked out.

I've been convinced to do a couple of very large containers instead of several small ones, though I plan to keep the potatoes separate. All I have to do now is buy everything! I have Friday off work, so I plan to get rolling then. I can't wait to have everything growing and hopefully avoid some of the problems of last year.

Who else is doing a vegetable garden this year? Let me know what you're growing!

Seeing green

Brigid Brigid, happy and fulgid, how does your garden grow? Quite well, it seems!

As you can see, I haven't killed anything yet! In fact, everything is getting bigger and brighter. A few days ago, I tied my cherry tomato plant to its trellis with some  leftover pillowcase fabric from the skirt I made. Check out all the snapdragons! I also seem to be revitalizing the parsley (on the right). And -- wait, what are those tiny sprouts I see?

Little radish plants! Five poked through, but I had to thin one out. Look how perfect they are.

They're reaching for the sky. I can just hear the "ehn! ehn!" sounds.

Over on the far left, I today spied another new friend.

A teeny lettuce friend to be. Oh little sprout, how delicious you shall become.

If you let your eye migrate upward, you'll see the pièce de résistance:

It's a baby tomato! I am so proud of this little guy. In fact, after I first discovered him, I had a nightmare that he was taken from me. I know how sad it is to become so attached to a plant, but I'll admit that I have. I can't wait to eat him. :)

And all the while I was snapping photos of my little urban jungle, I had the feeling I was being watched.

Extreme close-up:

Gladys Kravitz ain't got nothing on my little mutt.

Grow, baby, grow!

Things have mostly calmed down in my corner now. My grandmother went home on Saturday and says she's feeling better. She reassured me that she went first off to get her hair done. :)

I took advantage of a stress-free and planless weekend by hitting the Cherry Street Farmers' Market on Saturday, where I bought spinach from Bootstrap Farm, handmade soap, and snapdragons. I intended to do marigolds as my sole flower in the container garden, but I couldn't turn down snapdragons, which instantly evoke images of childhood for me. On Sunday, we went out to Southwood Landscape & Nursery to get supplies to finish putting in my container garden. We got three pots, Southwood's own soil mixture, a tiny strawberry plant, a small tomato trellis, and three kinds of seeds. Before and after The Amazing Race, I finished. Check it out:

Here's the whole garden! It's little but mighty.

The first pot contains a nice sturdy patio tomato plant. The little pouf of leaves in front is what will hopefully grow to be a strong, fruitful everbearing strawberry plant. In the "empty" spaces on the left and right are a few leaf lettuce seeds.

In the second pot, we have gorgeous, hot-pink snapdragons in the foreground. Behind them is a young grape tomato plant and its pretty trellis.

In the last pot is flat-leaf parsley and Genovese basil (like I could resist the Italian name!). In the blank foreground shall grow delicious radishes and little Italian carrots from seeds.

Ta-da! These photos were taken around 8:20 this morning, so the sun hadn't yet reached its full shine. My south-facing patio should get plenty of sunlight to make these little guys grow!