Thursday, June 16, 2011

A New Beginning

I'm so excited about this new space to write and play.  I haven't yet come up with that perfect short description of what this space is about, but I do know I'm going to talk a lot about gardening.  As in real-life gardening - not just the pretty stuff, but the ugly too.  I'll talk more about that in a later post; for now, let's dive in to an overview of the current state of the gardens around here.

I'll start off with some of the good stuff.  The peas finally started flowering last week, and the pods are starting to form.  At least on these Golden Sweet peas.  They're one of my favorite varieties; tasty and so pretty with their purple flowers and yellow pods.


And the last of the irises are still in bloom; I missed the main show last week being out of town so didn't get many pictures of them this year.

More good news is that the tomatoes are looking awesome this year; I have high hopes.

Love seeing this Nyagous tomato plant growing well with some companions - from left to back right - a radish, borage, and romaine lettuce.  The companions are all volunteers from plants that re-seeded themselves last year.

This is one of four of my Italian Heirloom tomatoes; my absolute favorite variety for sauce.  I purchased these as a 4-pack, so they were quite small when I put them in at the beginning of May.  I'm really happy with how well they've done in all the cold, rainy weather we've had so far this year.

Love the flowers on this Anna Russian plant; they're quite large and so cheerful-looking.  This is the first year I've tried this variety.

I'm really excited about this plant.  It's a Japanese Black Trifele tomato.  This is the 3rd or 4th time I've tried this variety; so far with no success whatsoever.  But for some reason I'm convinced it's going to do well at some point; seeing how well this one's doing I'm thinking this may finally be its year to prove me right.

And another of the Italian Heirlooms with some Borage that came up right next to it; probably a little too close but they both seem to be doing well so I'm leaving it for now.  I've grown to love Borage; it has beautiful flowers, re-seeds itself, grows well, and it's such a wonderful companion for the tomatoes as the bees love it.  The flowers and leaves are also edible, but I haven't tried them yet.  On the list of things I'd like to do this summer.

Because of all that, I decided to leave this large patch of Borage that came up this spring; I may end up tearing part of it out if I need the garden space, but in the meantime they're providing a lot of value. 


 We also have several Milkweed plants that come up each year around the yard; I like to let them grow whenever possible as we do get quite a few Monarch caterpillars munching on them.  Tucked behind the Milkweed is a Cosmo; also one of my favorite flowers to have near the tomatoes.


Hmm, I'm noticing the good stuff going on in the garden makes for a good-sized blog post, so I guess I'll save the ugly stuff for tomorrow.