Gone ... the Peas are Gone

Imagine my disappointment when I saw that all the leaves on my pea plants were gone. After figuring out that this was not the work of weather or disease .. I found the true culprits ... RABBITS!!I realized this as I saw the baby bunnies admiring the lettuce plants two lots over.

My next step (of course) is to remedy the situation by planting more pea plants and figuring out a way to protect them. Fencing and netting is always an option but I was considering planting chives all over the place instead. Has anyone had any luck with keeping rabbits away?

The Peas - just stem no leaves

Strawberry Plants in Bloom

A few cauliflower plants made it through the weeds

Blueberry bush full of unripe fruit

An Old Russian Favorite - Oxheart Tomatoes

Oxheart tomato.

I had ordered 8 oxheart tomato plants from hirts on amazon. I was very surprised to receive the order in just under 3 days. However, I was even more surprised by the condition of these plants. The handful of yellow branches are okay. This size of the plants and condition is not. Six of the plants were only 4 inches tall and already had flowers. The plants were in next to no soil and were very skinny / windy. I can't help but wonder what kind of chemicals / lights were used to have such mistreated plants produce flowers. I will plant these anyway and see what will happen.

Oxheart Tomato Plants Flowering - 4 inches

Oxheart Tomato Plants Flowering - 4 inches

Garden Update 5/20

I realize that I have not written in a bit. I will try to write soon .. but for now here are some pictures of the garden!!

Free Tomato Plants from Mahoney's

The peas.

Rocket Arregula

First Candy Stripe Cosmo

Strawberry plants

Carrot tops, mellon, and scallions

Bare Root Strawberries

I bought 25 bare root Evie Everbearing Strawberries for $15 on Amazon. What a deal!!  Each one of these would have run $3 in a local nursery. When I got the bunch of plants I soaked the roots in water for a couple days and then planted them in the garden. Only time will tell now. Will they survive and grow? Will they fruit? In the meantime, I noticed that my alpine strawberries from last year already have their first flowers in April!!!

Bare Root Evie Strawberry Plant

First Bonsai Orange Tree Bloom

I was surprised to find my bonsai orange tree filled with tons of buds (25 or so) since the tree has already set many many little green fruit. The first flower opened today. I apologize for the quality of this photo and will try to post another one tommorow in day light. I am very impressed by this tree considering how well it is doing indoors. Hopefully, we will eventually have some edible oranges from it. However, the best part of this tree is that it is self-polinating so there is no need for birds & bees to spread pollen.

Bonsai Orange Tree Flower 4/19/12

New Community Garden Plot

We had signed up for a comunity garden plot a few weeks back and yesterday were assigned to one! It does not look like much and seems to have some random plants run amuck but soon we will break ground and (hopefully) make this little plot a thing of beauty (and bounty). As of right now, this lot is filled with lots of mustard plants and other plants that we can't seem to identify. For the first time ever, I think we need an actual garden plan! More to come ...




Garden Plot 4/10/12



Tomato Update

Tomato Seedlings

It's sad to see how few tomato seedlings I have this year. I had close to 20 "good" seedlings last year. This year I only have 3 Black Triefele seedlings, 2 Black Krim seedlings, and 1 Holland tomato seedling. I tried starting some of last year's cherry tomato seeds but none germinated. Just today I started another variety of tomatoes (zebra) in hopes that these will do better. In hindsight I realize that I have been using potting soil instead of seed starter this year which may be the problem.