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Monday, June 8, 2009

Busy, busy weekend

Saturday morning I was out of the house early for a hair cut, then shopping. Spent the afternoon doing chores around the house and some work in the garden. Sunday morning, more work around the house, then the entire afternoon in the garden. By last night I was too tired to do anything but collapse on the couch.

My little veggie patch is all planted now though. It's not a big garden, but I've tried to make the most of what space I have.

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I did have a two casualties though. Two of my beloved tomato plants.

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One of my grape tomato plants [in the front container] was over-watered. I didn't notice it, and I'm not sure how it happened - especially only to one plant. Not sure if it happened to be sitting in a spot where water was running off the roof or what. I noticed it on Saturday (too late); I put it in the planter anyway, hoping that maybe it might make it but by Sunday it was looking like a goner.

Then, as I was removing one of my Chocolate Cherry tomato plants [rear container] I heard/felt a snap. I'm usually pretty careful, not sure how I could have done it, and again, I planted anyway hoping that I hadn't really done what I thought I had...But by Sunday it was all wilt-y so I must have snapped the stem. Dagnabbit.

Anyway, those planters still have one tomato plant of each type and some pepper plants.

I managed to get the rest of the tomato plants in without breaking any more.

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Last year I planted Sunflowers in my vegetable patch. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but I wanted to plant them somewhere and the veggie garden seemed like the best location. Since then I've done some reading on companion gardening - what plants grow well together - and according to what I read, Sunflowers in the veggie patch are actually beneficial. I also read that Marigolds are good for repelling certain types of pests, so I threw in some Marigolds this year as well.

I planted lettuce last year and it didn't grow. I was surprised because I've grown it in containers before and it was pretty easy. I'm trying again this year, but I'm not sure I'll have much more success.

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The lettuce patch seems to be one of George's favorite spots to nap. Can't say I blame him; it's all smooth, it gets warm from the sun, perfect cat nap spot. Ah well.

I've got more tomato plants in planters at the other end of the veggie patch.

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These tomato plants came from the garden center, while all of my other ones were started from seed in my kitchen. I actually have had these in the planters for a couple of weeks now, and noticed on the weekend that they are starting to blossom already.

Amazingly, I still have tulips. I did not expect them to last this long.

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I really had no clue what I was doing when I was selecting tulip bulbs last fall, but it has worked out better than I had imagined.

On Sunday, my first Iris was in bloom.

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Things are starting to look downright summery.

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Oh, and Saturday afternoon I did "take a break" from my gardening & cleaning to get in my 3rd Boot Camp session for the week. I'm not sure whether to call that dedication or crazy. But Week 1 is complete.

Today my body was telling me it needed a rest, so Boot Camp this week will [hopefully] be Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

6 comments:

the Bag Lady said...

Your yard looks lovely! And if you left that tomato plant (that you snapped off) in the ground, it might come back.
I snapped off one of the potato plants that I started in the house (from the peelings) when I was transplanting it. I put it and another one into larger containers as an experiment. Good thing, too, because the others that I transplanted into the garden froze that very night. Sigh.

I haven't got any tomato plants - they didn't have any left at the greenhouse! I'm going to check out the other greenhouses around the area to see if there are any left anywhere. And all I could find for peppers were purple ones! I would have tried them anyway.....

JavaChick said...

Thanks Bag Lady! I'll leave the tomato plant in and hope for the best! I actually have a couple of pepper plants called Purple Star that produce purple peppers; I'm curious to see if I will get any (last year my pepper plants did nothing).

Emily said...

Your yard is BEAUTIFUL!!! It makes me want to just roll around in the grass. Or lay out in my bathing suit (eeeekkkk) with a good book. Of course the veggies & flowers are pretty too but I just can't get over how lush and thick your grass is!

Sagan said...

Pretty flowers! Too bad about the tomato plants.

JavaChick said...

Emily - lovely grass would be due to lots of rain. Mixed blessing.

Sagan - yes, I was disappointed, but it was 2 out of 12 plants so I guess I'm still going ok!

~Laura said...

Your flowers and veggies are looking great! Hubby just got my garden tilled for me today:) 10 rows 20 foot long. I have tomato plants and sweet basil that I started from seeds ready to go in the ground.

I will be doing some planting this weekend....so happy about that!