I know, I know. I’m running late again. I apologize. The Hubster had a paper to write this weekend for a big important conference, so my little blogging adventures kind of got pushed to the side by a double helping of weekend child-rearing activities. It’s okay though. I’m here now.
Anyway, I thought I’d talk a little about Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants, since I haven’t mentioned it in a while. So far, most of the plants are doing… okay. Not terrific, but not dead. For some reason, a few of the plants had a delayed growth spurt and are only just now graduating from sproutling to actual plant. The vegetables we planted aren’t exactly producing a bumper crop, probably because I started the seeds so late. I have been told that next year I need to start my seeds in February, which leads me to wonder where the hell I’m going to keep all those tiny plants for the two plus months I’ll have to wait until we’re past the final frost (which I have been told is on Tax Day in April). I also may have not helped things by trying to make a homemade pesticide out of apple cider vinegar, dish soap and hot sauce. That recipe came out of a gardening book I have, and I thought it would help kill the leaf eating pests we’ve been having problems with. Well it did, but it also caused the plants to shrivel up and nearly die too.
In spite of my attempts at planticide, we do have a few ears of corn coming up, but the bugs got one and now the others seem to afraid to come out of their husks. We have the odd tiny green tomato and banana pepper hanging on the plant. The herbs have done the best, though for some reason my basil took forever to hit puberty (do plants do puberty? I dunno).
The best grower by far has been the beans we planted. I have no frikkin’ clue anymore what kind of beans we’ve planted, but they grew like weeds, trailing all around the tomato cages I set up around them. We harvested about 25 pods and got enough beans out of those to feed myself and both girls one serving of beans each. They turned purple when I boiled them (the beans, not the girls), and the girls thought that was a little too weird so yours truly is the only one who would eat them. For the record, if I die suddenly in the next few days, it was probably the beans.
The rest of the yard isn’t looking too bad, except for the one side where the Hubster planted a slew of creeping juniper a few years back. I hate creeping juniper. Weeds get in there and the only way to kill them is to reach into the prickly, scratchy branches of the juniper to pull them out. I tore up my arms good this past weekend and only managed to weed about a square foot. I’ve still got another twelve square feet or so to go. Joy!
But the flower garden in the side yard looks good, as does the small herb garden in the back, plus a few other odds and ends I’ve managed not to kill over the years. Here are a few photos I took a week or so ago.
Princess, standing by the towering Russian blue sage in the side flower garden. I’ve also got some calla lilies in there, plus some daisies, yarrow and button flowers and a few other things I can’t recall the names of.
The containers of herbs on the back deck. Note the delightful chalk art the kids drew for me!
Our vegetable container garden. The big bushy thing is the beans I ate that are probably going to kill me. And next to that is our stunted corn.
A mixed pot of sunflowers, colieosus, and marigolds. Probably the weirdest combination of plants ever thrown together, but they’re doing pretty good. Nothing’s blooming yet, of course…
This is not my garden. This is Norfolk Botanical Garden, about an hour from where I live. Norfolk Botanical Garden is gorgeous. I wish I could get my yard to look even a little bit like it. Yes, they teach gardening classes there. Would they help improve my black thumb? Probably not. Drives me crazy.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on with Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants. It’s not a roaring success, but we are getting outside and digging around in the dirt, and I consider that a sign of success, even if all we manage to grow is a bunch of purple beans that kill me.
You can totally wait to plant your veggie seeds till after the final frost (which changes every year really, all dependent upon the weather), you'll just have a later crop is all. Unless you want to do a second harvest though, it won't matter much.
The area in general seems to be having a late growth spurt. Squash is coming in late, most seedlings are just now starting to sprout, etc. It's been a bit weird.
Purple beans eh? Well hopefully you won't die! ^_^
Not dead yet, so the purple beans must have been okay. I will have to talk to you next Winter when I get started on planning the garden for next Spring. Maybe you can help me figure out how to get a little more out of my poor plants!
Well, this is a little late, but some of those plants probably need deeper soil for them than the pots are providing. Starting them in pots is fine, but things like corn, tomatoes and the larger plants should be replanted to a garden plot.
Dwight, I had wondered about that, but what I read said large containers would be fine. In the past, I've had no problems growing tomatoes and peppers in containers. Corn was new this year, so this was an experiment.
Don't know if I will ever have an actual "plot" for vegetables. Right now, that's a little beyond yours truly.
Good to hear from you!