New Tomato Plants

I planted tomatoes this morning. I got them at Lowe's. I planted 2 yellow pear tomatoes, a black variety called Black Krim, and a yellow small tomato called Sungold. I also planted Mammoth Sunflowers along the back wall.

Cilantro blooming.

Monster of a Tomato Plant

Yesterday I was amazed to see all the tomatoes on the plant that survived from last summer's garden. I had to cut an old t-shirt into strips and lift all the tomatoes off the ground so the snails don't get them. Then I did some weeding around them. There must be 20 tomatoes on there, all green at the moment. And I already picked 4 green ones last week because they were sitting on the ground. I have 3 tomato cages and some stakes holding one plant, it's such a monster.

My cilantro/coriander is about spent, so  reseeded the pot in the blank spots to get another crop going.

I also planted some radishes in the pot where the basil was. It never sprouted nor did any weeds, so I'm suspecting cats! If the radishes don't sprout, then nothing will and I'll have to dump the whole pot and start over.

I got up this morning and saw some fluffy baby sparrows sitting on the brick wall and then I saw the mother bird feeding them, though they are as big as she is. By the time I got my camera they were gone. I only got one blurry photo.

Then while I was waiting I continued the dreary job of removing the jasmine. My hands are really tired from pruning right now but I finally got the top detached from the neighbor's side of the jasmine. It all started in my yard, and now it's theirs. There is still a lot of clean-up to do and digging out the original roots. Ugh. That will have to wait for another day.

Tomatoes

Like I suspected nearly all the tomatoes got ripe at once.

Weedy Tomatoes

We had company over today to work on some gourd projects. I guess the guy really appreciated what we taught him, because suddenly he jumps up and goes and weeds all my tomatoes. Luckily I had just watered them deeply the night before, otherwise he'd have thrown out his back before he got any weeds pulled. Now there is a stack of weeds as big as a bale of hay. I'll let them dry a day or two and put them in the dumpster. I was embarrassed to even have weeds, but I guess he meant well.

The photo is of a gourd I grew. I cut it in half to clean it out so I can make a rain stick.

Snails

On Sunday I bought and planted 4 out of 6 of the plants that were in little peat pots. Then on Monday morning, I saw that snails had totally eaten the top off of one of the two remaining plants. The next morning, I saw they'd destroyed the other one too. Little varmits. Grrrr. I put what was left of them in a covered terrarium. I have little hope that they'll recover without any leaves but at least I can try. One was the Anaheim pepper my boyfriend was so happy to find. It was the only plant he picked out. So I'll have to see if I can get another one next week. I'll be gone all weekend so I won't be able to fix it till next week anyway.

As for the snails, the beer in a dish didn't work at all so I'm back to using Deadline. Don't yell at me...it's no garden if the snails eat it all.

Finally Got the Garden Going

I finally corraled my boyfriend into taking me to a nursery where I got 4 varieties of tomatoes, an Anaheim pepper, and soybean and flower seeds. Weeds were already growing in the spot I cleared for the tomato plants so it took me another hour to clear it, clean up debris and get 4 of the tomatoes planted. Two of the tomatoes are supposed to be pink so this should be interesting. I still have about half the garden to clear.

I'm pretty worried that my boyfriend is going to lose his job, and then we'll have to move and I'll lose the garden, but I'm going to go ahead and plant it as an act of faith, because we can only live in the present, not the future.