Radishes

After I pulled some radishes and saw they were quite the boring white and green, I trimmed off the leaves and tossed them in the fridge.

Then a few days later when I cut one open I had quite the surprise. The middle is a beautiful purplish red color like a starburst. I haven't taken a photo of the inside yet but I will.

Fusarium WIlt

My tomatoes have been unhappy. After some glorious progress they are just withering away to nothing. I suspected fusarium wilt, and after reading about it on the Internet, it seems it's a fungus in the soil and the fix is to not plant tomatoes, peppers or potatoes in those spots for 4 or 5 years. It's one of the problems with Heirloom tomatoes, but even with modern disease resistant tomatoes, new strains of fusarium wilt may attack those plants as well. Or I can just plant them and hope for the best. We have way more tomatoes than we can eat as it is, and we are still getting plenty ripening. It just makes me sad that the plants are not thriving.

Sunflower Seeds

I'm really excited because many of my sunflower and marigold seeds have sprouted. I'm so glad I bought new sunflower seeds. Looks like I got a good batch this time. Now if I can just fend the snails and birds off until the seedlings get strong enough to survive.

I have a bunch of almost ripe tomatoes to pick too. I dug up the deader plant after harvesting it's last 2 fruits. I'm going to let the ground rest a bit before putting another plant in that spot. We also swept up a lot of debris today so it's more fun to be out there. The hummingbird is busy and eating out of my feeder again. She got a bit agitated when my cat was sitting in the window.

Planting flowers

I've been working on my garden every day. I had moved the hummingbird feeder and was happy to see a hummingbird drinking from it this morning.

I got marigold, cilantro and nasturtium seeds planted all around my tomatoes. The marigolds I planted last week have already come up as well. It's going to be nice to have more flowers in the garden as well as their benefits at repelling insects.


In my green planter the radishes have been getting chewed on by something.  I planted some nasturtiums and beets in the blank areas where the radishes either didn't sprout or got eaten by bugs.

Nettles, Nasturtiums and Snails.

Last night I took my neighbors a tomato, and they were so pleased they invited me out back to see their urban garden. They had made excellent use of every available spot. Their tomatoes are just starting to fruit so they were happy to get a ripe one from me. Their garden was so tidy and lovely, not at all like my jungle, even though our yard layouts are identical. When I mentioned my problems with snails, they told me in a rather confusing discussion in broken English and Romanian that they use nettle spray to repel the snails.  They get the nettles from a park, boil it in water to make a soup, then spray it on the plants.
While researching that on the Internet, I came across this site on companion planting. While it didn't say much on the nettle thing, the bit about nasturtiums has me inspired to plant nasturtiums all around my tomatoes. I had nasturtiums all around them before from volunteer seedlings, but they got dug up with the weeds and grass we had to discard to plant the new tomato sets. I have a few left in the other flower bed, and the hummingbirds have been feeding from them. I want to make some nasturtium salad too. I keep reading that you can eat them but I never remember to try it.

Moving the Plants

This morning before it got hot I dug up some more jasmine roots and smoothed out the surface. Then I moved my white shelving unit over to the wall to put all my cacti and succulents on. It also has the terrarium and the spider plants on it. I just hope they don't fry. Before they were under the upstairs patio so they never got direct sun, but my boyfriend didn't want the shelf in the old spot anymore so I picked the best spot I could. It took me a long time to get all the leaves out of the succulents. I was being careful with the cactus and still managed to poke my thumb with some spines. The vines killed some of the succulents and the snails killed others so it's a pretty sad lot that I have left. I just hope they start doing better now that I've moved them to another spot.

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.

Feeding Hummingbirds and Cleaning Hummingbird Feeders

http://www.birds-n-garden.com/how_to_attract_hummingbirds.html

A handy reference guide since I always forget the ratio.

Tomatoes Are Getting Ripe

Bit by bit the tomatoes are getting ripe. We had one in a salad and it's so much tastier than store bought. 

And the snails haven't found the radishes yet. Hopefully they don't like radishes.

Bye Bye Jasmine Vine

Yesterday I girded my loins and tackled the root of that jasmine vine. I soaked it a good 20 minutes and then took a clipper and shovel to what was left of it. I got a good bit of it cleared away and filled  3/4 of the dumpster with vines and branches. I'm still not done with the big clean up but at least now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

There was a ripe tomato with a little slug fest going on, so I cut off the bad part and put the rest in a salad and it tasted great. No point wasting a good tomato just because a bug got there first.

Tomato Vine

 

Cilantro / Coriander

I reseeded the cilantro. As you can see in the photos, it's at the end of it's lifespan. 
The radishes are getting bigger. So far so good. I'm still tossing out a lot of snails, trying to race them to my prime plants. I'm also seeing a lot of earthworms, which is a good thing. I just wish I had a compost pile. Stupid tiny yards...mutter, mutter, mutter. I need a quarter of an acre.

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.

The Roses Are Back

I'm so excited that my roses are covered with buds. It was supposed to rain today too but it hardly rained at all. I spent more time getting the garden ready for the rain, then the amount of time it actually rained.

Cilantro

Yay, our cilantro is sprouting. I'd about given up. I put it in a clay pot sunk into the soil and put plastic wrap over it to keep it moist. It was sprouting like crazy when I checked it this afternoon.

Odd Snail Factoid

Today I needed to spray a little wooden sign outdoors so I set the sign on a metal can that still had a paper label. I was spraying the 2nd coat when I noticed a snail clinging to the side of the can. I swear it wasn't there when I set the can down earlier. And right under the snail, in the shape of the part clinging to the can the label had been eaten away. There were 2 other holes in the paper the same size. I thought that was so odd that the snail ate the paper. My boyfriend said, "Why not? The paper is cellulose."
By the way, the polyurethane was dissolving the snail's body. Ewww. Little bubbles were coming out.

Fall in the Garden

You can use your garden as inspiration for your artwork. Here is a t-shirt I am embellishing with ribbon flowers, lemons, vines and leaves. Don't spend all your gardening time pruning, picking and planting. Make time for sketching, photographing, and otherwise enjoying your garden. Today I need to refresh the hummingbird feeder. I can't remember the ratio of sugar to water so I need to look that up again.
Leaves are starting to turn colors and fall onto the patio. I enjoy the sound of it from my bedroom window. I have a lot of birds in my garden this year. They seem to be eating the seeds of the grass that is taking over my garden.

Tomatoes

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

Last Days of August

It looks like I have a whole bunch of tomatoes that are going to ripen all at once.

I had three promising brown eyed susan plants sprout up. Then one vanished. A day or two later the best one vanished and now there is just one left. By vanished I mean you can't even tell it was ever there. So I put a cut out styrofoam cup over the last one to keep it from snails, slugs, and birds. Sigh. I just need one to grow up the trellis.

Lots of other things are blooming: the moss rose, the striped roses, the lantana, sea lavender, and some of the succulents.

I'm turning this gourd I grew in the garden into a rain stick too.

Grasshopper

I have a feeling that this is what's been eating my peppers. Look at the size of this guy. Click on the photo to see all the details.

My Backyard and I

I'm glad it's cooling off as we head toward autumn. Soon all the leaves on the tree above me will be falling into my yard.

The house behind me is where the family from India lives. They are the noisiest people ever and seem to live in their backyard where their kids scream all the day long. I try to sit out there and read or write in my journal but usually I just get frustrated and go back inside. They are also up all night pounding on the walls, hanging out on their patio and talking loudly or smoking. If I had the money I'd move tomorrow. People are so unaware of how much their noise impacts others or they just don't care.

Mostly Roses

It was such a perfect weather day I couldn't resist taking some photos of my roses and tomatoes to share.
My brown eyed susans have also sprouted so I'm crossing my fingers that they will survive their infancy.