May Updates

The garden is growing and there is so much new every day in our little backyard garden. The squash/zucchini have gone from seedlings to plants with blooms and now growing plants with baby veggies growing on them! The eggplant has bloomed its very first beautiful purple flower. The sunflower has sprouted to over 6 feet tall with a flower over a foot in diameter (though sadly it's pointed in the opposite direction from view). Most amazingly the tomato plants have grown and their yellow blooms have now turned in to baby tomatoes. Today something amazing happened, we picked our very first tomato! This baby is so beautiful and red it may have actually over ripened on the vine. All the same we're going to enjoy eating it tonight! And last but not least (well maybe) the funky red bugs have turned from their ant like pupae form to adult (looking) Assassin bugs, and have now moved from the Silver Fir Tree to the Black Seaman.

Take a gander at some of the photos below and see how much our garden has grown!

Starting off strong, isn't she beautiful!

Veggie Garden: Take 2

Garden 2.0
It was somewhat inevitable, but basically all of the seeds we planted a few weeks ago did not take off. I repeat, the only sprouts of green from our labors of love rows were the pumpkins. And while we're thrilled the pumpkins took off (at least we did something right *happy dance*) that was the one we wanted the least, if only because we can't/won't use that until the end of winter! {cue the dramatic music, you know the "dun dun dunnnnnnnn"}

Trying not to hang my head in shame (my first attempt at being a gardener was not a success, though I never really thought it would be) we went to fix the "situation". So we went to Native Nurseries (for what seems like the 50th trip this spring already, but clearly isn't) and bought some great looking seedlings: watermelon, croon neck summer squash, baby bush zucchini, yellow bell peppers, sweet basil, Genovese basil (I don't know what the difference between the two is but I guess we'll find out), and white lightening eggplant (that's the only kind they had and while I'd wanted a Japanese variety I figured whatever Native Nurseries had for sale would be a really great variety). 

"Pansy is my favorite!" -Zoë  (As in Pansy the dog at Native Nurseries. Who Zoë goes on a hunt for every time she's there. They don't play, they sort of sniff each other and then Pansy walks away, probably thinking "that little thing is crazy!" All the same, Zoë's favorite is another dog, whenever she gets the opportunity.)

We tried to stay rather true to the original garden, in actual plants and location. That way if by some miracle the seeds do take off (what they took a vacation to the Caribbean and will come back later?) we'll just have extras of things. That's a much better scenario than if we'd gone completely different than the original plan, could you imagine: "Honey, I think that's a cucumber growing in between the watermelon!" Of course I couldn't help but deviate a bit, though I think it's perfectly acceptable for zucchini and squash to mingle in the garden and well given the chance I just had to try to growing my own bell peppers.

A few grueling hours in the garden (again) and we've got a second version of the garden. This time though there's green growth all around! And funny enough the pumpkins (the only seeds that took) are about the same size as the seedlings we bought! I'm not sure if that's funny funny ("haha") or funny sad.....