Garden Woes

The container gardening hasn't been an entire failure, but it hasn't been as successful as I envisioned late this spring. I think we'll get one pepper off of the pepper plant. Anyone know if this is normal? We are getting tomatoes, but due to a failure to stake the plants better as they got taller, we won't get as many tomatoes as we should have. The Dancer is at least enjoying a few tomatoes every few days. The oregano looks rather sad. I suppose we may be able to chop what there is, up. Strawberries failed to materialize.

The problems as I see them were: 1. An especially rainy spring. The plants got overly soggy to the point where they were sitting in water. We did our best to drain the containers and moved the plants in when it rained, but the responsibility of lugging containers around, I think became discouraging.
2. Our patio faces south. This discourages us from spending much time out there, thus kind of forgetting about the plants. I would like to get some kind of large umbrella or other shade, but the cost is rather prohibitive.

Oh, and I planted some lilies-of-the-valley in front, in the shade. There didn't seem to be much to them, just a scrawny bit of root. I have lost all hope of them since the landscaping crew that maintains our development came and dumped a bunch of mulch on top of these little twigs sticking up. I wonder if transplanting some larger plants from someone who has some would work better. I think I mentioned before that I tried lilies before many years ago and got nothing then as well.

The price of food being what it is, I still think it is worth giving container gardening another try next spring. Actually, I would like to get some more containers so that we can grow more food. We'll see where things stand next spring. I will also put some ornamental bulbs in this fall.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Remember that little container garden that we started earlier this spring? Well, we have been getting so much rain that we have to drag the containers under shelter so they do not get any more water. I can only hope farmers' fields are draining better than our little pots. We don't need the price of food to go up more than it has! As it is, I'm hoping we can plant more containers next year. I discovered our town has a small community garden, but I think all the plots are taken. There is still a bit of open land in this area, now that I think about it. I wonder if more of it will be reverting back to farmland?

A Little Piece of Land

I've been feeling kind of cruddy in the mornings lately (don't go there!) but yesterday Mr. BTEG and I did go to the garden center at a local big box hardware store. We're living in a condo at the moment, so a big garden is not feasible, but we are doing a little container gardening. We were successful with tomatoes and green peppers a couple of years ago. This year, we're trying tomatoes, green peppers, strawberries and oregano. We also discovered mint and some kind of onion in the bed at the back of our place.

The front of our home has enough shade that I am going to try some lilies of the valley. I've only tried them once before and they didn't really take; I'm hoping I'll do better this time. I love the smell of lilies of the valley.

We moved into this place last November. It is amazing how much more at home I feel getting a few plants growing and prettying up our entryway outside. We may never have an enormous garden, although goodness knows it would be economical, but it is nice to have a little bit of the outdoors as our own.

It's the Great Pumpkin!

My daughters want to be gardeners! We just haven't been able to provide them with a garden. That is, the soil around here is not that great, and we haven't had the money to bring in better soil and make a nice garden. However, that doesn't stop my girls! They plant seeds wherever they can. Last year, they planted pumpkin seeds with their little neighbor in the neighbor's small garden area. The mom thought the girls had just been pretending, as they often do. Until the pumpkin plants came up. This year, we are the ones with the pumpkin plants! One in our poor, neglected flower bed, one by the corner of the house.













Look how tall the one in the flower bed is! Sincerity as far as the eye can see. :) I guess we'll be set for Halloween! Maybe we should just give up on nice, landscaped beds in front of our house and make a garden next year. Bet our neighbors would love that.