Banana peppers, batch #2:
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Tomateys:
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me, big daddy sunflower, & Otto w/ severe ADD, as usual:
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and our volunteer sunflowers that we let grow under the bird feeder:
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Oops. the Otto one again:
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We've gone from this:
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To this:
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To this:
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I'm kinda jealous of people with gardens and lawns and stuff. I have... a sidewalk. with a 1x1 square of dirt. and a single tree.
I'm allergic to grass so I'm better without it. But those times when it's not being cut there's something to be said for running through it in bare feet, to grab tomatoes off a vine. Reminds me of when I was a kid.

The concrete slab has not grown one frigging inch. And we've had plenty of rain.

Jan, you gotta tear all that out of there and then get me and TheDonF to come plant vegetables in it.

Oof. Well, we had a nice early season, and then got whomped with endless rain for a month or so. That set things back - especially the tomatoes, which are just sorta puny - I'm worried about them. Good thing we're going to NJ at the end of August, where at least I can count on some good tomatoes.

We did get a great arugula and lettuce season, though, and there's still more lettuce out there edible. The snow peas were new this year and a great success - so crisp and sweet you had to stop in your tracks and marvel. I'm now getting the first basil thinnings and grabbed the first handful of green beans yesterday. The raspberries were delicious, but since there's only one bush, I just ate the ne ripe ones after the other each day - I don't know how you could have enough patience to cook with them unless you had many bushes. I can't resist 'em.

We tried to grow broccoli but missed the harvest because it really didn't look like broccoli yet. Turns out it's a different variety than grocery-store broccoli and we just didn't recognize it. So we have to tear that out and put something else in, probably chard or kale for fall. The carrots are awesome!

I have one cucumber ready to pick; finally have a tomato growing; still only have one carrot - after all the seeds I planted! But I am most proud of my pumpkin/cantelope patch (sorry, no pictures yet - they're still on my camera). It's taken over the mound they're planted on, and now stretching across the lawn. A couple of pumpkins are starting, and there are lots of flowers on both varieties. WoooHoooo. I'm already reading up on container gardening for more varieties next year, and I'm already planning on repeating the pumpkin/cantelope patch.

Hey I just turned images on. Nice work, Specklet and TheDonF!

18 tomato plants, plenty of green ones but no ripe ones, and they are small and puny as Miko describes.

Even though we live in a city townhouse we actually do have some dirt. The side yard is about 4'x12' and then there's a 12'x12' plot between the house and the garage. We don't grow anything edible but the old lady who lived there for 90+ years had planted roses, hydrangea, rhododendron, azalea and such which we do our best to keep trimmed and weeded. I keep the little strip of grass cut by running a 1920s push mower back and forth once a week.

I don't want to grow anything edible until I have the soil tested since our garage had various businesses run out of it during the last hundred years and I have no idea what they might have dumped in the yard. Also the back plot gets sunlight for about two hours a day at best since it's surrounded by our house, the apartment building next door and the garage.

My basil is getting huge, but I don't think my rosemary plant is going to do much more, which means I should probably go out there and harvest them.

I also need to remember to water them more often. I always forget in the morning.

Both basils doing pretty well, mint going absolutely crazy (I cut a few of the longer stems and stuck them in bottles of water around the apartment and at work and they all sprouted roots and mutated), lavender/rosemary/thyme just kind of sitting there, beans are...alive, tomatoes barely surviving due to lack of rain and I think I may lose one of them before the week is out.

Total production this year is still at 4 beans and 1 tomato and however much herbs I picked.

My Martha Stewart purple bush beans have all but exhausted their out put for the season. I got lots 'o beans! The zucs and summer squash are just now beginning to yield fruit and in about a week I won't know what to do with them all. Gotta find a food pantry.

I've got a 1'X8' salad garden that just keeps on growing growing. So many different kinds and just too much I can't even give it away.

I am most proud of my corn, though. I've three stalks of your common variety growing like there's no tomorrow and 16 stalks of a heirloom variety that, in about 3 weeks, will put out little 6" sweet ears. I can't wait!

This has been, despite the 50 days of rain, a good summer for gardening, well, for me at least. I've already begun to plan next year where I'll expand and use the space better.

My garden is puny and underutilized this year because of the move. I've had just a few tomatoes--a couple of cherokee purples and Mr. Stripeys, a bunch of sungolds that I eat off the plant, and a couple of better boys. Tons of cukes, though. Also, the best producer this year have been the red Chinese Long Beans I tried for the first time.

I'm looking forward to next year. I have about 10 months to get at least a couple of beds in shape. Excellent.

Wow Specklet that's awesome! We have a gazillion little tomatoes that are just starting to turn. Our squash is scary. redvixen ya gotta post pics of the pumpkin patch! And I wish I was having dinner at MonkeyButter's house.

Sounds like everybody's got something. Even concrete.

It's been the wettest winter here in decades, but the last week has been mostly dry and mostly warm.

We've re-dug the potato patch and planted out the seedlings (which had sprouted something fierce) and I'm right in the process of redigging everywhere else. Slow work.

We finally dug up the lemongrass and broke it into four clumps - three of which are sitting in gorgeous blue-glazed urns, and the last one is going back into what I'm calling my curry garden. I've got turmeric root on order and seeds for five different sorts of chillies ready to go into seedling pots.

My tea camellias are due any day but I don't have a place ready for them yet. I think I'm gonna head back to the cheap pottery place and get a couple of chinese-style planters to put them in for the first couple of years.

And....I'm planting strawberries today! I've gone for Cambridge Rival this year. The Hokowase last year were the sweetest I've ever tasted but didn't grow too well.

Can't wait for spring....

Lots of nice hostas in several varieties. Most are growing well, except the ones that our tenant has mowed with his lawnmower (a common problem with tenants doing this job, they ignore what's grass, a weed, or an ornamental plant).

Also did more tree pruning, this time on the birch and crabapple, both getting too close to the porch roof. I'm really going to town on all the trees this year because I hardly touched them last year, and because I'm in a more aggressive mood now.

I hope we can keep the properties in bankruptcy, it's a lot of work down the drain if we don't.

I don't have a garden due to living in an apartment, but I have been going *crazy* canning things from the farmer's market. So far I've done a half flat of blackberries (turned into 5 half-pints of blackberry jam), 10 lbs of peaches (5 half-pints of jam and 5 pints of canned peaches in water), and 15 lbs of tomatoes. If the farmer's market has buckets o'strawberries for $20 again this week I'm getting one to make strawberry jam, and I want to do more tomatoes and blackberries and add some apricot jam too. It's so incredibly addictive. I'm going to need more shelves.