Tag: gardening

  • Garden avatar

    With a near supernatural restraint and indomitable force of WideEyed will, I did not buy new plants for the front garden this year. Ok. I did not by many plants for the front garden – only two sedum tiles which I cunningly split into a few pieces each resulting in six new plantings. Hah.

    Instead, I hacked bits from the Shasta daisies to fill in holes. These bits are droopy excuses for plants. I stare at them as the dogs and I stroll past them. I am distracted by them as I pull into the driveway after a long day of being Chained To An Office Chair.  They better perk up or I’m hitting the garden store down on Main Street. (Sounds charming, right? Like Main Street is some kind of throwback with interesting shops, flowers, smiling people. Uh. Nope. Major traffic artery right through the city. Lotta red lights and screaming and enormous potholes. The garden shop is nice though.)

    I tiled inferno weed zones with flagstone scraps and bricks reclaimed from a sadly deceased neighbor’s defunct garden patio. (No. I did not reclaim these bricks in the dead of night after her funeral, if that’s what you were thinking. Her husband and sons removed the patio and graciously offered them to me. I promise. That’s how it happened.) Maybe pretty weeds will grow between the new stonework. Maybe the nasturtium seeds I threw down will produce delights. The WideEyedSpouse added an inukshuk – or more correctly an inunnguaq I guess – to the garden. The little stone person had dignity and gravitas until the birds visited this morning. Now the WideEyedAvatar needs a bath.

    The gardens awaken. The sun beams down on us all. Winter doldrums are fading into a dim memory of something that happened to someone else.

    inunnguaq

  • Green tomatoes all over the place.

    Hoist with my own petard. That’s my tomato situation. Although to be fair and correct I wasn’t intending to harm anyone with my tomatoes. Ok, I might maybe have considered throwing the nibbled ones at squirrels and urban skunks so maybe I can use the petard thing. You know, I’m just going to.

    The healthy tomato garden.
    The healthy tomato garden.

    Last summer I planted five heirloom tomato plants: the garden peach and some kind of giant lumpy variety. They grew fast, blossomed well, and produced just a few incredibly aromatic, pleasantly textured tomatoes. The WideEyedSpouse and I made an event of each one because they were so few.

    This summer I decided on a tomato blitz. I tortured myself with descriptions of heirloom and organic varieties in the Fedco catalog. I agonized over which seeds to buy. I settled on a cherry variety, a dense purpley Cosmonaut, and the succulent yellow Garden Peach. I nurtured those seedlings under a grow light in my dressing room for months. It was inconvenient, sure, but we all dreamed of a tomato bounty. Baskets full. Frozen. Sauced. Canned. Salsaed tomatoes.

    Green cosmonauts.
    Green cosmonauts.

    Look at your calendar. It is September. My 15 lush, health tomato plants carry hundreds of turgid, deeply green tomatoes. I counted them.

    If only they were yellow, purple, and red as they are meant to be. Cursed cold Buffalo summer nights. Cursed green tomatoes. Next year I am shoving a couple of store bought Big Boys in the ground and calling it good.

    A sorry week's harvest.
    A sorry week’s harvest.