Bees

I wish The Spouse hadn't taken the camera with him to a party. I wish Blogger was letting us upload pictures. If both of these wishes came true I could show you pictures of very busy bees. I have a lot of creeping thyme in the front rose beds as groundcover. I love it because it spreads all over (I pretty much have a carpet of it in one bed now, off of maybe 6 tiny original plants). Weeds grow up through it but they are easy to pull and the thyme is very forgiving.

Right about now the thyme is in full bloom, thousands and millions of teeny purple flowers all over the place. And the bees are wild for them. I was weeding today (seemed appropriate as it's been, what, 3 weeks?) and it was a little precarious. The bees were everywhere and they were humming like mad. It was quite noisy, down there on my knees. And precarious. Before I'd pull a tuft of crabgrass or a sprig of dandelion I'd sort of wave my hand over it first, a little "Hey, I'm coming" kind of warning to the bees. They'd fly up and move over, I'd pull the weed and then they'd fly up and settle back where they'd been. It was all very cooperative and civilized but I kept thinking about the time at a cocktail party when a bee stung me right above my wedding band. That wasn't pleasant.

Anyway, inbetween pulling weeds I was watching the bees, their legs fat with dark orange pollen. It was something to see. And me without a camera.

Tomatoes

It has been raining steadily since June began. Which is typical. This morning dawned bright and fair, however so The Neighbor and I went off to Fremont Gardens to buy tomato plants.

Of course, Fremont Gardens being the sort of seductive nursery that it is I also bought 2 Anaheim peppers, 3 basil plants and some little petunia-like flowers for a pot that lives on the front porch.

Anyone who gardens knows that a tomato grown yourself tastes nothing like a tomato purchased in a store. It doesn't matter if the tomato is an organic heirloom variety...if it has been in a truck and on a shelf for any length of time it is not going to have that essence that a tomato lover lives for.

I used to grow my tomato from seed. The only problem with that was that I had way more plants than I could put into the ground. I'd have dozens and dozens of plants to give away. Plus, there would only be a couple of varieties.

I have a small kitchen garden. I don't need 20 roma plants. So I started buying tomato starts (from Fremont Gardens...always) and have been very happy with the results (when I remember to water and generally tend to the plants).

This year's varieties:

Purple Cherokee (I do love the darker varieties of tomato)
Green Zebra
Bloody Butcher (what the fark kinda name is that for a tomato? It just screamed "Plant me!")
Sweet Million (a cherry tom...'cause you gotta have at least one)

I also planted some basil because tomatoes love basil and I do, too.

This was a Cat Weekend for us...but plugging a few toms into the gorgeous black earth of the potagers didn't seem like work. Plus, the gardens immediately began to look fruitful, even though everything else buried therein is a few weeks away from popping.

Dig the completely groovy curved bamboo that I found for staking the tomatoes. I usually just plug in a straight stick and tie them up as they grow. These curvy beauties will act as tomato cages but look far more cool in the process. I dig them.

Garden Babies

Growing up on the farm we had a lot of fruit trees: apple, pear and fig. We had a small grape arbor and tons of blackberries which were not exactly cultivated but hedges of them were tolerated. (We also had a stand of filbert trees...what everyone calls hazelnuts nowadays...but they were wormy and I don't remember ever eating them. They were fun to play with, though).

Living in the city it is a little more challenging to grow fruit in any quantity but I have my columnar apple tree (I forget what variety of apple it is...it's good for pies because it's not too sweet and has firm flesh) and my table grapes. I planted the grape stock our second year in the house and one in particular, "Vanessa" has done extremely well. 2 years ago I had so many grapes that I was able to make 6 pints of jelly (the most gorgeous pinky-lavendar color you ever saw with a delicate grapey-flavor) in addition to all the grapes we just ate out of hand. Last year, because I had that watering lapse, we got exactly 2 bunches of grapes. (Likewise, we only had 2 apples). I think that was when I realized how neglectful I'd been. I was very sad.


But, as is the way of nature, both the apple tree and grapevines have forgiven me. They are bursting with potential fruit and are greenly confident that I will not turn my back on them this year. They promise, if I care for them, to provide apples for the Autumnal Feast and plenty of grapes for jelly and winemaker's cake. I will not let them down.

At Last

Yesterday, just before we tipped from May to June, I got the kitchen potagers planted.

In the first bed there is Japanese eggplant (which I should have started indoors and didn't so it's going to be a total crap shoot whether anything happens there), garlic and French beans. Mesclun is planted in the garden pot. I've found that to be a very easy way to do the "cut and come" again business. Mostly because it keeps me from growing too much. If I remember to add fresh seed every couple of weeks we should have fresh lettuce well into October.

I'll put tomatoes in behind the garlic; I'm thinking I'll get to Fremont Gardens for my plants on Friday.

The second potager has radishes in the pot (an experiment), mult-colored beets in the front center, 3 hills of a round variety of zucchini that is really yummy and cute, with fava beans planted on either side of the bed. I love fresh favas, assuming I can control the black aphids, who also love them.

It was just starting to sprinkle as I was putting in the seeds and then it rained nicely in the evening. So everything is watered in by Mother Nature. Now I just have to move the hose out of the garage and remember to water all my new plant babies. And this is key because last year, for some completely indefinable reason, I didn't water my garden much. The grapes shriveled on the vine, most seeds failed to sprout. We didn't even have mesclun. Mesclun! A toddler can grow mesclun. Proper watering will be key to success this year. I must not slack!
Also, I must keep The Dog from thinking that what I've really done is give him a new playground.

Progress

This, you recall, is what one of the potagers looked like on Monday:


This is what it looks like now:



I also cleaned up the herb bed:


One more potager to go. I think I'll get it done tomorrow.

(I suspect, upon looking closely at the middle photo that The Neighbor wouldn't mind if I mentioned that when she puts the 2nd story on her house this summer she's also getting new siding. In case you were wondering).

The Bloomin' Month of May

Sometimes, in the middle of all the cleanup, you have to ignore the weeds and celebrate the fact that so much is beginning to flower.

The climbing rose has been smiling blooms for a few days now. But sweet as they are, the roses I wait for are the ones that were given as house warming gifts when we first moved in. Each year I look forward to seeing who will bloom first, "Heritage", "Just Joey" or "Gertrude Jekyll".




This year, by a bud, it was Gertrude:

Snails

Slugs thrive in the wet of the Pacific Northwest. There are treatments, of course, but most gardeners I know are resigned to the fact of these little pests and pay their annual tithe of bitten lettuce and hollowed out strawberries.

When I was in Nantes, France I was captivated by the fact that our hosts had snails in their garden. Snails are just as much a pest as slugs but they seem so much more civilized, perhaps because they have the decency to wear a shell. I collected two empty shells from that French garden, which I brought home as souvenirs. They looked exactly like the shells from which I had once or twice extricated escargot in very fine restaurants and so seemed to me a decidedly French symbol.

I kept my French snail shells on my kitchen window sill for about a year, then I put them in a small jar. I like the look of them. Now, I don't know if it was just the existence of those shells or the fact that I began (because I'm extremely affected and like all things French) to refer to my kitchen garden as "potagers" but I no longer have slugs in my garden. I can't remember the last time I saw one. I do, however, have snails. I don't know if this is some sort of region-wide ecological advancement or just some sort of magie francaise but it certainly is an improvement.

I am confirmed in my view that snails are far more attractive and civilized than slugs. You can nip one off a pot or rock, toss it in a bowl of salt and never once say, "Eeewww". I have brown garden snails, like the lad above, who I met this morning. (I suppose I should say "him/her", as they are hermaphrodites). Turns out these are the culinary variety so if I were so inclined I could cook them up with some garlic, parsley and butter and snack away. I picked 4 this morning. Not quite enough for an appetizer. Actually, I don't know if I could bring myself to cook them. Escargot is the sort of thing I think I'd rather order out. But the ones I found are frothing in salt and when they've gone to their reward I will clean out the shells and add them to my collection.

Capricious? That's a Polite Word for What I Am.

It occurs that perhaps I should retitle this blog. I'm tossing around a few ideas. "The Lazy Beyond Belief Gardener"? "The Clearly Doesn't Give a Rat's Behind Gardener"? How about "What? I Have a Garden"?

It is the 6th of May and I haven't planted anything in the kitchen garden. I haven't even turned the kitchen garden. And we have had glorious weather this week. It is clouding over today and may even rain tomorrow. Can you imagine? What if I had busted a move and planted my lettuce and zucchini and whatever else is hiding in seed packets? (I bought them in freaking February...it's not like I wasn't thinking about this at one point). What if I had remembered to water them each of these last warm days, then getting a reprieve from Mother Nature herself? And what if the sun and warmth returns next week? Bet there'd be little sprout babies everywhere. Real sprouts. Not vetch and crabgrass and whatever other weedy things currently holding court out there but all sorts of little veggie babies with the promise of summertime feasts hiding in their little green cells.

Thanks to global warming we have a fairly long growing season anymore. I can plant next week and no one will be any the wiser. But seriously, I have got to get a gardening schedule figured out.

Monday Before

The weather is cooperating today and that makes me happy. Having munged out the bigger of my two front beds I am very inspired to take a whack at the little one. And there is nothing like photographic evidence and the instant gratification of before and after pictures for getting me inspired to continue my spring weeding efforts!