garden in June

I know these pictures look crazy but forgive me - they were taken with a cell phone. At least you can see progress in so far as the plants are bigger than they were last month... right? right?

front row (l to r): swiss chard, lettuce; middle row: basil, beets; back row: eggplant, pepper

front row (l to r): swiss chard, lettuce; 2nd row: tomatoes; 3rd row: squash, zucchini; last row: brussel sprouts

squirrels: 3, me: 1

I thought I had taken more pictures of these battles as they occurred, but I was mistaken. Alas, I'll need to just explain to you how round two went down we can jump to present day.

You may recall I, or more accurately, my strawberries, had a run in with some squirrels. After the massacre I used chicken wire to cover the bucket and the other potted plants I had out on my deck. I went inside feeling so smug, like "I showed you, squirrels!" only to find the next morning that the squirrels had dug around the wire and into the soil/roots. In this round we lost our comrade, the dear brussel sprout. Squirrels: 2, me: 0.

RIP Rus

Undeterred, I rearranged the wire to better cover the exposed soil area in all of the pots, but this didn't leave much room for the plants to grow height-wise. I didn't have any more wire so I made it do and pressed the wire into the soil (as opposed to sort of floating on top) so that the squirrels would need to dig the wire cages out of the pots. It wouldn't have been hard, but it seemed to do the trick. Finally, success! Eat that, squirrels! ...No wait, please don't.

Fast forward a few weeks and it seems like the squirrels found everything they stored last fall and they aren't so interested in digging shit up anymore. Some of the plants are trying to grow through their cages, so I hope that means I can take them off now. I planted a new basil today and used the cage that had previously covered an eggplant - the eggplant was trying to grow up through it and the leaves were shredding in the process, so I'm sure it's happy to be freed. Let's just hope the squirrels really are done digging...

Lavender

herbs

Pepper

summer's coming!

so i planted some more stuff. Tomatoes, basil, summer squash, and zuchinni, to be specific.

BOOM.

Spring planting round two

Yesterday the Troy farmer's market moved back outside (yay!) so I went up to score some new seedlings. For about $11 I got one lavender, one summer squash, one zuchini, 3 spinach, and 1 parsley. Then I went over to the co-op to pick up 6 beets, 6 arugula, and an artichoke. It's still too early for some things to go in the ground, but the arugula, spinach, and beets are planted.

4 arugula

6 beets

3 spinach, 1 arugula

The beets had this weird white fuzz in the roots which I thought was mold. I looked it up in my gardening book and online and didn't find much beyond beet root rot, which may or may not be what this is. I took a chance and planted them anyway, so if the beets taste moldy or the entire garden turns into a fungus bed we know why.

The seedlings I already planted (lettuce, swiss chard, and brussel sprouts) are still going strong. yeaaaaaaa man!

squirrels: 1, me: 0

I went out to look at my plants and dun dun dunnnnnnnn... the squirrels destroyed the strawberries. They shredded them - pulled the seedlings out of the planter and tore them apart leaf, by leaf and stem by stem.

squirrels: 1, me: 0

I tried to salvage the bits of plant with roots still attached and shove them back into the planter. Hopefully they'll take. But to prevent any further squirrel shenanigans I built a little cage of chicken wire. It's not secured in any real way, but there are sharp edges so I hope that's a deterrent.

 
Your move, squirrels.

Spring's first planting

lots of accrued comp time + one of the first nice day's of spring = playing hookie to plant some vegetables. This girl knows how to have a good time.

swiss chard, lettuce, and brussel sprouts

brussel sprouts

oregano

strawberries

Road trip coast transition

Now that my California road trip is over and I'm back in the east coast grind I thought it would be fun to put together all of the shots I took of the scenery as I was driving. Which was 100% safe. I'm hoping it will show the transition from beach to lush to redwood, but I guess we'll see in a few minutes!







Drumroll...

OK, so it didn't turn out to be the smooth slideshow I had hoped for, but I was driving so there. Still, really cool trip with really amazing scenery every mile of the way.