#1 Ichiban, 1st eggplant

I have finally harvested my 1st eggplant. It was just a bloom at the end of May.

About a week ago it was this big.

And here it is just before I harvested it. I probably could have let it get bigger but it is my habit to harvest my eggplants when they are certain to still be tender.

Alreadi I have 3 more eggplants growing on this plant. My other eggplants have yet to bloom. I delayed blooming on this one and my other just a little bit by pruning them a little. I know that eggplants on an eggplant like ichiban grow straight and are more salable if they are started higher up the stem. Once they hit the ground they might started to bend. I know that by the end of summer,if these grow well, I will be tired of eggplant so I am in no rush.

1st Sunflower Bloom

These pictures were taken over a period of 5 days. This is my 1st and currently, my only sunflower bloom.

I am happy that I caught this green bee looking creature

I just found the great sunflower project. I am registered and recommend others do too. This is a bee counting project which I think is pretty important now.

Tomato Strategies (part I side and back yard)

This is one of those posts where I attempt to keep my thoughts coherent. I have 10 tomato plants this year and 6 tomato growing strategies. I've said it before, tomatoes are complicated. They are pretty demanding and there are multiple philosophies about how to grow them right. I wouldn't say that any one is the right way, but like so many things they do deserve examination. The things to strive for are productivity, tasty produce, beauty and low maintenance. Another question is how much space do I have and how well will it grow here? Well, my gardening style is freestyle. I'm not worried about maintenance because I am obsessed with gardening. I like to experiment, follow rules and break them. I like to try obscure things and throw some new ideas into the mix. And that is how I grow tomatoes.

We'll start with my most neglected tomatoes. A problem I have is indecision. This makes me put things off because I cannot decide what to do. Such has been the sad fate of these 2 cherry tomatoes, super sweet, and juliet. I just planted these here 2 days ago. They are on my back porch which does not get as much light as the front in an earthbox. The earthbox is a self-watering container that is nice for a lot of plants, most actually, but not all. I had some herbs in here that weren't very happy because they liked it less moist. Anyway, these poor tomatoes might do better than they are right now.

This is my straw planting. It is a Dr Wyche. A couple years ago I did a lot of plants in strawbales. This was an excellent experiment. I learned a lot about what makes different plants happy but I also found it to be fairly high maintenance. The biggest problem with bales is that things get dried out fast. This time I cheated a little. I mixed in a little moist stuff, um what's it called? Some people actually plant disposable diapers but I have yet to take that plunge.

Now that I have taken the time to research this tomato, I am finding it likes LOTS of water and usually is not very productive. Uh oh. This might not have been a good idea for this variety. I was actually thinking about mounding up some compost around this to keep it wetter. I might do that.

One more thing. This isn't a bale. It is a metal laundry basket I got at yardsale for 50 cents that I stuffed with straw. This allowed me to shape it the way I wanted to and to include a deep pot shaped cavity in the center. I am of the philosophy to plant my tomatoes as deeply as possible. Up to the top leaves. A lot of new gardeners don't know that the stems will grow roots. You want your tomatoes to soak up as much water as possible. This tomato was 3 times as tall as it is here because 2 thirds of it is underground.

This is my centerpiece tomato for the back yard. It is planted on top of some bokashi. I am hopeful that my bokashi will greatly reduce the need to fertilize all the tomatoes that are above it. You may have noticed that all of my tomatoes are planted with other plants including marigolds and basil. You can't see it so well but I also planted leeks with these 3 tomatoes. I think if I planted them alone that they might end up being more productive, I can't really say but I've decided that a very important thing for me is beauty. I think tomatoes look prettier with flowers. However, flowers are more than pretty. They attract pollinating and pest eating insects so I grow them together.

There's so much more I could say about tomatoes and I will say more, but in my next post. Next is my front yard tomatoes. Please humor me by responding to my little survey. Thanks for reading!

May Blooms

I said before that I have too much chamomile. I have taken to cutting it back and vasing it. Right now I have 4 vases full of chamomile which has been surprizingly cooperative in the vase. Some has started to root, but sadly I do not need anymore.

The Cheddarhead likes to jump up on the wall here and threaten to jump. He is a fine looking cat and actually purred for me yesterday. I think though that he did not purr in pleasure, it was an annoyed purr.

This is an ichiban eggplant bloom. It is growing pretty fast. Unlike the rest of my eggplants, this came in a larger pot and the cost reflected that but I can't complain about its progress. I think it might be weeks until any of my other eggplants bloom.

Here's a slice of South American flowers. Heliotrope and salvia guaranitica are from Peru and Brazil. I talked at length about the salvia, heliotrope has an interesting story too. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly what I heard and google isn't helping me glean much information. There's something about prophetic dreams. If I find a good source of information, I'll link to it. It does have a nice scent. Maybe its story is a little too interesting, if you know what I mean.

This is a rainbow lantana. I never grew them before but I understand that they are lovely and a magnet to butterflies and hummingbirds.

Black and Blue Blooms

Anytime I find myself liking a plant, I want to know more about it. I want to know where it came from, what uses it may have outside of what I am using it for, whether it has any cultural significance to anything. Seriously, there's a lot of history to a lot of seemingly simple plants. I am very interested in new world plants, and this flower, Salvia guaranitica is a new world flower.

The first thing I figured out after purchasing 2 without knowing much, is that it's a great hummingbird plant. Well, I learned things in regard to its cultivation like it gets big. In warm climates it can be invasive but in temperate places like Pittsburgh it has survived some pretty harsh winters. I might try to winter this if I keep liking it. I will opt for retiring it to my coldroom rather than letting it winter outside because otherwise it will probably die. I wanted to know more about it specifically. It has a nice smell. (gets up to let cat inside and to sniff flowers to better describe)It smells like a fruity sage, not like anise to my nose, though I only have smelled 'black and blue'. There are other slight color variations, all I believe are pretty vivid blue.

So it smells pleasant. Is it edible? According to Rose Marie Nichols Magee, in this blog post, Salvia guaranitica Anise Scented Sage, Rose Marie, one of my heroes, the flower at least is edible. Oh good! More snazzy garnishes!

It seems to have been named after the Guarani Indians of Brazil who drank yerba mate before anyone else. They seem to have used the leaves as a sedative. It sounds like this might be more than a little stronger than say chamomile tea so maybe I won't experiment with that.

Anyway, I enjoy this plant more now knowing that it's not just a pretty flower. I hope you enjoyed these pictures showing my first blooms opening up. I am looking forward to more. Don't you like how the flower went from this dark purple/blue to that^^^?

More Stuff!

As promised, I am doing another post. It's May you know? There is just so much beauty I could cry, but I won't.

Here's the cheddarhead eating by my saladbowl, which is filling out nicely though this isn't its best side. Behind it is lacinato kale and an eggplant. Yup, I haven't caught up with everything here.

This planter has a matching one, sorta, on the other side of the steps. It started last year with lipstick salvia which i wintered with partial success. The salvia was kinda ragged so i filled it in with mizuna which already needs to be harvested, allysum and of all things hops! The hops are an unknown ungendered quanity. A friend gave me seedlings this spring and just for kicks I am keeping a few to see what's up. Who knows, I might end up having a new variety.

This porch still life is my fancy swedish ivy, mona lavender, with vases of chamomile and acapulco anise hyssop. I trimmed back the feral chamomile a touch but wanted to see if the buds would bloom in a vase. They have.

Chives are so easy and pretty, especially when they bloom. In the background is one of my bokashi buckets.

Well, I think that's it for today. I have a lot that I haven't covered.

Porch Plants

I guess blogger does not like to upload more than 4 images at a time so I am turning this into 2 blog posts. Who am I kidding? I could do a post for every picture.

This 1st plant was an impulse buy, mona lavender swedish ivy. I was hoping that it would be attractive to hummingbirds, and it is. Oh yeah, yesterday I finally saw my 1st.

In this corner are some gardening things and an orchid cactus, normally a houseplant, which actually likes low light and lots of moisture. This corner might be good for it.

This heliotrope has a marble mulch. I actually found these in someone's garbage.

This dracula dahlia is in keeping with the black and blue salvia. The mulch is hydroton.

None of these are edible but that's OK. I might have some herbs hanging out on the porch but I haven't decided yet. It's always a work in progress.

My canvas is not blank

I garden like I get dressed everyday. I'm no fashion plate, indeed, I have contemplated doing youtube type videos of things I discuss here but that means I have to do something with my hair! I guess I feel like my garden is half naked right now. I'm a little embarrassed to show it in its entirety just yet.This being its 2nd year, my garden is taking on a number of 'sink or swim' aspects. This budding onion is a leftover from last year. It might be a welsh onion, but I'm not sure. I noticed it budding and have decided to encourage that. Whenever it blooms I should have a better idea of what it actually is.Next my canvas shows what I decided to call 'beau disordre' a reference I recall to some Congolese Afro-pop I read about and encountered years ago. Um, I won't get into what made my brain stray that direction. The largest plant here is an artichoke, then there's a red cabbage. My strategy is to plant fairly low lying plants in front, with lots of little annual flowers at the border including allysum, pansies, lobelia, german chamomile, calendula at the edges. Much of this is selfsown from last year. I will fill in the middle later with more tender taller things like eggplant and tomatoes. Thus you see that I did not start this year with a blank canvas.On the newel post I do have a blank slate. Last year I had a rather anemic planting there. I hope to put something there spectacular but I am torn as to what that should be. There are some logistical problems to growing a globe like this. I should devote an entire post to this when I get around to it. At this moment I am think that perhaps some nastertiums would be nice here, the type that cascade. But alas! It's too early for them here! What to do?

You might notice that hanging from the left side of the sphere is a tiny hummingbird feeder. In the Pittsburgh area hummingbirds typically start showing up in mid April. I intend to make them feel welcome in my yard. More on that later.This final picture shows some of my palette. Lettuce, pansies, allysum, and broccoli. Broccoli is a definite no for the sphere. The rest I could manage.

Anybody out there have any opinions about my sphere? I am trying to decide mainly between edibility and ornamentation. One thing I am pretty sure of is that my whole yard would look better if I covered it all with a fresh thin layer of compost. I probably will do that soon.

Wintry Things

1. Cat with freshly spun true black alpaca.

2. Faded hyacinth blooms in flourescent light packaging

3. Frozen soap bubble; hard to make in this climate

4. Forced bulbs; hyacinths and thalia narcissus, image slightly doctored by oversaturation.

Summer Garden

Sally sits on the stepping stone. She sits and stares as the carrots and radicchio sit before her.











Raindrops drip off the rosa bianca eggplant.













The porchmelon chose to grow on the porch wall. This is a good thing because otherwise I would have had to make some kind of sling.






This is a close up of an artichoke bloom. It's larger than lifesize but not by as much as you'd think.









Here is sungold cherry tomatoes co-mingling with scarlet runner beans.








I rather miss this.

Artichoke Blooms

These photos are not admittedly not current. They are from late summer. I think that they are 2 different blooms photographed the same day. The 1st flower is just starting to open, the 2nd is in full flower.

I did eat a couple artichokes but I wanted to see them flower and they are really big and pretty. Butterflies love them. I watched monarchs dip their proboscis into one repeatedly, quite deeply, kinda sexy actually. We all know about the birds and the bees right?

Speaking of bees, I managed to get this picture of a bumblebee in a similar state of ecstasy. Really, these pollinators just look overjoyed when they find some sweet flowers.

You don't see artichokes growing around Pittsburgh very much. They don't usually winter here so I will most likely have to dig them up in a little bit before it gets too cold. I have 4 plants in my front yard right now and only 2 have actually bloomed. I got them from Mountain Valley Growers. They were most likely offsets from a mother plant because artichokes usually do not bloom their 1st year. The other 2 plants came from home depot where they were mislabeled asparagus. I m assuming that those were from seed. If I save them they should bloom next year.

I think they are well worth it and I'd love to see more of these around. Aren't they beautiful?

The plant itself gets huge and takes up 4 feet of space. I overplanted these guys like everything else but I don't think they suffered for it. I think next year I'll give them more room. I'll probably mail one or 2 of these plants to my sister down south who actually has the space and the warmth to grow these properly.