We haven't seen too many of our tiny lizard friends lately--too cold for them to be out. The temperatures are still up and down, in the eighties for a few days, then in the fifties and sixties for a few days.
I'll admit to looking forward to the warmer temperatures for two reasons: the lizards, and the time of year when peppers, eggplants, and okra grow like crazy.
But right now I really can't complain about our various parsley patches--we're using parsley more as a salad green than an herb these days. The dill patch, too, has finally done superbly well (after a couple of battles with butterflies...battles in the sense that we were trying to keep both the dill and the butterflies alive, of course).
Amazingly enough, while production seems to have slowed, we've still managed to eat something from the garden each day. Except the day during a last-minute trip, but even on that day we ate something from my parents' garden, which I kind of take credit for because we got it set up there a year-and-a-half ago to accommodate my seedlings in the middle of our extended move.
So that means something home-grown has been on the table every day since September 1, 2014. Pretty good record, right?
In November, we met the man in charge of the community garden near our house. We don't grow things there, but I like to walk past it several times a week to get a glimpse of how things are doing. They grow everything organically, and have built up the on-site soil for several years.
When we met the man in charge, we instantly wanted to spend about five days asking him questions. We settled for a few minutes of his time, though. :)
One of the most important things we learned was that most tomatoes in our area succumb to the yellow leaf curl virus spread by white flies. But since he told us which variety he grows with consistent results, we felt armed with knowledge to do better in the future, even though our tomato plants were already beginning to look sick.
What I didn't count on was how difficult it would be to find that tomato variety. It took quite a few Google searches...but the good news is that now we know! It probably didn't need to be such a prolonged research project.
Nevertheless, I'm feeling thankful that I can go buy a six-pack of plants at a nearby nursery for $2.98, which gives me hope to have a few tomatoes this spring after all.
Sorry for the long hiatus commenting. I've been reading your posts (which also haven't been many), but commenting on the phone is sometimes clunky, if I read on the phone.
ReplyDeleteAnd YAY for the possibility of tomatoes (a staple at our house), even if they won't be heirloom :-( And I hope you can talk more with the community garden man and learn from him!
I'm debating whether to try to invest in another raised bed. I have been utterly frustrated with the costly one I put in (about 2-300 dollars went into the cement borders and tons of soil that I had to buy). Last year I didn't even plant tomatoes, they all came back!! HOWEVER, the deer ate them all. And I didn't put the cages after they'd been eaten once and then the poor things just tried to live with all the deer gobbling them up. The most depressing thing!
This summer we'll be away for SIX WEEKS so maybe I won't plant anything and just let the poor voluntary tomatoes fend for themselves, this time with cages (I think they'll come back again, since lots of fruit fall whole and preserve the seeds in spite of the snow and frozen soil!). I wish you still lived here. We have beautiful snow outside today, I bet you miss the snow.
Your home-grown-on-the-table record is pretty cool! Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteYou inspire. Hope the new tomatoes are successful.
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