Grow Yer Own
A Sunday stroll through my attempts at a garden in a house with virtually no yard (all images have a much larger version available by clicking on them.)
These two tomatoes were volunteer sprouts that appeared in one of my houseplants at work. I have no idea where the seeds came from or what cultivar they are, but since they started growing indoors in February they are now quite huge and starting to produce. In front of them are two pepper plants (one jalapeño and one cherry bomb) that just started putting out flowers this week.
This is a burpless cucumber. This is my first time trying to grow cukes, and generally they need a lot of space since they grow on long vines. I'm attempting to train them to grow up the deck railing, but as you can see they've got other plans. The first mature produce is nearly ready for harvest (and visible at center right.) Also in the picture at far right is a bay laurel.
Lots more plants in the extended entry...
Here is our south deck railing, filled with pots of herbs. From front right to rear left we are growing sage, spicy oregano, fern-leaf dill, catnip, Goodwin Creek gray lavender, golden thyme, and peppermint (along with a few scattered wildflowers in the spaces between the plants.) Everything here has been quite prolific and we haven't had enough uses for the material they're producing!
Here are the herbs growing on the north railing of the deck. From front left to rear right they are lavender, golden sage, chocolate mint, catnip (Jasper's favorite), pineapple sage, lemon buena and chives.
This is our Thai Dragon pepper plant and a rosemary bush. The pepper plant has more juvenile peppers on it than I've ever a plant produce seen before... and they're very hot when mature.
Moving around to the front of the house...
Here are two of the tomato plants that I grew from seed (intentionally... unlike the two in back!) One is the golden nugget cultivar, which produce pear-shaped golden tomatoes, and the other is a Rutgers heirloom variety. No flowers yet on either one, but they also didn't get started nearly as early as the others.
Here is the other front tomato plant, which just blossomed for the first time this week. The hot, sunny weather has made all the plants quite happy, but they also need nearly constant watering! This tomato is a Siletz cultivar, which produce medium-sized salad tomatoes.
Last but not least we have an eight-ball zucchini plant which gave its first fruit this morning. It took a while to get established in the poor, weedy, sandy soil we have out front, and then most of the early flowers fell off without growing into mature fruits, so I had to start fertilizing it manually to encourage things. Better soil and a few more related plants would probably have done it well, but we should get some good veggies out of this as well!
In the end for about $20 in seed and soil these plants should pay off quite well both in terms of not having to buy the equivalent produce at the store, and in encouraging us to eat local! Plus, I know exactly what I'm putting on my plants - no pesticides and no inorganic fertilizers.
NaNoWriMo 2007
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