Garden Update 15 May 2008
IMG_0810, originally uploaded by http://badhuman.wordpress.com.
If you haven’t figured it out already, I really love my cherokee trail of tears beans. Last weeks pod was not in fact a bean pod per se. First the little white “pod” becomes a gorgeous light purple bud. It took me 5-10 shots before I found one that even begins to capture the delicate color and beauty. Now if the pests would stop eating the leaves I would have more of these. I don’t know what is eating them, they are kept inside by a huge window which I’ve started keeping open for air flow. But seriously they are surrounded by brick and concrete so where are the pests coming from??
The strawberry plants are doing well. So far we have one fruit but I’ve read that it usually takes two years to be able to start harvesting so I’m not expecting much this year. I also learned that overwatering will create a watery fruit. Think is commonsense I know but I never really thought about it before now. Even learning about organic soil and free range grass fed animals has not made me automatically connect all the dots. I am still learning on a daily basis the myriad of things that affect the taste and quality of my produce.
The carrots are getting more feathery and taller, indicators of what is going on below.
Broccoli is one of my other all-stars. It has grown considerably and continues to get more leaves as the days go by.
Lettuce has not been my friend but I have finally gotten a couple of sprouts to grow more then two leaves so even if I never harvest any I will call this a success.
Spinach will be the first thing I can harvest and eat. Since J. doesn’t like it, I’ll have it all to myself so I’ve started thinking of what I want to do with it already. Perhaps I’ll just eat the leaves straight as a midday snack since it is growing in my office.
The peppers are getting taller. J. and I almost called it quits on trying to grow tomatoes and peppers but pure persistence if beginning to pay off. Only two peppers sprouted but they are showing good growth and we’ve been able to get a couple tomato plants past their initial two leaves so we might have some success yet.
How does your garden grow? 
I hope you can find what’s eating your bean leaves, I’m having the same problem with my bean plants! some of them were chewed so badly, all I was left with was a stem. I replanted those and put bird netting over it because I see a LOT of sparrows over there, but now I’m thinking the birds were eating the bugs off my plants and the bird netting will only compound the problem? Good luck to you!
Nice pictures! My mom is just planting little sprouts, so cute!
Very nice! If we didn’t live so close to my mom we would start our own garden. I think we do have strawberries, but they are TINY!
Snails keep getting at things outside here, but my kitchen windowsill remains safe ground. Who knew creatures could be a gardening problem inside!
I think you should make the spinach into a curry. Saag paneer will convert anyone to spinach loving. We continue our rigorous research into the relative benefits of simmering the paneer (cheese) in the spinach sauce direct, or frying it first. The Bloke is very much in favour of the frying, but I like both.
I definitely *must* get organised for Spring this year.
Luckily it’s Autumn here in Sydney, so I have a few months.
Those vegies are going to taste great!
I wish I’d done some strawberries here, they make great additions to the flower borders. In a moment of madness I ripped up all our alpine strawberries out of a gravelled area, now I’m willing them to reappear. I did try transplanting some into a terracotta strawberry planter, but they failed miserably. We have a few stragglers that are sending out runners in the gravel, so fingers crossed.
All looks like it’s going well for you, I would thoroughly recommend putting the spinach in a curry!!!
I stink at gardening. I think I must be too dippy to folow through with plant care, and they just don’t thrive without daily care.
I enjoyed seeing all your amazing pics and plants, though.
You seem to be a great gardener.