My ‘garden’ such as it is…

I do miss having my garden – not that they wouldn’t be spending the winter at my parents’ house anyway, but it’s sort of sad knowing that they won’t be coming back – there’s just nowhere to put them here! But I was visiting them over the holidays and have pictures for you!

The lemon tree, sporting what may very well be the world’s largest Meyer lemon.

Seriously, that’s HUGE! And it’s taken months and months to get to that point. I think the plant is concentrating all of its energy on that one lemon because there are about four others that are still very small and green and have been since the summer. Bizarre!

And the avocado.

Now that it’s no longer outdoors, it seems to be thriving – it’s got two new big (scary) leaves and they’re looking very healthy and suspicious – no brown spots on the new ones!

Look who’s back!

Josephine saw something today:

What Josephine saw:

This will change your mind!

I know many of you laughed when I said the avocado plant was ominous, but look at it now:

‘What’s so ominous about that, Anne?’ I hear you say. What’s ominous is that it’s growing its own minions!

Look at those hordes! That will be a fearsome sight storming my balcony door one lonely midnight…

Oh, garden, my garden…

Alas, we’ve hit that point in the gardening season when I’ve kind of lost interest and keep thinking ‘They’re plants – they don’t need me! They’ll be fine.’ I’m really only actively looking after two of them now because the tomatoes have succumbed to whatever is responsible for the moldy undersides (the inconsistent watering, apparently), the strawberries are growing in too many directions, and the eggplants have been idling away for months now with no changes.

I’m still taking care of the lemon tree because the first little tiny meyer lemons have appeared! And because I crave Michael Chiarello’s approval…

Apologies for it being blurry, but it was getting dark out there and I didn’t want to risk being caught outside after sunset with the other plant.

The avocado.

Basically, I’m only looking after this one still because I’m afraid that if I don’t, it is likely to murder me in my sleep. I still can’t tell you what I find so unsettling about this plant, but just look at it, with its weird leaves. It’s shifty…

Finally!

One of my sunflowers is actually looking like a sunflower!

Look who’s back!

It’s not the drones – I haven’t seen them since the wasps showed up (don’t worry, I…took care of them) – I think it must be a female since it’s not all black like the drones are and doesn’t have the white spot in its forehead like the drones do.

It was really enjoying the meyer lemon plant – climbing around all the flowers and sticking its head right inside. And look how furry it is! So cute!

Boldly gardening what no one has gardened before…

I opened the door to my balcony this afternoon to go out and water everybody and promptly stopped and said ‘Holy fuck!’

Apparently, I have discovered a new species of cucumber: Stealth cucumber. I’ve been repeatedly checking on this little fellow:

and was concerned that no progress was being made. What made me stop and swear today was the sight of this:

Amazing! I honestly have never seen that cucumber before and have no idea where it came from. In sadder news, I was very excited to see that my tomatoes were finally ripening. Looks good, doesn’t it?

But then I turned it over:

Disaster! Anybody out there know what happened? Did I leave it on the vine too long and it started to rot or is that some kind of tomato infection or something? I’m a little concerned about the meyer lemon tree.

If all those flowers turn into meyer lemons, I fear I will be overwhelmed!

Garden goings-on!

After about a month of pure laziness – shame on you! – the meyer lemon plant is finally doing something… It is starting to flower!

I don’t know why I find the avocado plant so ominous, but I do:

I feel it’s not so much as doing something as…plotting. Know who else is plotting?

The pumpkin plant is making a bid to wrest control of the balcony from the eggplant, who is distracted at the moment, being rather busy making…eggplants!

Off in its own corner, the tomato is blissfully thriving:

My first harvest!

As I was getting ready to have my dinner, I went out to water my garden and discovered that my ear of corn was finally ready to be picked!

Very exciting, no? But once I picked it, I realised ‘Well. Now I’m going to have to eat it.’

It didn’t really complement my leftover Thai food, but it was still yummy, slathered with butter and showered with salt.

I can feel my arteries clogging as I type, but it was worth it. 😉

Look what I found!

A baby cucumber! It’s more spiky than I was expecting, but maybe that’ll go away as it matures. Maybe? And then these flowers on the pumpkin plant appeared, like, overnight:

Very exciting!

Tonight’s post brought to you by the letter ‘C’

A series of captions:

I can has corn?

Yes, I can!

A beauteous calzone.

Oh, the humanity…catastrophe!

Oh, and there are some tomatoes – I figured I should show them before the squirrel comes to collect (that’s a bit of a reach, but it’s my blog, so I’ll suspend disbelief if I feel like it!) his protection produce (I am the alliteration queen!).

A miscellany…

I’m so behind on things I wanted to post about – a movie review, a book review, Next-Door Neighbor’s name (!), and my garden! My garden is up first, though, because things happen so fast – it seems like the moment I take some pictures and upload them to post, something new has changed. So far everyone’s doing fairly well – the corn was slightly damaged by a very windy thunderstorm on Sunday, so we’ll see how he holds up. But at least he has a friend now – seriously, this is one of the cutest things ever!

Say hello to his little friend! Taken before Sunday, so he’s not leaning quite as precariously as he is at the moment. But how darling is that little baby corn?! I didn’t actually plant it, so it must have fallen (?) off of the main stalk. I don’t know if it counts as two since they started as the same one, but, provided the big one hasn’t bit the dust, I expect we’ll (or the squirrel will, at any rate) find out.

The cherry tomatoes seem to think that there’s some sort of race on:

and they’re totally winning. The whole thing is practically covered in flowers just waiting to turn into little green tomatos. The other tomato plant is faring pretty well, still:

He doesn’t quite have the personality that Lazarus did, but I like him anyway. There is one strawberry:

and there are lots of snap pea pods:

I think I’m meant to be eating these fairly soon, but I’m not sure… The eggplant is still attempting to overthrow the balcony, though it’s finally gotten some flowers so maybe it will turn its attention to those rather than balcony domination.

And after a few weeks of freaking me out from its place in a glass on the dining room table, the avocado finally got planted in a fit of ‘I know it’s not doing anything, but I can’t take it staring at me anymore!’ And now it’s doing something.

With friends. So that is all the gardening news to be had, I think. I’ll keep you posted if anything sprouts legs or falls off the balcony. Hopefully some harvesting will be taking place soon!

A little mountain, er, balcony greenery…

I thought it was time for a garden update! After a terrific thunderstorm this morning, I assumed everybody would be quite droopy and waterlogged, but quite the opposite – everyone seems to have grown tremendously. I happened to take some photos about a week ago (the 28th, to be specific) and then never got around to posting them so you can see how fast some things are growing. The snap peas and cucumber aren’t as impressive as the others – I found the first snap pea flower just this afternoon and the cucumber leaves are all soft and velevety, but they don’t look as interesting.

The strawberries look about the same right now – just a few more flowers.

So far the tomatoes are looking good and the squirrel has not been for a visit yet.

The herbs have become fairly overgrown. If I had the room, I’d thin them out a bit, but the small balcony means that (not unlike the city) they’re just going to have to lump it.

I staked the sunflower this afternoon with my trusty makeshift stake (translation: a knitting needle). And as you can see, the other two I planted have already started to come up!

The pumpkins are flourishing.

And the eggplant is positively prehistoric.

The garden is complete!

Look who also showed up yesterday!

Alas, it is not the ailing lemon plant… It’s a new lemon plant! A Meyer lemon plant! It is very exciting. I will be spending the day being a good garden owner and reading up about how to take care of all my plants. After I watch Doctor Who, of course. 😉

Come and get it!

It was a beautiful, sunny day today (well, for most of the day today – it’s raining and chilly now), so I decided to get planting! Remember my seed experiment? Well, all that’s left is one of the sunflowers, so planting also entailed a trip to the plant nursery.

Or two trips.

Or, if I’m honest, even three trips.

But it looks very nice at the moment. We’ll see how long it lasts before the squirrel comes for some nibblies.

I’m very excited about the corn, mostly for its comic potential. I live on the third floor of an apartment building, so I’m hoping that, once it gets tall enough, people will drive by, look up, and say ‘Is that…corn?’

And that’s actually a hanging basket of flowers there in the corner, but it’s filling the lemon plant’s empty spot until it comes back again.

Did I tell you what happened with the lemon plant? I don’t think I did! Well, it went to winter at my parent’s house and, long story short, it’s dying now. Or trying to, anyway. It got these big, shiny, unsettling leaves on it and the man at the garden shop said ‘Oh, that’s what they do right before they die,’ but reports from my mom are that it suddenly has a few new regular leaves now. So it’s lingering.

But we’re going to buy a new one once the shop gets them in and then I’ll hang up that hanging basket…

The bees were out while I was planting these with my mom and they really are bizarre. It’s like they hover around going ‘Whatcha doin’?’ ‘Whatcha lookin’ at?’ ‘Can I see?’ It is very odd behavior for a bee, I feel. But there you have it So…

Do your worst, squirrel and three bees!