Thursday, June 25, 2009

bean bed


bean bed, originally uploaded by Margo and George.

at least the beans are tolerating all the rain... so far.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A return to the humble container garden

So, as apparently the rest of the country endures a heat wave, my part of the country has had a month straight of rain. No, seriously: I can count the days of non-rain (note that I do not say 'sun!') on one hand. So, in desperation, after the weeks straight of rain, mist, and outright pelting downpours, I'm giving myself a backup container garden. We'll see... but I'm hoping the pots will at least be above the flood and drain away a little of all the rain. I've already broken out the little white fairy lights in order to give them a boost of sunshine in spite of rainy days (hooray for outdoor xmas lights from the local maulgreens...)

So, the big bag up in the corner isn't mine - it simply appeared mysteriously one day. The mingy air conditioner is mine (not by choice; it was there when I moved in, and you can see it's installed into the wall from the days when people that that was a great idea). From the left is a tiny pot of cat-grass re-growing after himself chewed it down; then some beans (tricolor variety pack of goodness); then some radicchio, and in the same pot in case they don't sprout, a few radish seeds; then a batch of spinach; then in the lower green container I put some swiss chard (a colored variety pack); in the larger pot are "carnival colors" carrots, and in the difficult-to-see clear plastic container a hopeful planting of hot peppers. over to the right in the blue container are some rosemary, pineapple mint and thai basil; I planted some nasturtium seeds just to see if they'll fill out the pot. In the green pot above is a volunteer cucumber from the garden. In the 'strawberry pot' is a combination of basil and some chioggia beet seeds that I'm hoping will be friends.

And now, I have to go back to praying for a moderate amount of sunshine. Just a little from time to time to keep the plants from rotting, y'know?

Friday, June 12, 2009

a nestful of cute


a nestful, originally uploaded by Margo and George.

Last weekend I got a wonderful surprise outside my window - literally a few feet outside my window, hidden in the upper branches of a large rhododendron shrub: a nestful of baby robins was fledging, and were being encouraged out of the nest by the parent robins. Terribly cute, and funny - one by one they leaped out to land on a too-thin branch, wobbled and fluttered, and plopped to the ground before fluttering their way upward into a more stable branch, to catch their breath I suppose.