What's Happening In The Garden?

Oh, where to begin?

It rained today, off and on, but mostly on- thanks, I am sure, to my to-do list involving almost entirely outdoor things. I did lime the garden bed out back though. And continued preparing the garlic bed. My garlic should arrive any time now. Hopefully Monday. I am feeling very behind. But I am plugging away nonetheless. What else is there to do as a gardener?

In the sunroom garden things are coming along nicely. The banana tree is putting out new leaves at an impressive rate. The celery forest is, well, just that. My spinach is coming up nicely. It has nearly all germinated and every time I check in on it I am surprised by the appearance of a few more stragglers. The yellow pepper plant I brought in from the patio seems to be much happier inside. It was looking a little sorry when I brought it in and repotted it. But it is now putting out all kinds of new growth that looks great. If it decides to flower too we'll be in business!

The bush beans are beginning to flower. Some of the plants are still somewhat crippled by whatever nasty they developed immediately upon arrival- but most of them seem intent upon performing their duties. One of them I pulled early on, and another needs to go. It has pretty much called it quits. But the remaining four continue to sally forth, and one of those four appears almost entirely free of whatever the others got. It is, however, also the last to start putting out flowers. Here's a picture of one of the sick, but recovering/hanging on ones.

The radishes that survived the kitten attack are bent but not broken. I am really hoping they will pull through. They continue to produce greens, so I think that's a good sign there. I will sow more in the spot left when I pull the other bean plant.

The Amish paste tomatoes flowered just after arrival and then decided they wanted to grow big instead. At first I thought maybe I had a nitrogen imbalance. But I did a little research and found that tomato flowering is greatly affected by temperature. I also read conflicting opinions about the importance of light with tomatoes. I think the sunroom was cooling off too much at night. I think I've got that corrected now- at least until it gets really cold. And, to be on the safe side, I have added supplemental light during the earlier and later hours. And it looks like these efforts may be working. I see evidence of new flowers forming. Woo hoo! Meanwhile, the cherry tomatoes are just barely beginning to change color.

One of the reasons I love gardening so much is because every time I turn around in the garden, something new amazes me. In the rest of life not too much surprises me. But in the garden I feel like I'm in a perpetual wonderland. Today while I was out liming, I noticed that the stub of the one eggplant I planted this year and had mowed down a couple weeks ago has put out new growth. With a vengeance. I may pot it up and bring it in to see what it can do. And I'll bring in some parsley too. It's looking really good right now and we'll use it all winter.

Also, I tried to get a picture of the potato that is sprouting for Melinda, but something is not right with my camera. I can't zoom in on things I'm already close to. I don't know what happened. Used to be able to; can't now. One of these days when I don't have a million other things to do I will read the book and try to figure out whats wrong. But until then, you'll just have to take my word for it.