Green Reaper No More

For those of you anxiously awaiting an update on the garden, here it is!  The tomatoes are a-reddening and the cucumbers are in blossom.  We truly live in exciting times.

We are rolling out a new feature here on the garden update called “scale,” which should hopefully give you an idea of the actual dimensions of the produce we’re talking about.  Unfortunately, we had a little trouble settling on the right stand-in item for the job.  The dog was not feeling especially cooperative, so that idea was a bust.  We settled on Domokun primarily because he is inanimate and a lot less likely to trample tender shoots and/or eat fledgling fruit.  Of course, you may not be familiar with Domokun and his dimensions, so for present purposes we’ll all just agree that he is approximately 7 inches tall (more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domo-kun).

And away we go.

Unfortunately, burgeoning produce is not the only thing flourishing in the garden; there appear to be slugs and other critters that enjoy binging on the fruits of my labors.  Also, the weeds seem to be of some super virulent strain that grows like gangbusters.  But I suppose that gives me something to do with my time.

Maybe we need a garden gnome. 

Or several.

Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

For better or for worse, I now have a rooftop garden in my care.  Provided I can keep its inhabitants leafy and green, we should be up to our elbows in tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces and herbs this summer.  As a career plant killer, I’m hoping for the best, but trying to be realistic.  I figure if we eek out one tomato, it’s an unqualified success.  For those of you who are interested, the full inventory of produce includes romaine, red leaf and butter lettuces, arugula, basil, thyme, dill, rosemary, watercress, sage, parsley and jalapenos.  Not too shabby.

The current photos are not the most impressive, but will serve as useful benchmarks when we’ve got towering tomatoes, leaping lettuces and peerless parsley.  We already have chives, thyme and rosemary in serviceable quantities, but it will be a couple weeks more before a larger harvest.  I can’t wait!

While I can’t pretend to be the architect behind the garden, I did lend a hand as our landlady, Madeleine, planted the seedlings, installed the sprinkler system and mulched the garden.  I will take credit for fertilizing the lot with an awful “fish emulsion” that looks and smells as unappetizing as it sounds.  Of course, I also have to take the credit for leaving the sprinklers on for three hours the other night and drowning half the arugula.  Here’s hoping the remaining arugula can survive my “tough love” technique.