high and low

today was not a good day in the life of my garden

i returned home from work to find that a great number of my plants had been violated by some animal looking for a snack.


who would have thought that the sight of my pea/tomato/parsley/zucchini and squash plants with missing limbs would actually leave me with an aching in the pit of my stomach.










i guess you could say i've grown attached to my garden.













on a positive note, one of the pepper plants showed its first blossom and one of the tomato plants revealed a small green tomato which i hope to one day eat

growth spurt

i went out of town for the weekend and when i returned i was excited to see the peas, zucchini and squash all nearly double in the span of just two days.

i also found that there were nearly as many young maple trees as there were young carrots

over the weekend i got to take a look at the garden that my friend brendan had planted at his mother's house. now, brendan is pretty knowledgable when it comes to growing vegetables and he had done a much better job spacing the vegetables in his garden.

my fear is that i tried to cram too many plants in too small of an area.

the onions are here the onions are here

just as the folks at burpee had said

the onions sprouted after ten days

i failed to space the seeds very well

so i'm sure i'll have to thin out the rows once the plants are large enough

we'll see

victory garden

today i did a little research

at least what passes for research in 2008... a lone wikipedia search

and i read a little bit about victory gardens

citizens in the u.s, canada and the u.k were strongly encouraged to plant vegetable gardens during the first two world wars as a way of reducing the cost of vegetables which were purchased to feed overseas troops among other reasons.

supposedly some 40% of all vegetables consumed in the u.s. during this time were grown in simple backyard, windowsill and rooftop vegetable gardens.

it's nice to think that there was a time when folks in this country could rally together and make changes/sacrifices in their daily lives for the benefit of the whole.

May 26th

fifteen days ago i planted several seeds

the expected germination period of the zucchini, squash and peas were 10-14 days.

i watered the garden daily and spent a good amount of time trying to coax the plants out of the ground

i also purchased some plants that were already started

tomatoes, peppers and cantaloupes

as well as parsley, basil and peppermint

the following weekend i planted carrot and scallion seeds in the remaining free space in the garden

there were no signs of life for about 12 days

but then this weekend...sure enough, up they came. just as the packages had promised.

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welcome

ok.
somehow you found your way to my blog
perhaps accidentaly, perhaps not

this is my first attempt at an actual blog
so bare with me

the focus of this blog will be the backyard vegetable garden that i planted