Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Starting the Garden


Steve mentioned he and Lib are getting the garden started. Here several thousand feet lower in elevation and so many degrees lower in latitude, we've already started.

We've got a small garden, just two plots, too-full with tomatoes, banana peppers and basil---the three edibles we four can agree on and eat often. This year I've got a new pet, a patio tomato in a single pot. It's awful cute, but I don't know if it's going to do as well as the Better Boys.


This is about one month's worth of growth in Louisiana. By June the 'maters might be higher than the poles.
The pen in the back is the hawk's weathering yard, which serves as a vine scaffold in the summer.






7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Matt

Beautifully neat and tidy- bordered, mulched and "Apple Pie" order!- just like an English, southern counties, suburban mixed patch, but 2 months on !

Well done

JohnnyUK

Matt Mullenix said...

Johnny, thanks!

One thing I really like about my cheap digital camera is that it obscures the fact that my lawn actually has no grass----it's all weeds, wall to wall. I gave up on the lawn some years ago, but try to compensate by keeping the garden plots tidy.

My wife is skeptical of this solution.

Unknown said...

We are jealous — come to Boston...we may never get our gardens started and we just have green stuff for lawn too. Beautiful set up...

Henry Chappell said...

Matt, you've put me on a major guilt trip. I still don't have my tomatoes planted - they're still on the back porch, outgrowing their little containers.

I've had little success with Better Boys here in Texas, although they were a real favorite in Kentucky. Early Girls do very well here and they taste great, but they're so small. This year, I'm trying a determinate variety called Mountain Pride. Hopefully, they'll do well in self-watering containers. We'll see. And I'll stake some Superfantastics.

Great-looking garden. I'm envious.

Matt Mullenix said...

Hi Karen and Henry. Thanks so much for your nice comments.

Gardening even on this tiny scale is pretty rewarding. Sometimes I look at the entire yard and think, man---I could really produce some tomatoes if I used the whole thing!

Henry I have 2 early girls in and they're doing well. Better boys and big boys do well here but they're often so late that I'm fighting the heat and bugs by the time they're ready.

Last year I let some cherry tomatoes grow up the side of the pen. That was fun. The girls and I ate them like grapes, just grazing while we weeded. But they turn so fast you can't keep up with the birds.

Anonymous said...

I'm going out to our garden and see if the garlic is poking up through the remaining snow! We are deep in mud season here,,reading about your tomatoes is tough for a Wisconsinite.

Maggie

Matt Mullenix said...

Maggie I just discovered the difference between our latitudes is approximately equal to that between Switzerland and Morocco! :-)