In The Garden...

The garden, my garden, my personal little jungle, has been a source of great solace for me this summer. With all the bad news we hear on a daily basis, I am so blessed to be able to go outside, and garden. I have tilled the soil and fertilized, I have planted many Roma and Cherry tomatoes, the most aromatic Greek oregano, I have watered and waited impatiently for everything to start to grow. I have put in bamboo stakes, I have gently/firmly tied the growing vines with hemp string (many levels of tying), I have given them plant food. I have lovingly tended to the garden everyday that I have been home. It is just within the past week that I have picked eaten my very first Roma tomato and the very sweet Cherry's are also being plucked off the vine...already making an appearance in some tomato sauce. I have cut, tied, hung and dried a couple of bouquets of the oregano, which I added to what was left of last years' haul. Right now, it is pouring rain outside, and I am grateful for all that water, as I look from my window at the garden, my garden....

'Awake, north wind,

and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden

and taste its choice fruits.'

Song of Solomon 4:16

Wordless Wednesday

Roma and cherry tomatoes popping!!

p.s.

The tomatoes are popping...looking like olives!

How pretty are these little ones???

Week #2 in the Garden!!!

It has only been 2 weeks and the garden has really changed!! I've already been putting in stakes to hold up the tomato plants, the Greek oregano is filling in, but I find I am fighting off the beetles, who love to eat the basil. I've put coffee grounds around each plant along w/ some chopped garlic...apparently, they don't like either, so I'll see if it works.

The potted flowers on the stoop in front of the house are so pretty. I have to remind myself, that it is still May/June, and that the foliage will be filling out ALOT over the next couple of months. (Next time, I'll have some pictures of the window boxes.) I put the 'red' mulch in the front of the house and it has made a huge difference in the appearance giving it a 'finished' look and the 'red' is a wonderful addition to our color scheme. I see a huge difference in the newer hostas from all the moisture the mulch provides.

Check out These Babies....

Here is my first photo of the cherry tomatoes. First photo, yes, but we have been eating them for a couple of weeks now. However, with this July being recorded as the rainiest in 100 years, we have been hit with a fungus called 'blight'. It sounds very ominous, because it is. ' A strain of the fungus that caused the Irish potato famine of the 1840's is on the loose in Rhode Island and is damaging potato and tomato crops,' as reported in the Providence Journal. Unfortunately, my tomatoes have been hit with 'the blight', and daily, I have been cutting back more and more of the molded leaves. It feels like a losing battle, even though the tomatoes are still growing and flowering. It is the leaves which carry the mold. The basil, oregano and parsley are fine. I am sitting here looking at some threatening clouds rolling in. Ahhhh, the learning curve of a City girl in the suburbs and her victory garden. I'll keep you posted, as they say!!!