Thursday, May 15, 2008

Flowers & Spider

Here's a few pics and a video just for fun. First maiden pink flower in my window box.

Pretty chives.

Awesome spider.

Awesome Spider Video! What can I say, I'm a little geeky. Ok, the quality sucks, but I'm new to this. Cut me some slack.

More Peas Please!

My how things grow when you're away taking final exams. I have a pea! I'll have to wait until it gets fatter before I eat it though.

Looks like I'll have more to come too. The pea flowers are a pretty white to contrast with my purple chive flowers in the background. I thought about cutting the chive flowers to use in a salad or to color/flavor some vinegar, but every time I go on the roof they're so pretty amongst all the greenery that I leave them.

Looks like I'll have strawberries soon, as well. They're simply covering my strawberry plants and getting bigger.

One strawberry is even turning red! It's kinda small, but that's ok. It is also demented, like many of the strawberries, it seems. I'm learning =)

My tomato plants are big and bushy! But, you can tell that the Black Krim on the left is kinda messed up because it got squashed a couple weeks ago. Still, it's got tiny flower buds. The Bloody Butcher in the middle has a couple of open yellow flowers soon to be tomatoes. The the Hillbilly on the right has one big flower bud and a few tiny ones. It's supposed to give really large tomatoes. I hope they grow ok in the buckets. I had hoped that my tomatoes would ripen earlier this year than last, since I planted them out earlier. I'm not sure I'll be quite so lucky, because when I planted them they were smaller than when I planted the tomatoes last year. The result is that my tomato plants look really healthy and bigger this year, but didn't come to flower quite as soon. Here's a look back at a year ago tomorrow.

The Tulameen Raspberry in the far corner has just started to leaf out from it's roots. The Lock Ness Blackberry that was all white shoots and crimson tips last time has also put out lots of leaves and the Arapaho Blackberry is looking good, though not growing terribly fast. Of all 4 plants, it was the only potted plant and it's root system was pretty small. The Summit Raspberry has yet to show any growth, but I'm sure it'll be coming strong soon.
My lettuce, arugula, and spinach pots are growing along. Since when does Arugula turn brown? I'm surprised.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Tomato dreaming...

This will one day be my first tomato of the season... Bloody Butcher, proving to be earlier than the others, as described. But, descriptions say ripe in 55 days. I'm never sure what that means. Does it mean 55 days from starting the seeds, or from transplant, or what? If it's from seed start, it better get growing!

Unfortunately, the top to my water reservoir which sits right next to my tomatoes blew up in the wind and came down on top of my Black Krim plant. It's not dead, but the baby leaves at the top got smushed and I think it will take it a bit to recover and start growing new baby leaves again. =( It's been cool lately, and things are growing slowly, but there are tiny green strawberries all over my plants! I'm sooooo excited.... But I won't be doing much up there until after my finals are done, so I'm signing off for a couple of weeks.