Saturday, July 17, 2010

Weedy July, Ground Cherries!

Life didn't used to be so busy =) Now, it's a regular thing to go a month without visiting my garden! Sad! But, thank goodness for automatic watering systems. From far away, the garden looks green and growing!
Close up, though, it's clear that a LOT of the green is grassy weeds. But, the good thing is that most other things are growing despite the weeds, including all of my berry plants! Not a single one died from the drought last time! Here, you can barely make out the basil among the tomatoes and the grass. Grass weeds are the bane of my garden's existence...
But, this tomato plant managed to grow mostly weed free. Pale tomatoes... I wonder what color they'll end up? The options are pink, red and blackish. Maybe these will be pink! They look too pale to be the red ones.
But this plant is also with pale tomatoes! 9 of them, to be exact =)
Strange things have also been growing in the garden. Apparently after a few years of runners and seeds or whatever goes on with the strawberries, they start going feral. Tiny strawberries in the middle of July! I didn't eat this one, but maybe I'll try it tomorrow.
Blueberries in July, too! I did eat this slightly damaged blueberry, the first I've ever tasted from my garden. And let me tell you, it was good...
More to come! I wonder if they are supposed to take this long to ripen.
And remember that strange volunteer I posted about last? Well, it looks like a little tomatillo plant! How odd! Still no idea where it came from. But, some of the husks fell down, meaning their fruit are ripe.
Cool!
And inside, a yellow fruit! Kind of like a tomato or cherry. When I came down to google, I decided it might be a ground cherry. One has to be careful with nightshade plants as some are poisonous. I ate this one though, and it was good and I'm not dead yet. Not even vomiting.
I'll won't eat them all at once though, because I'm a little nervous...
Also growing well, my squash and zucchini! The watermelons didn't make it and their pots are full of grass weeds, but these look like they're doing fine.
My first yellow straightneck squash. I think the timing is just about perfect as the seed packets usually say 45 days.
My first zucchini ever! I hope it grows nicely =) I want some yellow and green stir fry.
Gardening is good for the soul. I didn't finish cleaning out all the weeds today. Didn't want to get too tired in the heat. I'll do the other half tomorrow and maybe figure out what to plant in the several empty buckets I have at the moment.

5 comments:

adlr said...

Hello! I'm your garden gnome planting cherries in your garden!

Laura said...

Why, thank you, friendly gnome! I appreciate your generosity!

meemsnyc said...

A volunteer, tomatillo! Nice!

christinemcgrath said...

Wow, What a fantastic site. I just recently scored 800sqr feet of nyc roof top and am also planting a garden next spring and am doing some research on how to approach it. Your site offers wonderful insight and usefull tips. Thanks!

Laura said...

Thanks for the support, Christine. And good luck with your roof top garden!!