I thought for sure the basil was a goner. Last Thursday was only supposed to have an overnight low of 5C. Now, I've known the weatherman to be wrong before, so why I trusted him on this occasion I'm not sure. At any rate, Friday morning I awoke to brown-edged, droopy basil and tomatoes.
I didn't get the chance to snap a photo, but it looked dead. Like six feet under, crossing the river Styx kind of dead. I brought it and the tomatoes inside and then left town to go visit my friends in Lethbridge.
While I was gone Kyle did a very good job taking care of everything. The basil made a miraculous comeback and Kyle got to eat all the frost-bit leaves before they fell off. A win-win really. The tomatoes have lost a few leaves, but have also survived the frosting intact. In fact I just had a handfull of cherry tomatoes last night, and a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with slices of our "Supersonic" variety. Yum. I could eat cherry tomatoes like those every day of my life.
The lettuce and cucumbers that Kyle sowed a week or so ago are starting to poke up. Great timing, considering they are forcasting SNOW tonight. Sigh. Such is the life of a Calgary gardener.
I also was given some chive plants from my friends Cheryl and Lorne in Lethbridge. They have been looking incredibly wilty since the transplant (might have had something to do with the two hour drive back to Calgary they had to endure), but I think they might be almost over the transplant stress -- today they were looking decidedly more upright.
Keep your fingers crossed that everything survives the snow tonight!
May 27, 2010
May 20, 2010
Long time comin'
Okay, I freely admit I am a horrible blogger -- I come up with all sorts of things I need to talk about on my blog, but never seem to get down to actually doing it. Bah.
I suppose I will start where I left off last time, with my dying lettuce and beans. Well, they still aren't dead. While plants don't flourish under my care I seem to be able to keep them hanging on to the lowest ebb of life. Which is what my beans and lettuce have been doing for almost a month.
However, the good news is that I'm glad I didn't just rip them out and start again because there are signs of hope. While pretty much every single leaf on the beans died off and I was sure they were dead, now a whole new set of leaves is coming in, and this morning I even counted four flowers! As for my lettuce, after completely hacking it back to virtually nil, the two clumps left have regrown . In fact, I was even able to have some fresh lettuce for my sandwich today. I hope these new leaves are hardy because Buster has decided the empty space beside the lettuce is "kitty-sized" and I have caught him curled up in there.
What I have learned is that my pots are NOT big enough. They seemed enormous when I planted my tiny seedlings in them, but I have had to thin my peas, dill, and beans as they began crowding each other in the, now far-too-small, pots. Thinning is not something I am good at, as you may have guessed from my reticence to dig up my dying beans. Also, Kyle had to be the one to prune our ficus, which really needed it but I couldn't bring myself to start chopping off perfectly good branches. I'm just not good at the philosophy of sacrificing one for the good of the many. But I did do the thinning, and hopefully the remaining plants will thank me!
We have been using the herbs in all sorts of recipies, from roasted potatoes to fish to Thai curries. The vegetables, on the other hand, I would rather eat straight off the plant, especially our crisp, juicy, "oh my GOD those are good" snow peas. My love of peas has reemerged thanks to those peas -- for a while I was swindled into thinking those limp, thin, sorry excuses for peas you find at the grocery store were what peas were like. Our tomatoes are also pretty good, though I find our large "supersonic" variety a little grainy.
Finally, some before and after photos. The first photo was taken March 27, the second, May 12. What a difference! And if you are interested, you can read my recent article in Fast Forward on apartment gardening.
I suppose I will start where I left off last time, with my dying lettuce and beans. Well, they still aren't dead. While plants don't flourish under my care I seem to be able to keep them hanging on to the lowest ebb of life. Which is what my beans and lettuce have been doing for almost a month.
However, the good news is that I'm glad I didn't just rip them out and start again because there are signs of hope. While pretty much every single leaf on the beans died off and I was sure they were dead, now a whole new set of leaves is coming in, and this morning I even counted four flowers! As for my lettuce, after completely hacking it back to virtually nil, the two clumps left have regrown . In fact, I was even able to have some fresh lettuce for my sandwich today. I hope these new leaves are hardy because Buster has decided the empty space beside the lettuce is "kitty-sized" and I have caught him curled up in there.
What I have learned is that my pots are NOT big enough. They seemed enormous when I planted my tiny seedlings in them, but I have had to thin my peas, dill, and beans as they began crowding each other in the, now far-too-small, pots. Thinning is not something I am good at, as you may have guessed from my reticence to dig up my dying beans. Also, Kyle had to be the one to prune our ficus, which really needed it but I couldn't bring myself to start chopping off perfectly good branches. I'm just not good at the philosophy of sacrificing one for the good of the many. But I did do the thinning, and hopefully the remaining plants will thank me!
We have been using the herbs in all sorts of recipies, from roasted potatoes to fish to Thai curries. The vegetables, on the other hand, I would rather eat straight off the plant, especially our crisp, juicy, "oh my GOD those are good" snow peas. My love of peas has reemerged thanks to those peas -- for a while I was swindled into thinking those limp, thin, sorry excuses for peas you find at the grocery store were what peas were like. Our tomatoes are also pretty good, though I find our large "supersonic" variety a little grainy.
Finally, some before and after photos. The first photo was taken March 27, the second, May 12. What a difference! And if you are interested, you can read my recent article in Fast Forward on apartment gardening.
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