This is the garden I have always dreamed of having. So excited that my efforts last year are paying off this year.

Next week … a look at the veggies.

Say hello to my little friend …

Oh, yes, we finally have pumpkins. Quite a few in fact. So I am cautiously (after this season of rain, rain, rain, blight, heat, heat, heat, who wouldn’t be?) optimistic that we may actually get to harvest some pumpkins this season. Here’s to hoping.

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Earlier this summer, rain punctuated each day. We were in a state of constant gray, which was anything but fun. These past few weeks have been quite the opposite — A string of hot, unyielding humidity and anything by rain. The plants have been drooping and sagging under the heat of the sun. It’s like you can never win. (Above: My basil bolted a few weeks ago … I don’t think it’s coming back this year.)

The thing about gardening is that it takes a tremendous amount of patience … I am not the most patient of people. But I have waited and waited for this red cabbage to grow big enough to eat … it’s finally there.

And the pumpkins? Well, there is no stopping them. Let’s just hope they grow … actual pumpkins.

To my wonderful readers — Sorry I am late with this week’s Fertile Fridays post! I was so busy with deadlines, that I had to set this aside for a day … now, onto the update.

I have probably mentioned before that my cousins are farmers and operate an organic farm. I buy a lot of our veggies from them. But I am so devastated to say that this year, they will not have any tomatoes. At all. If you haven’t heard, late blight has struck with a vengeance here in Connecticut, canceling an heirloom tomato fest and just about ruining the whole season. And unfortunately, my tomatoes have fallen victim too. It’s with a heavy heart that I have to pull the plants and dispose of them (plants with late blight are not recommended for composting).

I am so sad to see them go. But that said, I learned two valuable lessons this year: first, I am totally capable of successfully growing crops. If it weren’t for my lack of a fence and the weather conditions that allowed the late blight to develop and spread, I would be reaping the benefits of these lovely plants now. So next year, I am sure that my work will pay off. Onward and upward … and don’t worry, I still have plenty to write about here, so Fertile Fridays is far from over.

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Oh my. Apparently, the  pumpkins really like the sunshine and occasionally bouts of heavy rain. In the past week, the leaves have gone from what I thought was a good size to enormous and they have extended vine fingers into my lawn … with curly-ques that are wrapping around whatever they can reach. It’s sort of like Little Shop of Horrors, without the creepy talking plant.

Meanwhile, I picked a handful of ripe sungold tomatoes today and saw several more that will ripen in a few days time. The New Girls are stubbornly green still. So much for being an “early” tomato.
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That is a palmful of some blissfully juicy, sweet-tart wild blackberries. So tasty.

Last week, I noticed something red in a bush along my driveway while pulling out to go to the store. I didn’t stop at the time, and I mentally wrote it off as some inedible red berries like the perfectly round and frosty-exterior ones I used to squash between my fingers growing up.

Then, while I was walking up the driveway to get the mail yesterday, the spots of red caught my eye again. Except this time, I had the wherewithal to actually take a closer look. Those red berries that I wrote off? Turns out, they were not-yet-ripe blackberries. Wild blackberries. Read the rest of this entry…

It felt like rain threatened to come all day. The grey clouds hung around like unwanted party guests who don’t know when to leave. And just when it was clear that they overstayed their welcome, it rained. In fact, it’s still raining now.

No matter. I have something exciting to show you.
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As I sat down to write this, I learned that Walter Cronkite has died. Cronkite was an amazing journalist and newsman who inspired many young people to research harder, write better and dig to present the public with the clearest picture of the news they could. Tonight’s post is wordless, as it’s the closest to a moment of silence that a blogger can give. May he rest in peace.

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Growing food at home is hard. Really hard. And not in the way I expected it to be. I expected it to be challenging to get plants to grow strong enough to grow up and develop into good. That was the easy part, as it turns out. The hard part? Keeping the critters away from them! Last week it was slugs. This week? Deer. One of my tomato plants shrunk more than I care to think about at the mouths and hooves of deer. I was and am devastated, but we are doing the best we can to move forward.

And by moving forward, I mean erecting rudimentary fencing. Oh yes, that black monstrosity is my temporary barrier to keep deer out and plants in. We need a more permanent solution, but I am afraid it’s just not in the budget yet. Read the rest of this entry…

For the better part of June, and too much of May, we had a little problem: rain. It has rained almost every day for a month. Seriously. Sure, we had a good day here and there, but it’s been a crazy wet season. And what comes with the overabundance of wetness? As my cousin, Farmer Jim, told me recently: slugs. And boy, when I went to take these photos yesterday, did I see what he meant. There were slugs all over my cabbage. It took a good 10 minutes to get them all off of my plants.

I hate slugs. So I Facebooked my frustration and a friend of mine immediately offered a solution: place a bowl of beer under the plants and the slugs will naturally be attracted … and then they won’t be a problem to anything any longer. That sure beats the salt method I was threatening them with. So, I am going to try this ingenious slug removal technique. I’ll report back next Friday on the success of it.

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