Tuesday, July 28, 2009

We picked that tomato!

(if you're new to the blog---WELCOME!...and start from the bottom of the post)
Chopin (on a cassette tape!) accompanied our first bites into ripe tomatoes!

-OUS!
-LICI-

SO DE-

LET'S EAT IT NOW!


RIPE!

Not ripe yet.



We had to race this slug to pick our tomato! We watched as this little guy did some tight rope crawling-acrobats to get to the wooden post. We're still unclear if he's a good thing for the garden or not. Any ideas?

Directing Growth

Our tomato plants have quickly out grown the early supports (of dead sticks from the bushes in the background) that we had propped them up with. Their arms are now like new plants themselvels and they've begun to hang over with the weight of the early tomatoes. So with the wood left out by our neighbors and a dollar's worth of string from Chinatown, we consructed what might just be the next genergation of trellises: the trellis-web. The structure will help guide the plants from growing on to one another, but they're not confined to a wooden post.


This was also the night that the policemen were out in droves...putting up no parking signs. The signs were placed in what seemed to be a 3 block radius of our house between 8:30 and 9:30 that evening. The parking regulations were for the following day from 6am until 2pm, or else your car would be towed. 1)apparently cars were towed, even though there was very little warning of the regulation and 2) it was for a plaque ceremony for a police officer who had been shot and killed a block away in 1910. 1910!! It seems like it was a bit late coming. That was the neighborhood drama (as people were walking to their houses from the cars they had to park 5 blocks away, they told us of their woes) as we were putting up our own regulations for the plants in our garden.


An interested passerby, Washington, was kind enough to take our photo with the garden and our trellis!








We saw the trellis potential of everything we passed by that night.

Our loot! (including baskets full of law school and med school books that were on the verge of being tossed).

When a garden begins to GROW GROW GROW...it's hard to keep up!

(Once again, start from the bottom of the post to follow chronologically)


Our garden was getting a bit out of hand. Too many branches going every which way, covering up other plants and tomatoes lying on the ground! We did some West Philly shopping and found some promising trellising material


Collards part two!


The promise of a squash!




Sandra and the tomato in one shot! We were not expecting it to be ready that day! It turned red while we were at work.

Our CUCUMBER! It is almost ready to be eaten--we're just giving it some extra time to plump up a bit more. I'm still a bit sad that it isn't a zucchini, but all in due time.


Is that your leaf or mine? Everything in our garden has grown so much that the leaves and vines have become intermingled. We have had to guide the squash away from one another--they grow so fast!

BELL PEPPER! This specimen has grown incredibly fast from a dime, to a nickle, to a quarter, to a silver dollar, and is now getting close to picking-size!

We though that we planted zucchini plants...but from the sizse of these blossoms and the resulting vegetable they are, in fact, cucumbers.

Our first batch of (red) tomatoes peak through the massive branches that have developed! What a gem!