First harvest

The first cucumber (Picolino F1 Hybrid) from this year's garden, which is larger and more varied than its predecessor, rests in the palm of my friend, neighbor, and fellow gardener, Ron. Summer has finally come to upstate New York.

Spring comes to upstate New York

Although today was chilly and windy, spring has definitely arrived. Green shoots of grass are starting to appear, and when I took out the recyclables yesterday I was surprised to find half a dozen daffodils peeking through the detritus in the back yard. They were an unexpected and most welcome find.

Wherever you are and whatever your weather's like, I hope that you are having a nice Easter or Passover.

Gardening at night

Bad news on the garden front: I came home this evening to find that several of the stems of my tomato plants had flopped to the ground. I don't know whether to blame the wind, which is picking up (what's left of Hurricane Hanna is heading our way), or the small hands of a neighborhood child or two; given that I had carefully trained the stems to grow around the stakes, I suspect the latter. At any rate, I had to pick several tomatoes early and have likely lost a significant number of tomatoes-to-be. At any rate, the stems are now tied to the stakes like slaves in an eco-friendly S&M dungeon.

Moreover, my dahlias, which hadn't been looking too good before I left, died while I was in San Francisco. Given that they were at the very center of my flowerbed, this was a real problem: my neatly planted yellow cockscombs, which are doing quite well, were nicely framing lots of dead brown stuff.

So . . . I bought a black pearl pepper plant at the farmer's market on Wednesday. I didn't have any more organic garden soil, so I ran out to the garden supply shop last night and picked up some soil and some lavender and purple chrysanthemums to help fill in the holes left by my departed dahlias.

By the time I got home last night, it was much too dark to plant the mums or place the pepper plant in a pot. I got a bit of a late start this evening as well, but I didn't want to wait until tomorrow; Hanna's leftovers should be here by morning. I tried to make the most of the vanishing light, but by the time I finished the sky was a deep blue and the mosquitoes were out in force.

The pepper plant really is lovely. Unfortunately, this harsh flash photo doesn't do it justice. FYI, this plant is chiefly used as an ornamental. However, the seller at the flea market assured me and a Web search confirmed that the peppers are edible--but very hot.

Taking a little time off

So far, I've taken up two new things this year: blogging and gardening. My landlord and landlady are generous, flexible folks, and they let me put in a small flowerbed (conventionally cultivated) and a trio of cherry tomato plants (organically grown) in containers. When I left for San Francisco, all of my tomatoes were still green. However, by the time I got back, several had ripened and several more were well on their way. I picked four of them (including two shown in this picture) just a few moments ago, and popped one into my mouth just before drafting this post. My tomatoes are of the "Sweetie" variety, and my first tomato more than lived up to its name.

Blogging my way through my brief San Francisco vacation and SAA was a lot more challenging than I had anticipated, and I'm going to take a few days off, catch up on everything that happened while I was away, and find a little time to enjoy the sweetness of late summer. I hope you get the chance to do the same.