Garden Update: An Avalanche of Pictures (ok, like 10)

My swiss chard is going gangbusters. Here's my secret: I have no secret. I bought it at the farmer's market (it looked kind of sad), planted it in the raised bed, and walked away. It's about 4 times as big now, and growing larger all the time. Probably, I should eat some.

Ditto parsley. I love curley parsley, which I think gets no respect. So I planted some, and all this rain has made it happy, happy, happy. In fact, I had to go out and peel it off my blueberry bush. Stay in your spot, parsley!


Lilies, coming along any minute:


And marigolds, doing their sunny job by deterring pests and brightening up the veggie patch. that's a thyme below them, and a dahlia leaf to the left. Did I mention that the dahlias are getting scary-big?


A view down into the tomato cage.


My best blueberry. I treated the soil with sulphur this week, to acidify it. Blueberries love acid.


Peas growing up the trellis. Wait. Scratch that. Peas: tied to the trellis because they're too stupid to figure out what they are genetically programmed to do. There. I feel better, now.

The newest member of our little team, a cherry tomato I bought at the market. I am growing cherry tomatoes from seed, but they're still really small.


Side view of the largest tomato plant. It's huge. Yesterday we experienced torrential rains, and when I went outside in the evening I swear this tomato had grown about 8 inches. Really.

More peas. So pretty. Last night I found blossoms, which means (counting the flowers here) I could have 5 whole snow peas soon! As Graham would say: Wow.

Flowers. So pretty. I love purple. In fact, my dress for Miriam's wedding is pretty close to the color of those petunias.


They live in a big blue IKEA pot with my basil genovese. The basil's doing fine, but not really freaking out the way the other plants are.


And, finally, lettuce. The lettuce I expected to last a couple of weeks is still going strong. Our temps have been popping up to 85 or so now and then but really hovering in the 70s and getting down to the low 60s and 50s at night. Plus, you know, rain. The result: more lettuce!

I've decided to buy lettuce seed and plant my own next spring. And maybe this fall. It's so pretty, and so easy, there's no reason not to do so.