Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Heartbreak in the garden

I came home today to find this, an empty pot and an entire pepper plant broken completely off at soil level, wilted on the ground in the bushes next to the porch.



It was totally fine this morning; healthy with a thick stem and full of buds and little peppers. Did an undetected storm somehow rip through while I was at work? Did the chipmunks who have been destroying my beans and peas finally decide to gang up and go for something big?



I'm not sure it can be saved, but I'm not ready to give up. So I put it in a small trash bin filled with a couple inches of water for now. I've had success re-rooting broken pieces of tomato plants before, but not peppers. I had two small pepper plants broken by wind earlier in the season and haven't been able to re-root them. Time to do some more research. I hope there's a way to save it, or at least part of it.



Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy 4th of July! (A full porch, hanging baskets, and a tomato growth chart)

Happy Independence Day! I don't have fireworks, but I've got the stars and stripes waving on the porch.



The porch garden is pretty full, though I'm always thinking about adding more.



I did decide I needed to add some flowers this year and it seemed that *up* was the only way to go, so I added some new plant hangers to the porch columns.



The tomato plants really take off once the weather heats up, so I started a tomato "growth chart" last week, using a permanent marker to mark the height of the plant on the stake. Can't believe how much they've grown in less than a week. I just marked a line and the date, but maybe I'll add measurements too. This would be a cute idea for children's garden. Would be fun for kids to mark the lines and watch it grow!