7.22.2009

Gardening Off the Compound

Julie, Julie, gardener Julie, how does your garden grow?
With an abundance of zucchini, reluctant tomatoes,
and marigolds all in a row.


Remember this? It was my real, in the ground front-yard garden from last year. Unfortunately, it didn't make a reappearance this year. Conservative Boy decided it would be a good idea to sprinkle grass seed over it this spring before I planted. And the grass came up so nicely (it was by far the best patch of grass in our front yard), that I was convinced by a number of people that I should leave it alone.

To make up for the loss of the front-yard garden, Conservative Mom kindly offered me a patch of earth in their big, beautiful backyard in which to grow some plants. So I set off down the street, armed with my spade and my gardening gloves, and planted away.


Three tomato plants (all different varieties, including a couple of heirlooms), a red pepper, an eggplant, a green pepper, zucchini, garlic (can't see that), and plenty of marigolds to fend off the pests. Not a bad little spot, eh?


Things started off slowly, to say the least. I got concerned that nothing was going to grow because the big trees around the garden made things shadier than we realized at first.


But then, slowly, the eggplant (which got lopped off by a spring storm, to make matters worse) started to grow a bit taller. And the zucchini started to take over.


Oh boy, has it ever taken over. I'm afraid one of the pepper plants may be out of luck this year because its big, flashy neighbor zucchini is going to steal the show.


The tomato plants have really picked up in the last couple of weeks too and are taking over the fence next to them. Still, there aren't many tomatoes to show for all that growing, except for these beauties on the middle plant.


I hear the reluctant tomatoes are a common occurrence in town this year, though. So it's not just me. I'm remaining cautiously optimistic that they'll come around sometime soon.

And if they don't? I'll be headed to the farmer's market a lot more frequently to snag tomatoes. Conservative Boy is itchin' for a BLT.

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