Are you serious? 3-4 feet across? Will a tomato cage be enough to contain it? (Abby generously picked me up a plant from the market too.) Mine already has a flower, which opened up in the car on the way home.

Holy merde, 3-4 feet indeed.

Yes it was I who suggested chile verde, and I'm glad you reminded me of it.

Now here's a question for all the gardeners: let's talk fertilizer. I got some Neptune's Harvest last summer and I can't say that I'm wowed by the results. The flies definitely like the fertilizer (the come swooping in after I use it) but my plants definitely don't seem to feel the love.

If it helps, on my property, we grew them one year and we will now have them for life. They show up in the darndest places. I never fertilize and they only get runoff from the irrigation. These taste the best. I think they like it a little rough (just like me!). it makes them sweeter. I'd fertilize once and then leave them alone except a llittle water since they're in a pot.

I had a sweet variety that I eneded up canning. The process lost all it's sweetness but my canned tomatillos were so much better than the commercial canned that I was glad I did it, although I've never done it again.

Edited to add: If you have the room, let them sprawl. Some farmers insist on it.

play music for it and get a friend to give it Reiki. My friend gave a plant Reiki and swore up and down that it grew 4 inches overnight. He then gave me Reiki but I didn't grow at all . Then again, I'm not a believer.

I should make it clear that I am "gardening" on a roof in New York City, so yeah unfortunately my soil isn't the best it could be. I'll try using a higher concentration of the Neptune and see what happens.

"Let em sprawl?" Again, I must ask my tomato cage question. Will that keep it from eating my neighbors? I will be potting up my little guy in a big container on the patio.

And I love Miracle Grow. I know I know it's not organic, but MAN does it work! So much so that I've been tempted to buy their potting soil as well for my herb containers and for my tomatoes.

Oh boy. I'm really behind this year.

It's not even the giant size I'm going for. The whole plants look bigger, healthier, greener. Just like the commercial says.

my peonies are in bloom and i'm very happy

i also have an order coming from dutchbulbs.com (thanks gg for mentioning that site) this afternoon, and my mom is bringing me more plants this weekend.

does anyone here prune their tomatoes? a farmer friend of mine said that where 3 branches of a tomato are forming you should nip the middle one off.

This heat is godawful but at least my tomatillos are happily flowering away. I'm going to have to provide support very soon.

My arugula is zooming past the baby stage and right into adulthood at an alarming pace, I can't keep up!

can somebody help me to identify those lovely imposters in my backyard?
(i think i know their names in russian but not sure about the english equivalent)



and
.

btw, the naked tree in the background is a crabapple that i have no heart to pull out - it produces quite an amount of apples for birds to feast over the winter

The first is a very invasive plant. I don't know its name; I want to say euclyaptus but I know that is wrong.

The second is honeysuckle--also invasive.

My father the avid and talented gardner/plant enthusiast would recommend to tear down.

jersey - these trees are all over here and have (actually just had) white fragrant flowers.

If honeysuckle is invasive, I wish it would cover my house. I love it.

You can actually suck the honey out of the flowers--or at least I used to as a child. It grows all over the south. But trust me it will engorf your shr--shru-shrubbery!

I think the first is an ailanthus -- the tree in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," which is invasive. Also known as Tree of Heaven. It's hard to make out the shape of the the leaflets.

Okay, so here's the whole garden (apologies for whacky photo):

Pretty much everything's planted now, except for some “from seed” things: bok choy, broccoli raab, second crop beets & carrots, maybe more fennel.

I mentioned elsewhere that the garden took a beating in Monday's hailstorm – I watched helplessly from the deck while all those poor babies were battered by hailstones as big as an inch across, for 10 minutes or more. Miraculously, there was very little stem breakage; the damage is largely confined to horribly tattered leaves (they look as though they'd been attacked my a mad cat). I'm sure everything will be just fine. In fact, the plants will probably be much stronger for it.

A local organic farmer maintains that plants grown under a certain amount of stress – as any oragnically grown plants are – produce much more flavorful fruit and vegetables. I think he's absolutely right. He's actually a former oncologist who got into farming after having cancer himself, so I'd say he's got an informed perspective.

I'm jealous.

If you have time, I'd love to know exactly what you have in your garden.

Left to right:

Box 1 Beets (both red and golden) and carrots. Will plant second crop soon.

Box 2 Salad: lettuces planted for heading – read and green romaine, red oakleaf, butterhead; row of mixed baby cutting lettuce; row of mache; row of arugula; row of spicy mesclun mix. Just planted second crops of arugula, mache and mesclun this morning.

Box 3 Shallots, fennel. Will plant broccoli raab and bok choy here soon.

Box 4 Tomatoes: One each of Marmande, Nebraska Wedding, Black Krim, White Wonder, Sungold (Cherry) and Mahogany Cherry.

Box 5 Tomatillos and lots of basil.

Box 6 Peppers: jalapeño and Poblano, interplanted with cilantro.

Box 7 Cauliflower and Eggplant (small round ones...crapshoot for this climate). (planted since photo taken).

Box 8 Pattypan squash; haricots verts.

Boxes 9 & 10 Garlic, garlic and garlic.

Right of garlic: mound of rhubarb.

Above boxes in small round hillets surrounded by green plastic: 2 hills of Butternut squash, 2 hills of winter squash Muscat de Provence, 2 hills of Delicata squash.

In black tubs: Yukon Gold potatoes.

To come: large pot with horseradish.

MMMMMMM, Black Krim. That's one of my favorite tomatoes, period.

GG -- Thanks for that.

That's a lotta garlic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I noticed that nothing is covered. No problems with varmints?

This week is for peonies, poppies and irises, and the colors are glorious. The peony blooms are as big as softballs, and they hang heavy after a rain. The smell of fresh cut peonies in the house is irresistable.

The "flag" iris we planted in a marshy area by the lake has begin to colonize the the space. Three-foot high swords of leaves have four foot-high stalks topped with yellow blooms above them. They look nice against the water. If only I could control the weeds around them.

The laurel and purple rhododendron have bloomed profusely this year and the climbing hydrangea has all but buried a huge boulder in white lacy blossoms. I planted this as a twig over 20 years ago.

Wysteria have finally begun to spread over the pergola and, hopefully next year, there will be purple blossoms hanging over the swing seat.

The daylillies are just beginning to open, and by next weekend, I expect a parade of yellow and white blooms. The astilbe are showing flower stalks, and in two weeks will put up clouds of white, pink and purple.

Lots of empty spaces to fill with plants...

Well I was minding my own business, just walking down the street in my neighborhood when I spotted a couple of tomato plants that had been dumped by the side of the road. I had planned on going tomato-free this year but I couldn't help but rescue them.

I just noticed the first blush on the tomatos. Now I am salivating. We could have early tomatos. yummmm.

My herb pots, now established, are going MAD. I bought fairly large plants this year since I was so late getting them in, and the sage is taking over the world. Rosemary too. I need good ideas for what to do with an abundance of fresh herbs.

Tomatillo is getting eaten by something but it's still growing by leaps and bounds.

The tomatoes are also really thriving -- setting flowers and getting tall. Looks like a potentially very good year.

My herbs too. Anyone need some thyme? I've got thyme up the wazoo.

Do your tomatillos have fruit yet? Mine is about two feet high and rising. And sprawling.

Thyme up the wazoo can be painful.

The tomatillo hasn't set fruit, but it's got more flowers so I expect this week we'll see some action. It is currently being "contained" in a tomato cage (with one of my tomatoes) and I think it will be a battle to the finish between the two. Is yours getting eaten?

There's a sort of beetle that eats at my tomatillos...about 1/4" long, beige with black stripes and an orange head. More often than not, they appear in tandem – if you know what I mean. I just pick them off and squish them. Otherwise, they can do some damage. Just cosmetic (half-eaten leaves), but still.

Also, the fruit may take some time. I usually don't start to get ripe fruit until August.

At one time I loved to garden and tend to my little yard. Now it has become such a chore due the landscaping choices of my neighbours.

Weeding out undesirable tree sprouts. I'm doing daily battle with three different types of trees.

My neighbour on the right side of my house planted a screen of Rose of Sharon trees that agressively reseeds into my lawn and flower gardens. Those are the most plentiful and easiest to pull out.

Same neighbour mostly removed some other crappy tree that was growing into the fence that seperates our yards. It was an unplanned element in the landscaping, so I welcomed that removal, however on my side of the fence the stump is vigorously trying to resprout. Someone, somewhere has a fully developed specimen in the nearby neighbourhood (the same type of tree) that is rather good at distributing and germinating new, junkie trees. Everywhere I look, especially in the cracks in my brick driveway, one of these little seedlings have taken root.

Lastly, the neighbour acrossed the street has a fully mature what I have been told is called a "Tree of Heaven." I swear these little feckers sprout overnight. And they are tough to remove, similar to pulling dandylions. Strong, long and deep roots that will regerminate if any speck of it doesn't get yanked out of the ground. Add insult to injury, any handling of these trees imparts a nasty, foul odor onto your hands/gloves.

Grrrrrrr.


I felt no remorse in selecting a variety of bamboo to add by the fencing, to my Japanese garden.

Its been a busy day that I felt like nothing got done! I think I'm off to find that perfect margarita, wear those really cool, new sunglasses and get as far away from this yard as possible!



edit: typos

Most everything going gangbusters.

Beetles on the tomatillos – threelined potato beetle – have now laid copius quantities of eggs which are hatching into disgusting slimy larvae. I go out daily and pick off leaves and even branches and burn them. Harvest will probably not be compromised much – they just look disgusting.

Large population of cucumber beetles. The phoebes – who kindly kept the beetles in check last year – decided to nest elsewhere this summer, so I'm spraying regularly with neem oil.

Cauliflower seems to have caught verticillium wilt; three of six plants affected, only one mortally so. Not much I can do about it.

Otherwise, everything seems happy, and the hot humid weather has peppers, tomatoes and eggplant setting fruit well ahead of schedule.

Removed the last of the garlic scapes today:

I go with the ailanthus description for the tree in the first picture. This is evidently the tree that Beans describes as growing on a neighbor's property. I have never heard of anyone planting one of these intentionally. Their main function (and their only good one) is to sprout, seemingly overnight, and shoot up in desolate urban locations. I used to see one, fully grown, beneath a subway grating on Raymond Boulevard in Newark!