Pond Fun

If you remember way, way back to the Spring, (yes, I know, it seems absolutely forever ago, especially now that it's in the 30's when I wake up in the morning!) the E.S. Garden had a pond that looked like this:

My Dad modeling nicely for us

Now here we are, the middle of October and it looks more like this:

There is a pond in there, somewhere, I promise

So you might say it's a bit overgrown. The plan was to dig this out and make it into a nice little area with a bank and even an island! This was a project we just didn't get to this year. Mostly because it never dried up down there! Ever! The entire summer, that area was at the very least soaking wet. This is very unusual. Usually the froggies have long packed up and moved to wetter ground by July. This year I think we had a froggie family reunion going on in our pond! We must have had two dozen frogs in there at one point and some of them were no little teeny things either. I always liked walking along the path around the pond and hearing all the frogs in front of me jump into the water with a big *thunk!* as I approached their lounging area.
So the hope is next year we'll have a few weeks of dry land so we can dig out this here pond because darnit I want to iceskate on it in the winter!
The Boy and I recently took a peruse around the pond and snapped a few pictures in the process:


And here are our goof-asses enjoying some pond fun:

Fall Update

Cosmos Bipinnatus

Here in Upstate New York we have had quite the "summer". Lots of rain, hail, below average temperatures, sogginess, blight, mosquitoes, flooding...ahhhhhhh!
But fear not, all hope was not lost, and there were some beauties to keep us smiling!

Tithonia Rotundiflora - Mexican Sunflower

Ipomoea alba - Moonflower

I started the Mexican sunflowers over at the Apartment Garden and replanted them after I moved. They took some time adjusting to outdoor garden life, but soon they started budding like crazy and not long after that the beautiful orange flowers were all over the yard.
Moonflowers are easy to grow and have such a beautiful color to them. I love purple flowers and this is definitely one my favorites. We have them trailing up trees all over the garden.

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes

Despite the tomato blight that has destroyed thousands of tomato plants and has virtually killed many tomato farmer's crops, our plants overall came out OK. We had more cherry tomatoes than we knew what to do with! I think I had cherry tomatoes for every meal of the day a few times.

Our basil also did wonderfully. We made lots of pesto, basil pizzas, basil and greens salads. I probably love the smell of basil more than I enjoy the taste so I definitely sat down in the middle of the basil patch a few times this season and just smelled and smelled and smelled. Ahhhh....

And now...for the not so good...

poor little cucumbers (they should be green, by the way)

The E.S. Garden is set up in a way where about a third of the garden is sloped down and is in the lowest part of the yard. Most summers this isn't an issue because usually we're dealing with a drought, or at least a severely decreased amount of water. This year, however, (and last year for that matter) we were wet for almost the entire summer. Just to get an idea of how soaked we got this summer, here's a breakdown of the number of days it rained (and by rained I mean more than a trace, I left out the days that it still rained but not enough to measure) :

14 days of rain - June
18 days of rain - July
9 days of rain - August

July? Are you for real? 18 days of rain? That would mean we had 13 days of no rain. Which isn't to say sun. Because the number of actual sunny days, I'm sure, hovered around five or six. Yes that is pathetic. That is why we have poor cucumbers like the one pictured above. And why our tomato plants look like this far earlier than they should:


So I suppose after seeing our pathetic sunshine forecast for the summer, I can understand why we suffered in the veggie area. Other than tomatoes and basil we had a great crop of swiss chard, our rutabagas are blasting right out of the soil and are almost ready to enjoy. (My favorite way to eat rutabagas is with mashed potatoes. Mash them both together, mmmm delicious!), our other herbs did very well and so did some of our peppers. The carrots came out great and this year we even had some red ones come up in our mixed variety! The flowers also faired well, overall, especially the sunflowers. I think they didn't mind the rain as much as our veggies.

September is coming to a close so normally we would be waiting for our crops of squash, pumpkins and other root vegetables. Unfortunately our squash plants were some of the first to go to the squishy, squishy pile. The delacotas and winter squash were planted at the very bottom of the garden and were rotten very early on. Our pumpkins went the same route and we did not plant any potatoes this year. So we're waiting on our trusted rutabagas and we're already chowing down on our fall crop of greens, spinach and carrots.

I'm sorry, I've been keeping promises like a middle school girl as far as my blog posts are concerned. Thanks for not breaking up with me or telling me we can't be friends or beating me up in gym class. I appreciate that.

Back from the West!

Hello fellow readers!

I am back from my journey across the U.S.!
My new niece is a wonderful, adorable, poopin' machine and, hey, she's named after me, so she's on the right track so far! ;)

I'll post a picture of the little cutie soon and I will update everyone on what has been going on in the garden this past...month...yikes!

In the meantime, I'm sure you're all aware of the horrendous amounts of rain we've received here in the Northeast. It has been terrible, really. We have gone from rain almost everyday to upper 90's and humid. So the exact opposite of what makes happy little plants. It has been a rough year, but we'll gather up some highlights, I promise it's not all bad!

While you wait, here's an interesting article about the blight and how the "Walmarts" of the world are contributing to the problem.

Dear rain: Get over yourself

I am taking it as a good sign that I've never really heard about this crazy, destructive disease of the tomato plant. As the article says, the rain has helped spread the disease quickly. However, it is worth pointing out that the magnitude of the spread is largely due to the fact that many plants come from the same large grower and supply to places like Walmart and Kmart. Making it much easier for the disease to spread from plant to plant as they sit in humugo greenhouses.
Another reason to buy local, friends.

Yes, I can appreciate all the wonderful things the rain does for us. We wouldn't survive without it. But daaamn it was 69 yesterday and it has rained something like 20 out of the last 25 days.

On a positive note, the rain has forced me to stay inside and get things done that need I to do. There's a big change a comin' for the Apartment Garden...oh yes...

And then it was snowing...

If you know me, you know I complain a bit about the weather in New York. I am not a fan of winter. I do not do any of the fun winter activities that one does to help the burning hatred of cold, wet, miserable, winter. (I tried to snowboard, once, with the boy about three years ago. The falling...oh the falling...I do not need to feel that way again. Those sort of sports, in my book, are reserved for learning at a young age. When you have no fear, when nothing hurts, when the knees don't crack just from getting up off the ground. You feel me?) Wow, that was hell of a parenthetical phrase.
I would like to do some snowshoeing perhaps, that would be fun. Because damn I am willing and able at this point to find something that can help me enjoy hate less the bitter-death temperatures and accident causing ice crystal-covered dust specks.

Oh right, so the hail!

I (well mostly my car) lucked out and I was not home when it rained pellets of up to 1 3/4 " (That was the official diameter given on the news, but I didn't see any quite that big).

modeling nicely for us: The Boy's hand and shoe

Not something you see every day...in the middle of June...in New York. Can we say global warming?

Though this does put things into perspective. I bitch about this state quite often but really, I shouldn't complain:

+ We can (and do) use water like it's going out of style, and it's cheap.
- Many states have crazy water restrictions: like only allowing you to water your plants from 12 -2 AM every other Wednesday.
+ The extent of severe weather in New York is mostly damaging hail and other ice-type storms. (Though we did have a tornado way back when and apparently a small earthquake not too long ago??)
- Many states have to deal with hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes for many month out of the year, sometimes daily. (The Boy's family lives in Alabama and they are under constant tornado watch for pretty much six full months of the year.)

So yeah, I can't complain. We have it pretty good here.
Oh New York, you keep a tight reign on me, you do.