BUGS!

The garden is under attack. I've noticed the two star performing sunflowers were looking a little worse for wear. They are getting purple patches and holes on the leaves. Upon closer inspection, I saw a swarm of green critters going to town on the defenseless sunflower. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to track down all of them and squish them with Q-tips. Update: Torill saw the critters and told me they were aphids. Thinking back I remember Alex acting one out, and I knew for sure she was right. Now how to get rid of them for good... a swarm of ladybugs perhaps?

Prumps' Garden Grows

Hello List! Prumps' garden is flourishing in the daily 5 foot triangle of sun that I receive on my West End apartment patio. So far the crops are coming out nicely despite months of what seems like solid Vancouver rain. If I can make one salad or spice up one meal by the end of the summer out of the overpriced dirt, seeds and precipitation that are out there I will consider this a success. So far the cast consists of: A few sunflowers, grown from seed.

Two tomato plants: one yellow cherry tomato (grown from little guy). He's pretty spindly and just starting to show signs of flowering. This is not the bushy, healthy looking tomato plant that i'm looking for to yield a batch of butter chicken sauce. Maybe one tomato for a sandwich one day?

... and one normal tomato plant bought at a big size, so it arrived healthy and full. This guy is going to be the good one.

Basil

Rosemary

Thyme

A few Yellow Hot Peppers from seed.(I don't expect these to do so well in this climate)

One Strawberry plant

Some trees... can't remember what kind. Grown from seed. These should be ready to chop down and build a house with for my great grandchildren. No photos so those will have to wait their turn for an appearance here. Stay tuned for non-stop action updates on how this garden blossoms. The good news is, these photos were taken a couple weeks ago, so there's already progress in the life of these plants. Which will thrive? Which will fall victim to neglect and early death?

Mr. Kitty

A staple to our garden are the many cats that live in the neighboring houses. It is not uncommon to find them laying in the middle of the garden during the day or soaking up the heat on the bedrock at night. I happened to catch our favourite cat, Mr. Kitty (not his real name but it is to us!), enjoying the radiating heat last night. I think he is starting to show his age a bit but he is still as friendly as ever. If he catches anyone sitting on the rock it is only a matter of time before he starts ramming his head against your arms and legs looking for affection.

Without further adieu, Mr. Kitty in all his glory...

Mr. Kitty		What's up?

Lettuce Migration

There is simply no room for all the lettuce I dug out so I took some with me last weekend to my parent's garden. Despite being stowed away in my backpack they survived the trip on the bus/ferry and found a home on the back side of the garage.

New home for the lettuce		Here's lookin at you...

The garden in Victoria is doing well with the exception of any cucumber we have tired to plant.  Some bugs just love to eat any leaves that they produce and have killed about 4 plants already this year.  The peas are doing very well though and our potato patch is going gangbusters.  Hidden inside all of the potato leaves are some lettuce and cilantro which are enjoying the free shade.

Peas, Beans, Cucumbers and Chard		Potatoes check out the before pic

Garden Inventory

I thought I would quickly list all the stuff that is currently in the garden and where it is located.  Here is a layout diagram of the garden and for reference this is pretty much the same orientation as the picture from my kitchen window below.

Terrace Garden
Plot 1	Plot 2	Plot 3
Plot 4	Plot 5	Plot 6
Walkway Garden

Terrace
This area is heavily shaded most of the day so we have leafy vegetables up here.

• Spinach
• Rainbow Chard
• Butter Lettuce
• Kale
• Dill
• Mint

Plot 1

• Radishes
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Kale

Plot 2

• Nasturtiums
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower

Plot 3 (Potato Patch)

• Potatoes
  • Purple
  • Kennebec
• Lettuce (a few hidden between the potatoes)

Plot 4

• Strawberries
• Tomatoes

Plot 5

• Nothin but some rogue lettuce

Plot 6 (Herb Garden)

• Oregano (2 kinds)
• Rosemary
• Curry Plant
• Lavender
• Sage
• Chives
• Parsley
• Cilantro

Walkway

• Corn
• Peas
• Beans
• Cucumber
• More potatoes

Once again I am sure I am missing a few things but I will fill them in as I figure it out.

View from the kitchen, terrace in the background		Tomatoes and Strawberries, walkway garden in the background

Version 2.0

In an effort to combat boredom while I wait to start a new job I decided to give the blog a much needed facelift as the previous template I was using was really stale, especially for subject matter like a garden.  I took this template from freecsstemplates.org and then adapted it for Blogger.  There are still some artifacts left over from the old template such as the green and orange bullet point icons and some fonts in the sidebar and comments, but I think they look ok.

If anything happens to look messed up or you have anything to say about the changes please let me know via the comments or by email.

Free Lettuce

Our garden has become overrun with rogue arugula and butter lettuce seedlings.  The arugula is growing like a weed all over the property and the butter lettuce has been popping up throughout the garden for a while now.  I decided to salvage some of the lettuce, especially those growing in the garden paths.  In short time I pulled 30 seedlings out and replanted them but there are still tons more in the garden.  I don't know what I am going to do with all of these as we can't possibly keep them all.

The potatoes we planted a month ago have been sprouting and a left over from last year popped up in one of the middle garden beds.  Many of the herbs are in flower/seed right now and you can see a few of them in the picture below.  My camera sucks but on the front-left of the herb garden is Chives (w/ purple flowers on the tips), behind that is some Sage and behind that is the Rosemary.  As for the other side I am not 100% but there is a Curry plant, more Sage, Thyme, Oregano and some other stuff.  I will have to get a better picture and also figure out what is in my own garden.  Also do some weeding, it is starting to look like a jungle again.

30 Butter Lettuce Seedlings		Potatoes (foreground), Herb Garden (background)