French Lavender in the Summer Breeze

I was watering my backyard plants earlier this evening, with the sprayer switched to “full.” When the water sprayed upon my French lavender plants, it was instant aromatherapy, reminding me of the days when I was all about spas! In other words, you need not cut off the stems of your lavender or rub the lavender leaves between your [...]

Waltham Butternut Squash Seeds

SHOPPING TIP: Oh, my gosh, earlier today, I scored one packet (1.0 gram) of Waltham butternut squash seeds at the 99 Cents Only Store for the princely sum of 11 cents! I will be planting them within the hour in three separate containers. Yay!

Green Bell Peppers in a Container

And they’re looking might fine! In my garden, green bell peppers often arrive fashionably late, but they’re reliably delicious – worth the wait!

Nagami Kumquat Tree, Fruiting

I can hardly believe it but it looks like one of my Nagami kumquat trees is fruiting! I purchased and planted this tree in the ground just four months ago. Click on the photo to get a detailed view of the tiny green globes dotting this petite tree! It was in flower a little over three weeks [...]

Watermelons, Two in a Container!

I’m hoping that both will grow to their full size. The smaller watermelon appeared about 2 weeks ago but I wanted to give it time to be sure that it was indeed a fruit (and not still an unfertilized female ovary) and that it had grown enough to have a good chance of lasting. I love [...]

Eggplant Seedlings!

Several weeks ago, I sprinkled a few seeds into one of my containers and now I am happy to post a photo of my first eggplant seedlings!  I’ve never grown eggplant before. The variety is called Black Beauty, one of the more popular.
Assuming that I will have two plants, I will transplant one of them [...]

Autumn Container Garden Planning

Because my summer container garden did not become active with seedlings until mid-summer, I’m now having to plan on planting my autumn garden at the same time that my summer crops will begin to fruit – not a bad situation to be in, but I’ll have to gather up my remaining empty 5-gallon containers.
I’ll be [...]

Watermelon, My First One, Growing!

My first watermelon is growing! It was a mere one week ago that I posted a photo of a female watermelon blossom’s ovary, with hopes that it would be fertilized with the pollen of one of the many male blossoms on the vine. The “stem” below the male blossom is thin, versus the swollen ovary below the [...]

Green Zebra Tomato Plant, Fruiting!

Ah, I remember the day I planted the seeds for this plant just mere months ago, and now one of my Green Zebra tomato plants is fruiting. This is the first in my large collection of 5-gallon containers that will all (hopefully) produce tomatoes.  I’ve not seen this particular type of heirloom tomato in my [...]

Pear Tree Grafts

It would seem that the graftings of other varieties of pear tree to the primary “host” pear tree are thriving (this is a 3-in-1 tree, 3 varieties of pear). A friend wondered if these might be suckers of the host tree, but I’m suspecting not.  Upon closer inspection of this sapling, the leaves of the host [...]