Watchers

Several garden friends paused to watch me in the garden this morning. I watched them back.

We were lucky enough to get 1/2" rain yesterday afternoon. Everything is very muddy, but the weed picking is great!

Monticello

While my sister was playing violin to the okra and eggplants, I was visiting Monticello! I had read about Thomas Jefferson's home and gardens, but had no idea how profoundly it would affect me to stand in his garden. I brought a packet of seeds from Monticello to RadishStew.

Imagine...

Tiger Swallowtail

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail has been abundant this week. They are large and quite showy. Delightful!

What's popular with the bees?

The garlic chives are blooming and are so very popular with lots of flying insects!

Rain!

Not only rain, but big rain. We benefited from an isolated storm on 8-24 with .25" of welcome rain. Then on 9-3 we had a good rain of .7". Normally, that would be big news. But on September 7-9 we received a total of 8.15"! Some years the hurricane rain misses us com pletely, but this year it was a direct hit. The garden weathered the storm well. None of the rows held water. There was some erosion, of course, but no complaints will be heard here. All rain is welcome.

This rainbow picture was taken on 8-31 when some of our neighbors received rain and we didn't. All rainbows are welcome.

Yes! We have tomatoes!

This year, we planted three rows of tomato seedlings roughly three weeks apart starting in June. The first row has grown well and we have picked a dozen large tomatoes. This is some sort of a miracle! The second row is starting to set fruit. The third row has smaller plants which have not bloomed yet. We also trimmed back the strongest Celebrity plants and are having limited success with them so far.

Scratchy

Scratchy is the Radish Stew pet cactus. He bloomed the end of July in 2009 and 2010.

This year he had five blooms! The flowers open in the evening and close early the next morning.

They are extravagant and quite fragrant. Scratchy has a friend; The Plumeria. She is blooming also.

Thanks, Scratchy!

Spring Fever vs Football Frenzy

Fellow gardeners: what do these two categories have to do with Radish Stew?

In the early spring many stores display gardening tools, seeds, and other essentials. People swarm to buy them. By July, the gardening fever of the spring turn to real sweat and the public stops needing gardening supplies. When football season begins, the stores give up on the public and offer the gardening items for a huge discount! It's football season: time to stock up on new tools, gloves, canning jars, fertilizers!