Greens

Anyone with enough space for a good size window box that can get slightly less than full sun, is paying too much for lettuce in the summer months. Even if you only eat three heads of romaine, it is cheaper and more convienient to grow it yourself! .

My small garden patch of lettuce and spinach has produced in one week enough greens to provide the two of us with 3 dinner size salads each! Last week we probably had 1/2 that much, but now it will continue full steam ahead for another 2 months, assuming I reseed every few weeks. If I figure that it would take a head of romaine a week to provide us with this quantity of lettuce, and a head of romaine is $1.50, in 3 weeks I will have paid for both the lettuce seed mix and the spinach seeds!

With a careful selection of varieties, and the addition of any of a number of edible flowers, one lowly flower bed could be transformed into a treat for the eyes and the tastebuds. Not only is it pretty to look at, but think of the amount of fuel you are saving because the lettuce doesn't have to be transported several hundred miles, the plastic bag that will not have to be used to get it from farm to table, and the knowledge of exactly what kind of fertilizer and pesticides were (or in my garden, were not) used in its production. In addition to all of that, you and your family will be more likely to eat your veggies, get more fresh air, exercise and stress relief in the process because you will be outside for at least a few minutes one or two evenings a week tending your garden.
What are you waiting for? Start a lettuce patch today!

wait for it....

Wait for it...

wait for it....

wait for it....

BAM!

So far so good in the realm of flowers! I have never seen this many rose buds on the bush, I had completely forgotten about the white irises, and had the peony not bloomed this year it probably would have ended up in the compost bin! It's amazing what a little early season feeding will do for plants!

Evil green sausages

Okay, okay, so this round of evil green sausages are more the size of pen cap, but they are every bit as evil! This year the cabbage worms have found the cabbage plants. Now don't ask me how these buggers managed to figure out and make their way from a minimum of 4 houses away (I know at least 4 houses away because not only do I know my neighbors, but from the roof I can see into everybody's back yards, and I haven't seen anything but tomatoes, peppers and herbs), but some how they knew, and they came. So much to my dismay, when I went out to work in the garden one fine morning, I first got to spend 15 minutes picking soft green caterpillars off of the cabbage plants before they gnawed off the entire plant. I thought I got them all, but it seems I will have to get outside super early one of these morning and do another round of drowning (I picked them off the plants and threw them into a cup of water so I didn't have to worry about them coming back to the little plants).
With every new crop comes a new challenge to understand and conquer.

New pad

So I helped some friends move into their new digs a few weeks ago. GREAT PLACE! It's on the third floor, they have their own elevator, and no direct next door neighbors. It's a quiet neighborhood, awesome 360 views of the city and the park. Fully furnishd and the decor is great, very nature inspired. And let me tell you, their rent is incredible. All they have to do is keep an eye on my tomatoes and peppers for me....

They are living in the pots on the roof if you didn't figure that out ; )