Fall Gardening Slump

Well, it isn't really Fall, but I'm getting ready to start school again, so it seems like it.  My gardening mojo drops dramatically when I start thinking about work.  I have the best job in the world for gardening--summers off!--but I do get a bit distracted just when it's time to harvest and maybe do some cold season crop planting.  And forget about fall clean up!  That comes when I'm well into a frenzy of grading papers.  I just barely manage to shove a few bulbs haphazardly into the ground in late October, before I completely ignore the garden until May.

Jelly Bean Tomatoes

My jelly bean tomatoes are producing really well, although it would be a lot easier to harvest the ripest fruits if the whole plant hadn't fallen over, due to completely inadequate support.

This is clearly a complete disaster.  It's impossible to dig through the foliage trailing along the ground and find the tomatoes that are ready for eating and this entire area of the garden is full of chipmunks reveling in the jungle I've created for their convenience.

Okra Update

The okras are trickling in at a rate that makes them difficult to use (what does one do with three okras?).  For next year, I need to do a succession planting so that we get a series of the right size crops.  

In other okra news, I still don't like it very much.  However, I've suggested that my husband make his favorite okra recipe using the much less mucilaginous and much more delicious asparagus or zucchini, and he's willing to try it.

People Are Assholes, A Continuing Series

Last week someone left a variety of items in my garden in the area between the sidewalk and the road (the name of this common landmass is apparently still under hot debate on the interwebs).

This is a pillow; in the picture below we have part of a car's bumper and more standard litter in the form of a water bottle, partially empty.

Is it so difficult to pick up after yourself?  Is it so difficult not to leave bedding material lying about in other people's gardens in the first place?  Naturally, one's bumper could fall off anywhere, but pillows would seem to be easier to contain.

Dog Pee: Nature's Herbicide

This spring I realized that my dog had been peeing all winter in one spot in my rock garden.  

I knew dog pee wasn't good for plants, but I had no idea it could be so devastating.  Now I've blocked off the area with potted annuals and herbs, and the sedums are starting to spread into the devastated area.  It actually looks ok, and it's handy to have the herbs so close to the back door and the kitchen.  I can't wait to see how the garden looks next spring, after a whole year of protection.

Here's the culprit, looking completely innocent:

 

I thought about trying to train him to pee somewhere else, but he's kind of elderly, and it seemed kinder just to prevent him from peeing on plants I care about.  It's worked fairly well, though I can't understand at all why it's more satisfying, from his point of view, to pee on expensive plants instead of the mulch or the vinca and weeds that I have in an unobtrusive back corner of the yard.  He still tries to circumvent my blockade every once in a while, to get back to his most favorite place to whiz.

Idiosyncratic Light Requirements

I love this hardy hibiscus plant, even though it's a bit leggy.

I have a feeling that a lot of my sun-loving plants out front in the bed near the road are struggling with too much shade, leading to leggy behavior.  Interestingly, though, I've got phlox further back in the front yard that gets even spottier sun and seems to be doing well.

It doesn't even have powdery mildew this year!  This morning I was drooling over a Bluestone Perennial catalog and noticed that they list phlox as requiring absolutely full sun; I have quite a few phlox plants doing reasonably well in what I would call part sun to part shade. 

Self-seeding Impatiens

Who knew that impatiens would seed themselves?  Ok, possibly a lot of people, but I didn't.  I planted some impatiens here two years ago, and they've come back ever since.  Of course, it's a horrible spot for impatiens, since it's dead in the middle of a large bed and they are low-growing plants that belong at the edges, but whatever.