Pull Yourself Together, Chicago Weather
It's been almost three weeks since my last gardenspam, and look at how they've grown:
First up, we have... strawberries!
I almost picked the really red one last night, but I managed to restrain myself. Partly so I could take a picture of it today, but mostly because just one strawberry won't be as much fun as two or more. (ETA: I ate it. It was delicious.) Unfortunately this is the only one of the three that's producing any fruit right now, because the other two are still recovering from the squirrel damage.
I'm so proud of this bean plant, though. It has four beans for me! And they've basically all appeared in the last week or so. They're growing alarmingly quickly.
I also have a teeny, tiny hot pepper. Finally. I've had this problem recently that my peppers and tomatoes have been abandoning their blossoms. Apparently it has to do with Chicago's schizophrenic weather, because if it gets too hot too early in the season the pollen binds to itself and becomes useless. It's also possible that the flowers aren't getting pollinated, so the flowers I do have are getting pollinated by me for now. (My habanero, on the other hand, has been making a lot more leaves but only the tiniest hint of flower buds.)
You wouldn't guess from these guys, but we got beaten up by a pretty ridiculous storm on Thursday night. My tomatoes bore the brunt of it, because they've gotten very tall and spindly:
This poor guy got broken in half. I was so distraught when I got home and saw what had happened I actually re-planted the top of the plant. (It didn't work, but it made me feel a little better at the time.) It's already trying to make up for lost time, though). My other tomato decided to make no sense, and half of it took a dive out between the slats in my porch, where most of its leaves got knocked off by hail and the rest ended up with holes in them. (The hail was ridiculous. I was downtown at the time, and we only (only...) got marble-sized hail, but further out west the hail was the size of golf balls, and if you want to see something really sad, look what it did to the Garfield Park Conservatory. (I won't get into that too much, though, because it's kind of embarrassing how upset I am about it. I love that place to pieces; it's full of so many amazing plants.) So, really, I'm lucky that I only lost half a tomato plant and some leaves. And the skies yesterday were amazing. (Not my picture.))
Other than that, though... my lettuce is a little beat up, but that's the fault of these little black mite things that I seem to get on it every year. I've been spraying it down with a baking soda mixture, which seems to have helped a little, but they're still not particularly happy. My herbs, on the other hand, are adorable.
My boxwood basil has grown into a proper shrub. It smells absolutely lovely, and it's like the Chinese food takeout box of herb plants. You can't even tell I've used any of it. Not pictured are my parsley plant and my marjoram plant (which is trying to flower, and has become really soft and kind of velvety-feeling.) I don't think I've gone onto my back porch once and not stuck my nose in at least one of the herbs.
And finally, I'll leave you with a portrait of my chard, which survived my near-criminal under-watering to... look like whatever the plant version of a hipster is. It just needs some thick-rimmed glasses and a scarf or something:
So there you have it. (This was so much more relaxing than yesterday morning, which involved herding children and what was, perhaps, one of the most disorganized experiences I've ever had with DI. But this entry is already long enough, so that's a rant for another day.)
Also, I am still working on those prompts. I am not a complete bum, I promise.
First up, we have... strawberries!
I almost picked the really red one last night, but I managed to restrain myself. Partly so I could take a picture of it today, but mostly because just one strawberry won't be as much fun as two or more. (ETA: I ate it. It was delicious.) Unfortunately this is the only one of the three that's producing any fruit right now, because the other two are still recovering from the squirrel damage.
I'm so proud of this bean plant, though. It has four beans for me! And they've basically all appeared in the last week or so. They're growing alarmingly quickly.
I also have a teeny, tiny hot pepper. Finally. I've had this problem recently that my peppers and tomatoes have been abandoning their blossoms. Apparently it has to do with Chicago's schizophrenic weather, because if it gets too hot too early in the season the pollen binds to itself and becomes useless. It's also possible that the flowers aren't getting pollinated, so the flowers I do have are getting pollinated by me for now. (My habanero, on the other hand, has been making a lot more leaves but only the tiniest hint of flower buds.)
You wouldn't guess from these guys, but we got beaten up by a pretty ridiculous storm on Thursday night. My tomatoes bore the brunt of it, because they've gotten very tall and spindly:
This poor guy got broken in half. I was so distraught when I got home and saw what had happened I actually re-planted the top of the plant. (It didn't work, but it made me feel a little better at the time.) It's already trying to make up for lost time, though). My other tomato decided to make no sense, and half of it took a dive out between the slats in my porch, where most of its leaves got knocked off by hail and the rest ended up with holes in them. (The hail was ridiculous. I was downtown at the time, and we only (only...) got marble-sized hail, but further out west the hail was the size of golf balls, and if you want to see something really sad, look what it did to the Garfield Park Conservatory. (I won't get into that too much, though, because it's kind of embarrassing how upset I am about it. I love that place to pieces; it's full of so many amazing plants.) So, really, I'm lucky that I only lost half a tomato plant and some leaves. And the skies yesterday were amazing. (Not my picture.))
Other than that, though... my lettuce is a little beat up, but that's the fault of these little black mite things that I seem to get on it every year. I've been spraying it down with a baking soda mixture, which seems to have helped a little, but they're still not particularly happy. My herbs, on the other hand, are adorable.
My boxwood basil has grown into a proper shrub. It smells absolutely lovely, and it's like the Chinese food takeout box of herb plants. You can't even tell I've used any of it. Not pictured are my parsley plant and my marjoram plant (which is trying to flower, and has become really soft and kind of velvety-feeling.) I don't think I've gone onto my back porch once and not stuck my nose in at least one of the herbs.
And finally, I'll leave you with a portrait of my chard, which survived my near-criminal under-watering to... look like whatever the plant version of a hipster is. It just needs some thick-rimmed glasses and a scarf or something:
So there you have it. (This was so much more relaxing than yesterday morning, which involved herding children and what was, perhaps, one of the most disorganized experiences I've ever had with DI. But this entry is already long enough, so that's a rant for another day.)
Also, I am still working on those prompts. I am not a complete bum, I promise.