Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Garden Pictures

I came home from work a little early today, so I did some work in my extremely modest kitchen garden that I'd been putting off. I had the idea of gardening this summer a few months ago. It'll be good exercise for me in the summers and it'll make my yard more attractive than the overgrown weedy hell we've been living with for several years. It's a small start, but I'm new at this. I'm sure it will get bigger and better as I learn how to maintain it.



My first tomatoes! This plant was the first to show fruit, but now all three have tiny green buds dangling from their vines.



My Thai basil. I only learned that I needed to pull the blossoms off AFTER a good portion of the stems had gone woody. I saved most of it from going to seed though and I can still harvest from it.



The full view of my tiny garden. Three tomato plants, a basil ans a parsley. The marigolds are for pest control. I'm shooting for as organic a garden as possible. Which means I'll have to learn decent composting techniques soon.



And my poor parsley plant, which has never done well. I've only harvested from it once, because it just seems cruel to rip it's leaves off. I think it's getting too much sun.

Isn't it pretty?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the growings, ababy. Does Thai basil give the same flavour as the normal stuff? I've never used it.

Jennifer Liang said...

It's a little stronger than sweet basil. That's pretty much it.

Anonymous said...

Your garden looks awesome. I can't wait until I have a backyard to grow things in. There's a huge garden at the school, and they have all sorts of different kinds of things. The chef who is in charge of it was my teacher for the beginning cooking class, and it's insane how much he knows about gardening. If I see him around, I might be able to ask him about composting tips and other tips for growing organic. When I get a house, I'm definitely going to start a garden.

Post more updates on how this goes.

Jennifer Liang said...

Oh, I will. Thanks, EE!

And I'm definitely going to have my students do a small herb garden when I teach my cooking class this fall. The more I play around with food, the more I realize how important it is to be connected to all levels of food production.