In the South garden, Lucia's sweet-pea tent is flourishing:
And lo and behold, there are actually sweet-peas growing:
Lucia doesn't care too much for vegetables and salad-like ingredients unless they're actually growing in the garden. Several times a day, she clamors, "More nasturtium please!" and cheerfully munches on the spicy leaves of our nasturtium plants. She is going to enjoy picking her own cucumbers, too:
Unedible but fascinating to Lucia are the ginger-scented geranium and the orange coleus:
The orange coleus was a plant Lucia picked out herself. When I pointed out to her that the plant was getting bigger, she said, "The plant wants to stay little." That was a telling comment, I thought.
9 comments:
Hey I love that composite photo. How'd you do that? I have tried growing a sweet pea teepee in the past too. This house doesn't have a sunny spot that will work, unfortunately. I know Lucia is loving her little garden. I am always thinking plants will stay little or stay in the place I put them too. One of the mysteries of gardening... how will it turn out?
Your garden pictures are always so inspiring! I've got some tomato plants coming up, but I also suffer from the lack of a real sunny spot. I had some lettuce heads make an appearance, but the rabbits and/or squirrels got to them. I'm gonna try again with some varmint counter-measures in place.
GREAT garden pics! If it wasn't so dang hot I'd plant something outdoors, too! Home-grown veggies are the BEST.
Hey, cloudscome: I like "sweet pea tipi" so much better than sweet pea tent. But then, I read about tipis and found out that they always face East. Since mine faces South, I felt I just couldn't call it that anymore. If we do another one next year (and I'd like to), I'm going to have the sweet pea structure face East.:)
The composite photo was one I did in Microsoft Publisher. The program is pretty rudimentary (professionals adept in Photoshop scoff at it), but it works for my purposes.
Goddess: There are some good shade and part-shade plants out there. Many of the nurseries out here seem to have only a small section of those kinds of plants, which is lame, because we're under the rain cloud much of the time. I just ordered some cyclamen, and they're supposed to love shade.
I am growing to despise garden predators. Bah! After the first batch of pumpkin leaves got demolished, I placed a mesh colander over the next batch. I've heard that chicken wire is good, too, until the plants get established. Someone in this week's Sunday morning stroll is growing lettuce in pots, which is an idea I wish had occured to me two months ago.
Lady K: I've seem some gorgeous Southwest garden pics.
Love the sweet pea tipi. Very pretty. I have such bad luck growing vegetables. The chipmunks, gophers, and rabbits get at it all.
Our kids ate all our honeysuckle yesterday.
A good book to peruse for getting rid of predators is:
1,112 Down to Earth Garden Secrets
It's a book of tips from people all over the country on a variety of gardening subjects. Most are natural ways to get rid of pests. For example, planting marigolds around your garden keep many bugs away since they hate the smell.
In spite of owning this book, I have terrible troubles with veggies, except for grape and cherry tomatoes. I have always wanted to grow peas, for example. No luck.
But I do know that your sweet pea tent will be a jungle room in a few weeks!
So cool.
I'm going to check out the book recommendation. Thanks!
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