Radishes

For the first time ever, I have successfully grown radishes! I ate a few today and they were yummy. Before this, I've tried growing radishes twice before and they just never did anything. All I would end up with were a few little pea-sized, pathetic radishes. This year I got a different variety of radishes to plant (French Breakfast), so maybe that's the reason for the improvement. Nevertheless, this is an exciting development. Pictures will be forthcoming. (I was too focused on eating the radishes today to think about taking a photo.)

In My Little World...

The seedling shelf is looking like a miniature jungle.

The chives will soon have purple blooms.

It's been raining a lot and the peas are loving it.

And, I am done with school and learning how to slow down.

A Trip to Mahoney's

The weekend before last some of our car-owning friends asked us if we'd like to accompany them on a trip to Mahoney's Garden Center in Winchester. I'd heard wondrous things about the expanse of this place. And, indeed, it was a gardening mecca compared to what I usually have access to on the T.


I had a lot of fun looking at the flowers, but when it comes down to it I'm really not much of a flower-gardening type. Although flowers are really pretty, I somehow can't get inspired to put a lot of work into plants that don't produce food. I do happen to like flowers that can be eaten though (i.e., signet marigolds and nasturtiums). Nevertheless, each summer I do usually put aside two pots for non-edible flowers. One of my few purchases at Mahoney's was some vinca to put in these two flower pots.

I really do like little funky looking succulents though, which is an exception to my usual preference for edible plants. I got a couple of these at Mahoney's as well so that I can replace some of the ailing plants in my terrarium.

At this point, you may wonder why I am writing about a trip to a garden center that took place almost two weeks ago (as exciting as it was). Well, the answer is that I am really procrastinating. I am now going to return to writing a paper that has been looming over me. One more week of this business and then I'm footloose and fancy-free.

[Photos by Mr. Foliage]

The Trouble with Squirrels

I must say that don't like squirrels. I used to think they were kind of cute, but that was all before they started messing with my tomatoes. The problem started last summer, when one or more squirrels started regularly jumping from a nearby tree to our back balcony, then running over our roof to our front balcony where they subsequently wreaked havoc on our container garden. Many almost-ripe tomatoes were picked by these furry rascals, only to have just one bite taken from each of them. The remainder of the tomato would be left there, as if to taunt us. The thing is, this entire situation really wouldn't have bothered me so much if these squirrels would just eat the whole tomato rather than wasting so much. But, no, they never did that.

Last summer I had thought about buying some sort of spray at our local gardening supply to keep the squirrels away, but felt wary after I noticed that none of these sprays seemed to be organic. So, I just put up with the problem for the rest of the growing season, cursing the squirrels all the while.

This year I really want to keep the squirrels away from my tomatoes. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do, but I want to take a route that is organic (i.e., no chemical sprays). I've had my eye on one of those big, fake plastic owls for a while now, and have thought about attaching one to our back balcony right around the spot where the squirrels usually jump over from the tree. But, I'm wondering, will a fake owl really fool these pesky squirrels?

Does anyone out there have any suggestions about how to deal with squirrels?

An Overdue Update

In the past couple of weeks, a few things have kept me from thinking about gardening. I had a visit from a good friend, took a weekend trip to Philadelphia, dealt with some messy bathroom renovations and am still in the midst of finishing my last grad school class. But, rest-assured (any of you who actually read this), the seedlings inside are really coming along and there have also been some developments in the pots outside as well.

First though, I'll precede the good updates with a little bit of disappointing news. I have finally accepted the fact that I will have no crocuses, daffodils or tulips on my balcony this spring. In the fall, I bought the bulbs and planted them in the containers outside along with some bulb food and red pepper flakes (to keep the squirrels away). But, I got lazy and never mulched. Perhaps this is why the bulbs failed, although I'm not really sure. This was my first time planting bulbs and I didn't read up on the matter very much before planting. In an attempt to get over this debacle, I took a lot of photos (like the one above) of flowers when I visited Philadelphia.

And now, the good news... While we were away in Philly, our outdoor seedlings started sprouting. I had almost given up on them and I'm now hopeful that I'll actually have peas and radishes this year. (I've never been successful with radishes before and only marginally successful with peas.)

And, the seedlings inside are getting a lot bigger. The cucumber plants are so big already that I'm not sure how I'm going to hide them from the cats for much longer. I had noticed that the edges of some of the leaves were getting kind of dark, but I think that they were actually just getting a bit too hot. I've since raised the overhead lights a bit and things seem okay.

With everything so busy lately, I'm looking forward to a few weeks from now when I'll be done with my class and will hopefully be able to focus on more gardening.