Garden Report: May 24

This week, we've been eating fresh cherries!

Yes, somehow the cherry tree has produced lots and lots of fruit this year with little or no urging on our part, and only minor predation from birds. We're also enjoying strawberries (I even made some jam), and the occasional blueberry (OK, one so far, but more to come).

The secret to lots of strawberries seems to be limited water. The plants like the water well enough, but the real kicker is snails; if I water the snails show up and eat all the strawberries. This year I've been watering a lot less, and so no snails, and so more strawberries. It works for me.

This is our sour cherry about a week ago, so maybe we'll get enough sour cherries to make a pie this year. Assuming the chickens don't eat them all as they did last year.

To protect my garden, I've been keeping the chickens locked in their yard lately. But they get bored there, so I've solicited some rancid grains for them. Here they enjoy a double meal of black sesame seeds gone slightly sour, and some other grain that was a bit off.

Despite all those precautions and the fact that it's late May, I still do not have my tomatoes in the ground. And in part that's because we still haven't made fences to keep the dogs out of the garden area.

There is one tomato in the ground right now: this volunteer that came up near the chicken yard (see the little tiny plant next to the raspberry?). That will be a dog tomato; Rosie can eat all she wants of it.

In non-food parts of the garden, things are going well. We have hollyhocks in bloom (plus $%^@! invasive ferns):

And it's nigella season so we have lots of these:

And these:

The freebie sweet pea I got from Annie's, 'Black Knight', has started blooming where it has not been pecked back by the chickens.

And Tinkerbelle has started opening her buds up, just in time for a bunch of wasps to appear in the garden.

And the Tanacetum niveum has gotten going, looking much happier.

Not really in bloom but good looking are the poppy seedheads. I'm always torn about what I like more: poppies as flowers or poppy seedheads.

The Brodiaea have started opening up, looking interesting if a bit out of place in a world surrounded with big lush blooms and foliage.

And the variegated hebe:

Which is turning into a nice bush, if quite a bit shorter than the 6-feet height on the label.

And the last of the Leptosiphon, which seems to be getting rangy and thin, so I'm not sure it will last out the summer. I planted some last summer and refreshed it in the fall, so maybe it will hang in there, but this year will be characterized by less watering, so possibly not.

Technorati Tags: berries, birds, cherries, chickens, flowers, fruit, gardening, jam, plants, poppies, seeds, strawberries, tomatoes, urban farming

posted by ayse on 05/24/09