This gardening update is LONG overdue. My apologies.
This week I am thankful — I was scared to leave for Lauren’s wedding last week because it meant that my plants wouldn’t get watered for five days! I already knew my pepper and fuchsia and cilantro are pretty unsalvageable, but I was quite concerned for my spinach and tomatoes. Thankfully, the tomatoes didn’t look too affected and, after a good watering, my spinach is starting to perk up. Here are some pictures:
Crazy [unshriveling] spinach:
First colored tomato!
And some green ones…
Pretty green basil:
Dead cilantro :(
Dead pepper…..
and dead (or just VERY ugly) fuchsia.
I keep thinking the fuchsia’s bitten the dust, and then I see new growth. So really, it might just be that I have no idea how to care for fuchsia. I don’t know if I’ll try it again. For now, I’m happy with my basil and tomatoes, although I really wish the cilantro hadn’t totally stopped growing. Maybe I’ll get a salad or two out of the spinach, also.
Things I have learned about gardening:
1. If you are growing a plant for their leaves, don’t let them flower.
2. Water often, but not too often.
3. Plants are actually pretty resilient if you underwater them, as long as they aren’t left for a very long time.
4. Fuchsia likes to droop, and might actually be a hanging basket plant, but no one ever told me that. One promise was fulfilled to me, though: the first week I had the plant, a hummingbird came to visit it. I only saw him once, but it made me happy. I digress.
5. Spinach should grow out, not up. Prune as necessary.
This has been a very strange Summer. Rain all the way through June and then the sudden heat wave in July, followed by mostly 70-degree weather. How is it September already? I welcome the little signs of Fall, but I do feel slighted on my Summer…
Here’s hoping the temperatures stay moderate! I’d love to eat tomatoes into the early fall….
How was your Summer gardening season?
brynna begins 