Filed under: What's Growing
I totally stole the title of this post from In My Kitchen Garden which I read religiously. So I hope she views it as a tribute to her writing, from a lurker in love with her prose, that I’d steal her titles to use as my own.
The first thing to sprout in my garden this year, were my amazon jeweled nasturtiums. I’m looking forward to consuming this pest-trap. I planted it because I heard that I’d get a lovely, lush vine that would be not only edible, but would attract all the nasty garden pests. Apparently the deal is that once all the pests in habit leaves of my nasturtium, I just snip off the leaves that are affected and we move on with life.
So far I have a handful of leaves. On one of them, as on quite a vareity of my plants, I have a spider who has set up shop in the folds of the leaves. The nasturtium continues to grow, but the leaves do not look nearly as big as they do on other people’s images of theirs. And I have no flowers. Is it early? Late? Am I expecting miracles too soon?
My Hyacinth Runner Beans seem to have been the most voracious growers of the lot. All of the seeds that I planted and pre-sprouted turned into plants. I had to thin them. I hate thinning plants. I always feel that I’ve picked the wrong one to survive.
At any rate, their purple stems are beautiful and the green leaves look like that of any other bean. They’ve taken to twining around the hanging plant sling that is holding their pot of soil, as I’d hoped. I already see flower buds on the tops of both of them.
I’m hoping that they’ll vine up the entire hanging plant sling, back over the shepherd’s hook, and then possibly vine along the remainder of my railing.
I am trying so hard this year to grow vines, because I have a balcony and so bushy plants just won’t do. Which leads us to …
I’m also growing my absolute favorite tomato to grow, thus far. I don’t know the particular variety, but based on how it came to be, I’m guessing it is something like F3.389205.a or somesuch. It was a volunteer tomato that grew in the sifted compost that my mother used as a bed for her mesculun mix over the winter. My plant came from a sucker of her plant. Hers has been transplanted outside.
I fully intend to save seeds from the first tomato that I get, in hopes that future offspring will grow true from seed. I’ve decided to, in her honor, dub this tomato variety “Barbie Girl” after a cross between her name (Barbara) and Early Girl since these tomatoes are early producers. In fact, at her house with the momma-plant, the tomatoes have already come in and are DELICIOUS. They are nice medium-to-large, round, slicing tomatoes that are not too juicy but also not too pasty. It is an indeterminate plant that puts out suckers like there is no tomorrow, which is good. It also has done what I’ve wanted of tomatoes in the past, which is to cascade down out of the hanging basket. And dear lord is it not only prolific with fruits, but it also grows in all sorts of unimaginable conditions. In short, this is your wonder tomato.
Mmmmmmm. And I have flowers. One on its way in. One on its way out. I’m hoping that the one on its way out has set fruit, but it will take about a week to start to see the ovary swell.
As for pests, her plant got hit relatively hard, but since I companion plant, mine hasn’t. Hers also appeared to have contracted TMV, but mine has not.
So, who’s up for field testing Barbie Girl tomatoes next year? I’ll probably have two extra seed packets to share.
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