The garden, currently known as the jungle.

Last year I read Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. He mentions his experience in tending a community garden where residents rented plots for the growing season. Mel wrote that everyone would spend the first two months of the gardening season working the freshly tilled earth, planting and watering but that come midsummer, vacations and other things took priorities so that the neat gardens would be a mess of plants, produce and weeds. I remember thinking in horror, "If I ever had a successful vegetable garden there's no way mine would go untended!"

May I present my jungle, um garden. Now granted it's not been vacations or pools that have gotten in the way of tending the garden. Just a perfect storm of a week's worth of rain and busyness that has allowed me to put off wandering in it for a few days. Today I took a walk around to reaquaint myself. Care to join me?




In the first photo are the tomato plants in the veggie beds which stand taller than I do at about 5 1/2 feet. Below is the herb garden.




I'm pretty pleased with the strawberry patch. Only the one plant I put in live survived, the crowns that I planted never sprouted after the slugs chewed off the little bit of green they sent off. However, strawberries are thrivers and send off runners. My one plant has spawned two new plants and has sent off runners for two more. Now I understand why Mel mentioned planting strawberries in their own bed.




The crazy basil bush. Pretty obvious that in my neglect this week the flowers have sprouted and I just realized that I overplanted basil. To my local peeps, if you need some just let me know and I'll give you a bag.




The swiss chard. It's beautiful and I only planted the white variety. Next year I'd love to plant some of the rainbow varieties as well.




The tomatoes, ah the tomatoes. I kind of went overboard there too and I still hope to freeze some but I overplanted not knowing nearly how much tomato plants grow and produce. Especially for a home where only one person (me) eats fresh tomatoes at the moment. There is our first ripe tomato of the season and as I type it's hanging out on my counter waiting to join in a yummy pepperjack grilled cheese.




Of course there are many more tomatoes waiting in the wings.




Including these beautiful and delicious brandywines. Brandywines are my favorite variety, they have such character too.




Little bitty eggplants. This one is only about three inches long at the moment but I see many more blooms on the plants.




Remember the lettuce head I was afraid to pick? About two feet tall at the moment.




And definitely gone to seed but it's just gorgeous. Look at the deep crimson leaves!




This next part is called God creates a way. This pepper plant fell over a couple of weeks ago. I mean keeled over, laying down completely horizontally. I didn't have the heart to rip it up and my attempts at standing it back up were no good. Yet these cubanelles are growing as if the nothing was wrong with the plant!




I'm not sure if this vine is cucumber or canteloupe. Why? Because I didn't plant it, it's growing out of my compost bin. A few months ago I also had potato plants growing out of the compost bin from a few that had been tossed in.




Emerging bell peppers, my hand for scale.




Finally I'm growing rosemary! The seeds I planted and replanted last year wouldn't sprout so this year I bought one plant and divided it in two. I'm hoping to transplant some to the front entrance and replace some horrid pampas grass that the builders put in.




Fragrant, silvery sage. Have to be careful with this as a nursing mom since it does affect my supply but I'm itching to make some saltimboca.




Public service announcement to neat and tidy gardeners. When you're neat and rip up plants on schedule you miss out on letting the plants work for you. Here, my cilantro has gone to seed, the litte balls are coriander. Once the plant dries the seeds will drop and sprout next spring.




I'll admit I'm going to miss the garden in the winter, especially for the photos. I'm eager to see what will overwinter in our in between North Carolina climate. Oh and last night, the staple gun and I got to business.