From commentor Scott:
You had asked for some pix of our gardening efforts. Here’s a couple of the garden along the rail of the upper deck; or, as a friend refers to it, “nice hedge.” It does function as a sight barrier affording us some privacy on the deck.
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A mix of flowers, ornamentals, vegetable and herbs taken in mid July. They’re fading a bit now in Western NY but still producing.
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The tomatoes are 3 heirlooms and 3 hybrids. Herbs include rampant basil, watercress,thyme, oregano lemon verbena and multifarious mints. Getting to be time to pick and preserve them.
A pic of the Hibiscus on our lower deck, which is not so populated with plants.
Blog find of the moment: Inside Urban Green:Modern methods of growing food, foliage or flowers for the millions of us who are not green thumbs. Ran across it while looking for the Slate article on EarthTainers I linked to back last Spring. Who’s doing indoor gardening this winter? If we’re going to have photos during the dark months, either you Southern / Southwestern / Californian correspondents need to step it up, or those of you with indoor plants will have to share…
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Here north of Boston, we are paying for our glorious summer with a bumper crop of ragweed and other allergy-inciting pollens. The itchy eyeballs are pretty bad, and the swollen sinuses are no fun, but it’s the perpetual brain-fog that’s wearing on my nerves.
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How are conditions in your gardens, right now?
Helen
I don’t have a garden. I live in NYC. I would love a garden. My dad had a garden when I was growing up. Mostly I miss the strawberries and the tomatoes.
MikeJ
Not in my garden, but over in the park, yellow wooly bears (no, this has nothing to do with Sullivan.)
Kristine
It’s almost October, leaves are turning, and I am still harvesting tomatoes here in NE Illinois. Bunch of greenies still to ripen, but the winds are honking, temps will drop for a few nights before moderating next week, and I’m wondering whether I should pick the blasted things and let them ripen indoors. Will one 40-degree night hurt them? Turn them into balls of mealy tastelessness? Inquiring mind wants to know.
piratedan
AL,
Let me know if the anime for Usagi Drop is as good as the manga and if you like AnoHana, I’ll see if I can find some other titles that may suit ya.
Kurt Montandon
As a Californian, I’d like to point out that the only way I could take a picture of an outdoor garden in the winter is to dig through four or five feet of snow.
Yutsano
@piratedan: AL is the one who got me started on Twin Spica, which is actually less science fiction and more human interest story. Like a homage to the more human Asimov tales.
theal2
@Kristine:
When I lived in IL we picked the green tomatoes, wrapped them in newspaper and stacked them in box in basement, and they would slowly ripen. Pick them! Can ripen some on window ledge, too.
Kristine
@theal2: Thanks. I usually do the paper-bag-under-the-kitchen-sink ripening, but in the basement they’re out of the way.
The wind’s ridiculous. I feel like I’m in the middle of a Ray Bradbury story.
piratedan
@Yutsano: ty, I haven’t seen it, so I’ll check it out!
Yutsano
@piratedan: It’s very touching. Also one of the few anime that has a live iteration. To me that makes it memorable on that point alone. It’s a good story though. Keeps the grand tradition of no one has a mother too!
Anne Laurie
@Kristine:
Somebody, a week or two ago, said the Italian tradition was to pull up the whole vine, roots and all, and hang it upside-down in a sheltered spot. That way, the fruits are supposed to ripen ‘naturally’ where you can keep an eye on them… I may try that myself, except that I’m not a tidy pruner, so detangling the vines from each other & their props may be more trouble than I can muster!
But I’ll leave the remaining cherry plants where they are, and throw an old sheet or plastic tarp over them for those first couple low-30s nights. There isn’t enough daylight to ripen full-sized fruit much longer, but some years the little guys stay productive until almost Halloween around here…
Anne Laurie
@piratedan:
Thank you! The first episode of Usagi Drop (which I just finished watching, with the Spousal Unit) is very close to the manga — sweeto! and I’ve got high hopes for AnoHana, too. I’d love to get more recommendations, especially for the newer (less than 4 or 5 year old) stuff… as media-dinosaurs, now that Chris Beveridge has been borged, we mostly rely on English-language manga, Rightstuf, Technogirls and Netflix recommendations for new stuff. Spotty in the extreme, but of course we still have whole series on disc that we haven’t gotten around to watching, either.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: If you’re ever in a total wacky mood and are really looking for something completely different, you could do worse than Axis Powers Hetalia, which is world history turned way on its ear. Like most Japanese productions, the role of Nihon in World War II is totally whitewashed and it is nowhere near historically accurate, but it is diabolically funny for exploiting national stereotypes through a Japanese lens.
And it has the coolest anime character. Ever.
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano:
What, Moominpapa? (He’s got a cameo in that clip!)
I’m sure I’ll end up watching Hetalia one of these years. But remember, mostly I watch anime with a straight male… and I’m sufficiently butch that I don’t have a whole lot of patience for bishonen style. (Although the more-or-less unconscious… humectance… between Hikaru and Akira did add a certain something to Hikaru no Go. Can’t remember if you said you’d ever watched that one?)
No one of importance
Reminds me of the gardens people maintain on their barges on the Thames around where I used to live:
http://richmonduponthamesdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2010/07/barge-paradise-4210.html
[not my blog]
Pot gardens can be amazingly joyful.
piratedan
@Anne Laurie: wow another Hikaru no Go! fan? wow, the wonders you find on the interwebs!
here’s one from last year that I thought was severely underrated for pure fun, yes it plays against most of your usual anime stereotypes, which made it that much better
Soredemo-machi-wa-mawatteiru
Anne Laurie
@piratedan: Yeah, I think Hikaru no Go was the first fansubbed series we watched, maybe 6 or 7 years ago. The college Tolkien Fellowship where the Spousal Unit & I met, back in the mid-1970s, had a batch of committed Go players, so the description of “navigating the the cut-throat world of professional Go” struck us… hilarious, actually. And yet, it’s such a great story that, even though I’m just about board-game-blind (being dyslexic doesn’t help) I had no trouble sticking with the whole 75 episodes, more than once. The arc where Sai realizes why “God has given me a thousand years” is the best allegory of the teacher-student relationship that I can imagine…
And I’ll put Soredemo on my list; the Spousal Unit in particular loves “droll” slice-of-life stories (like Kimagure Orange Road. Or Maison Ikkoku, which may be his all-time favorite; he bought the entire run on video, then on fansubs, then on ‘legal’ discs; not to mention multiple versions of the manga).
Munira
@Kristine: I’ve certainly had tomatoes out in 40 degree weather with no ill effects. You can always cover them if you’re concerned, but I don’t until we’re close to having a frost. They will ripen fine indoors though. All of mine have been in for quite a while (we’ve had a few light frosts here in Quebec) and I still have some ripening on the window sill.
Josie
Love the blog you found, Anne Laurie. I am fascinated by the no drainage hole container setup he writes about. I think I will try it for some winter lettuce. Thanks for the tip.
Cliff in NH
My tomatoes are finally starting to ripen now that the nights are much cooler … If we get a hard freeze warning I’ll bring ’em onto the porch otherwise they are staying out as long as they can.
The beefmasters are calling it a season, the little small ones started turning a little bit, so Soon I’ll finally get more than one ripe one at a time!
Kristine
Thanks all who commented. I am still thinking, but I may cover the plants with plastic garbage bags if we dip into the 30s. If it stays in the 40s, they’re on their own.
The tomatoes survived the wind, although the larger plants were listing quite a bit. A couple of big greenies broke off and are now in a paper bag beneath the kitchen sink.
The cherry tomato is still going nuts. I may need to look up a few green tomato recipes before long.