Separation Anxiety.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Portland to visit my Mom. I'll be gone about two weeks, and Alex will be looking after the garden while I'm gone. I know he'll do fine, and really the only thing that needs to be done is watering (my hope that raised beds make for little weeding seems to have been fulfilled). Still, though, I can't help but be a little nervous. Aside from worrying about something going wrong while I'm not there to help fix it, I'll miss watching some of the new flowers open and seeing the growth of my little pepper that I just transplanted into the big garden. The lemon basil is growing like mad, and I've only just been able to keep ahead of it's flowers. I'm going to cut it way back today and hang the cuttings up to dry, but still; I wonder what it will look like when I get back.

I've decided to wait until I get back to restart my tomatoes, so I can monitor them in their early stages. I'm still not sure exactly what I'm going to do, either. I talked to my Dad and he said it sounded like there might be some sort of fungus in the soil that killed them. Any major imbalance in nutrients or pH would have killed off (or at least drastically effected) everything else in the bed. Since it was just the tomatoes that kick it, it must be something more specific. But that means that I'm not sure I can grown them in the raised beds. If it is something in the soil and if I did try to grow them there again, the same thing would likely happen. So I'm thinking I might buy a big, deep tub of some kind and fill it with actual potting soil, then plant the tomatoes in that. This being Florida, I'm not too worried about starting them late; we probably won't get a killing frost until late November.

Alex being in the military means that we have a very interesting sleep schedule. We're usually in bed by 8:00 pm, and get up at 4:30 am. This means that I see the sun rise every morning, and I've found that that is a great time to take pictures of my flowers. The other morning the light was particularly odd. There was a storm front coming in, and the sky was glowing kind of yellowish green. It was a little hard to capture how cool and glowy the flowers looked in that light, but I still got some cool pictures. Warning: I got a bit artsy. Enjoy!

Flowers and Failures.

My tomatoes are dead, and I'm not sure why. They were looking great, even the one that started out all small and stunted. Then one by one, they died. I don't know if I under watered them, or if there's something wrong with the soil, or if they just got fried by the sun, but whatever the reason, my tomatoes are dead. And that sucks. I guess I'll just have to start over again, though maybe I should get the soil tested first. I seem to remember Steve the dirt guy saying that he used this soil for his own garden, and that everything had grown great except the tomatoes. At the time, he'd said something about it being because of not enough sunlight, but maybe there's some anti-tomato substance in the soil. Or maybe it's lacking some specific nutrient that they need. Or maybe the pH is off. I'm not sure what it is, but one way or another, I've failed my tomatoes, and that makes me sad.

I also seem to be incapable of growing mint and thyme. I've tried to restart them twice now in the little pots on the windowsill, and each time they look like they're doing fine, and then all of a sudden, they die. This time, it almost looked like something came through and ate the little green tops off the sprouts, leaving the white stalks sticking out of the potting soil for a day or so before they shriveled up. Is our house infested with some kind of vegetarian spider, that creeps in at night and eats my plants? I have no idea what is going on.

The borage is flowering, which is really pretty, but it's also been completely infested with aphids. So much so that I'm actually considering buying some ladybugs from the garden supply store and turning them loose to munch as many as they can. But at least the flowers are pretty. I even have some pink ones.

The nasturtiums still aren't doing so great, and after a little poking around on the internet, I think I've figured out why: they don't really like hot weather. Duh. Maybe I should have researched them a little more before I planted them somewhere with summers this hot. I don't think we had a single day last week where it wasn't in the 90's. Oh well. They're not dead, they're just not quite as pretty and flowery as I'd hoped they'd be. Sigh.

But it's not all doom and gloom. My one remaining Islander pepper is doing great, and it's little brother is almost ready to be transplanted into the big garden. The marigolds are just starting to flower, as are the cosmos. The lemon basil is growing faster than I know what to do with, and the sweet basil is ready to be thinned out in it's pot. I've harvested exactly 30 green beans so far (they're delicious), and will pick more today.

This was the first green bean harvest. They were too perfect to cook, so we ate them raw. Yum!

Look at the little curlycues!

But best of all, all of the zinnias are flowering.

They're so pretty! I was gone all last week, and when I left, there was only one flower just starting to open. Now they're all flowering, and they're wonderful. I can see them from the kitchen window, and it's just how I imagined they'd look when I first dreamed this garden up. Part if me wants to pick them and fill the house with flowers, but I don't think I will. Not these first ones, at least. Eventually, if each plant starts producing more than one flower, then I'll pick some. But for now, I'm just enjoying seeing them as they are. They're my consolation for all the other plants that aren't doing so well. At least these ones are flourishing!

I kind of went nuts taking pictures of them this morning...

Go, tiny pollinator, go!

This was always my favorite color of zinnia when I was little.

This is the one that was just starting to open when I left last week. And...

...this is what it looks like today. It's the only bi-color one so far, and I think it's my current favorite.

P.S.
Also, it rained four inches on Sunday. Four. In one day. That's nuts. My rain gauge was almost completely full, and the yard and driveway flooded. Luckily, the garden didn't flood, though it certainly got a good soaking. If anything was lacking water, it sure isn't now.

So..much...rain!