Note to self: search for suitable acronyms

May 6, 2006

CCLPSGGCWPMC or backwards, CMPWCGGSPLCC. In the last row (covered in hay): courgette (gold rush), cukes, luffah, pumpkin, spaghetti squash, gourds, galia melon, cantaloup, watermelon, poblano pepper, marconi pepper, corn. At this stage in development, I’m having trouble telling the gourdy, cukey, melony plants apart and even had to label them. I prefer to keep notes in a muddy garden notebook to labeling a plant, the idea being that the dangling cucumber should tell me the plant is a cucumber. But in the meantime, the plants are babies, and like all babies, they sort of look alike.

On the ‘right bank’: amaranth, buckwhat, alfalfa. ABA.

In the ‘bean rows’: sunflowers, dill, soy, soy, adzuki, chickpeas, red night kidney. No acronym necessary since the plants are so different looking.

CoCuLuPu
SpaGoGa
CanWatPoMaCo

Grow, You thangs!

debra at 11:53 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us

Pest control

May 5, 2006

The scales are tipping at the allottments, the organic gardeners are in the majority! Although our numbers are too small to make a real statistic, the demographic of the organic group is thoroughly mixed. In the image above, Sidi AlGouche, not exactly an organic gardener, has decided not to spray his potatoes to get rid of these bugs. Instead he spends an hour each day picking the potato beetles off by hand and indulging in a fair amount of tri-lingual cursing. Afternoons Sidi AlGouche stops cursing and puts his daughter Aqima (9) to work. Aqima is too much of a pistol to spend her afternoons bug-picking and usually puts in a solid twenty minutes before wandering off to hunt frogs with the kids across the waterway.

debra at 11:39 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us

First strawberries of the year!

May 4, 2006

The strawberry nearest to the camera is the first strawberry that I’ve grown. What a marvel. Before I tasted strawberries from the garden, I couldn’t understand what exactly was so special about strawberries. Now I know I needto grow twice as many and am eager to try different varieties. The native garrigues are producing well considering that I ignore them most of the time. I’m starting to think that my lack of presence in this commuter garden is a good thing.

debra at 13:58 | Comments (5) | post to del.icio.us