Friday, August 22, 2008

Green Thumb Update

Earlier this summer, I blogged about this year's gardening effort at Chez Bilbo. Here's where we are a few months later:

- We are up to our armpits in basil, tarragon, thyme, chives, and rosemary. In fact, the basil is doing so well that I'm a little afraid of it...

- The parsley, dill, cilantro, and marjoram have died out. I have since learned that parsley is a biennial plant, which explains why it grew like mad last year, roared back early this year, then almost overnight went to seed and died out.

- The deer and rabbits have eaten all my tomato plants. Agnes and I have different views of this: she says the animals have to eat, too; I say they should go next door and eat at my neighbor's outdoor salad bar instead.

- The two yellow squash plants yielded exactly one big, beautiful squash. It's so nice I'm thinking of having it bronzed and displaying it on the mantlepiece. The zucchini plants yielded lots of pretty flowers, but no zucchinis.

- We have about five baseball-sized green and red bell peppers dangling from miserable-looking plants that have been munched down to stalks by the deer and rabbits.

Three words for next year: chicken wire fence.

The upside of all this is that the garden side of our house smells wonderful as the herbs bask in the summer sun. The downside is that the compost pile side of the house...well...doesn't. I'm also taking a bit less neighborly approach to the local wildlife...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow when we celebrate this week's Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

5 comments:

KKTSews said...

chicken wire only works if you really bury it or anchor it. I still have lost about 1/2 my tomatoes to rabbits. I've gotten exactly 4 little tomoatoes off three plants, and caught a rabbit INSIDE the chicken wire twice.
Can you say "poison" anyone?

The Mistress of the Dark said...

We have so many tomatoes now that its almost ridiculous. And our Zucs are looking like the club Bam Bam uses in the Flintstones!

Amanda said...

You get deer and rabbit???? WOW! I'd gladly have my plants eaten up by them just to watch them.

My garden is just a big mess right now. The plants are either diseased or just don't have the will to live anymore. Only my okra is doing 'ok'. Hopefully I won't jinx it by saying that.

Mike said...

I gave up on gardening 10 ... 20 ... 30 .... A long time ago.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

I definately am not plant-orientedf.