Sunday 1 March 2009

i'm back!

I'm back from visiting my sister in Texas.  I had such a wonderful time seeing her, my new nephew, and a lot of the rest of my family!  And it was interesting to see what's growing in Texas in the winter and how it compares to what we grow down here.  But by the end of the trip I was definitely wanting to much around in my garden, especially considering that we left just after the 115 degree day when the garden was looking grim.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden09/tomatoesdry.JPGWe had house-sitters taking care of the cats and watering my garden.  Most of it came out very well and there are signs of recovering from the heat (more on that later).  The one tragedy is that my tomatoes for some reason ended up taking a beating.  I don't know what happened there, maybe not enough water.  So I've picked off as many of the fruit as I can, but it looks near the end.  We'll see if the green fruit on there ripen up, I think they will.

Almost everything else made it just fine.  In fact, the pumpkin vine took off yet again for some reason!  Remember how dried up it started to look?  Well compare the then:

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden09/pumpkinrot1.JPG

To now!

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden09/pumpkinregrow.JPG

It's even started to put out new fruit, though I don't know if they'll pollinate as I haven't seen any male flowers for a long time.  I'm not sure what to do about it once I harvest the ripe pumpkins, do I let it keep growing or pull it out and plant some peas for the winter?

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden09/mapleregrow.JPGThe other great news is that a few of my rhododendrons have put out new growth and so has the maple.  It lost a lot of foliage and a few branches have died, but it's started to sprout new growth on other branches.  If it survives this summer, it will survive anything.


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