Sunday, August 12, 2007

Fruits of Our (Non)Labor



First, a confession. I have ceded the care of our lawn to our neighbor, the Experienced Lawncare Professional. Mowing the lawn was never my favorite activity anyway, and there is plenty of other work to do. Plus, he's much better at it and feels some responsibility for it, as he did it for previous owners.

He has also helped with advice for other plants, particularly for the one above. That vine by the shed wasn't doing much when we moved in last year (when that picture was taken), and we had no idea what it was. It had only grown slightly over the winter. But, after we
returned from Bangladesh and were paying ELP for his services, he casually mentioned, "Your grapevine could use some help."

Huh?
The grapevine has exploded this year, especially with stakes on which to climb. It's amazing how things will grow once you know how to take care of them. Soon, we will be able to sample this:

And related backyard food news, we finally got started on the vegetable garden:

Nothing fancy, just tomatoes, various hot peppers, acorn squash, and the obligatory zucchini. We didn't plant until late June, so we're not expecting miracles.

And in the herb garden:
Clockwise from bottom left: oregano, thyme, parsley, cilantro, Buddha, mint. Everything is doing surprisingly well. After two failed attempts at planting basil, we're now just growing that inside. We've been putting it all to good use, along with the insane amount of rosemary growing in the side yard. But it's tough to find something to do with all that thyme.

5 Comments:

At 8:38 AM, August 17, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Youre not the only one with a lot of thyme on your hands. Glad that you found what a grapevine looks like before you reached middle age.

 
At 8:03 AM, November 25, 2007, Blogger Unknown said...

wow, it's been awhile since I checked your blog. Didn't know you had a grapevine; didn't even know you had a shed. Hope you got to use the thyme in your Thanksgiving stuffing.

 
At 8:03 AM, November 25, 2007, Blogger Unknown said...

Q: what's Buddha?

 
At 3:10 PM, December 04, 2007, Blogger CJW said...

No worries about it being a while since you checked our blog-- we obviously haven't updated in a while. :b Buddha's the little statute that we found buried in our herb garden when I first planted our thyme and oregano plants. Not sure why he was buried down there and somehow, it seeks awkward to ask the past owners when we see them at block parties. Now he sits and watches over the herbs-- kind of our nod to either a scarecrow or iconic statuary, depending on how religious you are. If you look at the picture, you'll see the little gray stone statue among the plants. And yep-- used the thyme as well as the sage that came from the plant that was too big to fit in that little herb plot-- that guy's over in the vegetable patch.

 
At 3:10 PM, December 04, 2007, Blogger CJW said...

ack! I just noticed that it says "statute" not statue-- I caught myself the second time I automatically typed that in my comment but not the first time. I hate law school and what it's done to me.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home