Garden Update

After all the work involved in crafting the first batch of "tea" and applying it to the plants, I took a break.  It was rather labor intensive, not to mention quite messy, but I decided to mix up another batch last week.  The stuff must have some magic elixir in it that the plants love because the results were practically instant!

Since there are not really "before" pictures, you can't really compare, but here are some photos of the current state of things at Zoe Cottage Patio and Garden...

 I bought this Boston Fern earlier this spring and hung it on a hook from the pergola.  The wind had battered the poor thing to where one side was pretty much barren, and there was a lot of dead foliage at the bottom from lack of water.  I took it down and moved it under the shelter of the patio, cut off all the dead stuff and applied some of the tea to it.  Within two days there was a lot of new growth and the color had improved.

 Here is Freddie Fernhead--still happy and thriving!  The new growth isn't coming on quite as fast as it was earlier, but there are still some new fronds poking out here and there.

 The "garden" tubs--the farthest one is empty awaiting the arrival of my asparagus crowns, the next is peppers, the closer two are tomatoes.  Close ups of both are below...

 The hydrangea I rescued at the end of last season is doing very well--especially since I loosened up the pile of cotton seed hulls Ornery dumped there a few weeks ago.  They were rather stuck together and not allowing any water to get to the roots.  Oops!  I planted some bachelor button seed bombs along the front of this bed, but they haven't shown any activity yet... Hopefully they will all come up and be pretty.

 I finally potted the two remaining (of 4) lavender plants I bought a month ago or so.  Two didn't make it, but these two are apparently a bit more hardy.  They were just in little bitty plastic pots, so I am really surprised they lasted at all.   The far pot has some seed-bombs planted in it with cosmos seeds.

 This herb has done the best of any so far.  This is marjoram.  I love to cook with the dried herb, but have not tried it fresh yet.  Hope it is good, as the plant seems to be quite happy and healthy!

 I have never been able to keep nasturtium alive, but Elizabeth bought this one for me a couple of weeks ago.  I finally got it potted Friday and used some of the tea on it.  It has already added several new blooms since then.  Hopefully soon it will branch out at the bottom of the plant, too.  It seems rather gangly...

 The pepper plants.  Two red bell pepper at the back, both have blooms, one Poblano pepper in the middle with a very nice looking little pepper hanging in about the middle, and a jalapeno at the front with blooms on it--but the leaves don't look great, and I think it needs to be hotter for it to do well.  I noticed today there are some suspicious looking black spots on some of the stems.

 Here are some other pots... Rosemary, chives, green onions from seed, ?, ?, Mexican sunflower and basil.  I cannot remember what is in the fourth and fifth pots, but I keep watering anyway. :)

 I took the strawberries out of one of those tall strawberry pots with holes in the sides.  The side plants were all but dead, and the one on top barely hanging on.  I don't think it is possible to get enough water with that configuration, so I put them in this large pot.  There are three plants there, the third is just barely coming up.  When I pulled it out of the other pot, I accidentally removed all the leaves, but I figured it would probably come up if I planted it right.  Sure enough, today I saw some new growth.

If you look very closely, you can see two tomatoes on this heirloom vine.  The curly leaves are a little distressing, and the second plant (a different variety of heirloom) is much less dense with foliage, but they are both loaded with blooms.  I hope these fare better than my last heirloom tomato plants did.  They grew magnificent then died suddenly for no apparent reason. It was disheartening, to say the least!