What Noisy Cats Are We

First off, a warning that plant disease is hitting the Northeast U.S. pretty hard this year.  It’s apparently the same blight that caused the Irish potato famine.  Be on the lookout.  Here’s a link to an article from Boston.Com on the subject: http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/07/plant_disease_h.html.

This year, I went at gardening without any major plans, and did things haphazardly.  Even though the landlord gave us permission to dig up a part of the lawn to create a real garden, and that would be nice to do with a raised bed and stuff, I didn’t have a roto tiller or clear any of the grass off last Fall, so I gave up on that idea early on.  Instead, I opted for some container gardening.  It’s a type of gardening that has taken off in the past couple of years, especially in urban areas like Boston.  Apartment dwellers everywhere have gotten into the trend.  I thought it would be worth a try at Chez Cushman this year as well.

I bought a variety of vegetable plants at a couple different stores, as well as started some from seed.  Gwen purchased a little pumpkin seed kit from Lowe’s and started that as well.  I have a patio tomato in a large pot in the yard, a ‘straight eight’ cucumber, some green beans, corn, and a bunch of herbs.  We also have a Topsy Turvy tomato plant that’s hung on a branch of a dead tree in the yard that’s doing absolutely great.  I think it was all that June rain that helped the little guys along.

So far the plants are all showing fruit, save for the pumpkin plant.  We have actually eaten two green beans from that plant already.  I have neglected to transplant the corn and a couple others and really should get to that soon.  Next year this will be a much more organized project.

For starting from nothing this year, and kind of just playing around to get a feel for the stuff, I am rather proud of the progress made so far.  This is something I have always wanted to do, and when I own a house, there will be a substantial gardening effort made.

Oh, and I’d purchased a random Concord Grape vine at Home Depot at the beginning of the 2008 growing season, fully intending to put it in the ground.  I never got to it, and had just discarded the whole thing into the yard last year.  It sat out all winter, and in the spring, while cleaning some stuff up, I just tossed the presumably dead vine into a 5 gallon bucket, which subsequently filled up with water during some rains.  Lo and behold a couple of weeks ago I looked at the thing and there were leaves growing on it!  Hearty freaking plant.  It is now in a pot, still growing, and maybe we’ll see some grapes come off it in a year or two.

Here are a few pics:

Topsy Turvy (upside down tomato plant):

Bad angle of patio tomato plant.  Very hearty and compact:

Another bad angle of the cucumber plant:

Gwen wants to pickle these guys once they have fully grown: