As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for growing

My tomatoes are so behind!

by

I don’t think I’m going to have many or possibly any tomatoes this year. I planted them way too late!

Normally I either grow tomatoes from seed – beginning in March, or I purchase tomato plants in May and plant them by the end of that month or in early June. This year I didn’t start any tomatoes from seed and I didn’t buy any plants until the end of June or possibly even the beginning of July.

July in this area wasn’t all that warm. I’m certain the temperatures were below normal. So the tomatoes that I planted didn’t get off to a very good start. August was very warm for the most part, in fact we had several heat waves and that might not have been good for my tomatoes either.

My tomato plants do have small green tomatoes on them, but I don’t think they’ll grow big enough to ripen before it begins to get too cool at night.

I think what I might do is bring the containers that I’m growing some of my tomatoes in, into the enclosed back porch. I probably won’t have to do that for two or three weeks, but when I do the tomatoes will be in a nice warm sunny room. Actually the back porch can get quite hot with the sun shining directly on it for a good portion of the day.

Have you ever brought tomatoes indoors to finish growing and ripening when they were behind at the end of the season?

I figure it can’t hurt to try anyway.






If you want to see my garden here’s a sneak peek

by

Warning! My garden is very small. It’s jam packed with plants, but it’s small.

Here’s a view of the garden. I took this photo while standing with my back against the edge of the house. In other words I took it from near the base of the back stairs.

IMG_1147

As you can see I utilized every space available!

To the immediate right there’s a small storage area. Basically it’s a large grey wooden box that’s attached to the stairs. We keep our garbage containers in it. On top of that area I have several balcony planters where I grow everything from lettuce to tomatoes. I’ve also got my Jasmine or Camellia or whatever it is (see last post) in that area, as well as a Christmas cactus, ornamental pepper and a passion flower.

Immediately in front of the garbage storage area and our enclosed back porch is our small patio area. You can only see a portion of this area in the photo. We have a nice patio table that takes up most of the patio space. We’ve also got raised flower beds surrounding the patio. You can’t really see the central flower bed well in this photo but it’s behind the table.

So the patio table is surrounded by lovely plants. This gives the area the feel of being a separate garden room. Yes, I’m growing some tomatoes in pots on the patio. I’ve also got containers with cucumbers, green beans and tiny tom or cherry tomatoes growing on the other side of the table.

The rest of the garden is a mass of roses, lavender, balloon flowers, brown eyed susans, spring bulbs, hostas, lilies, daylilies and at least a hundred other types of perennial and annual plants.

Our neighbors house is behind ours. He actually lives on the adjoining street so his driveway is at the end of our garden. We also have very close neighbors on either side and can in fact see at least four of our neighbors backyards from our garden. I suppose that’s why I’ve tried to grow plants that are 3+ feet tall along the edges of the garden. It creates the illusion of privacy even if our yard is not the least bit private.

Oh yes I said the garden was small. It measures about 17 feet wide by 30 to 35 feet in length from the back of the house.

There. So now when I talk about my backyard garden you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about.

BTW if you click on any of my photos it will take you to my flickr account where you can click on the words “all sizes” above the photo to see a larger image if you want to see the photo in greater detail.

The Color Purple

by

Join Green Thumb Sunday
Join
My garden is made up of many different colored flowers, but when I look at the photos I’ve taken it seems that there are much more of some color than others. I thought I’d show you a few of my lovely purple flowers today.This flower is grown from a bulb. It’s formally called Liatris and more commonly known as Gay Feather.

Liatris

In my front flower bed I grow a small woody plant called Pervoskia Little Spire. I believe it’s a form of Russian Sage. I think it was a little windy when I took this photo and the flower stalks in the center moved closer to the lense as I shot the photo so the center is slightly out of focus.

If you can’t grow lavender you might try growing Russian Sage or even a nice Salvia as they are similar in appearance (tidier I believe), but they don’t have any scent.

Pervoskia Little Spire

Finally, here’s the common but ever so lovely purple petunia. Need I say more?

Purple petunia

How many purple flowers do you grow?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Meta