How Does Our Garden Grow????

SO we did it!  We pestered our landlords enough and they finally gave in and let us use the backyard!  As you can guess we are like two kids in a candy store, we have eaten dinner outside every evening so far and today we planted veggies and flowers, it was a GREAT day!!!  Also, strangely enough, we caught enough snails to make any frenchman jealous.......what we will do with them remains to be seen but i am pretty convinced that there is a fairly large "snail-gasm" going on in the mason jars we created a little habitat in for them.  Interesting fact about snails, 1. they are hermaphrodites and 2. their sex organs are the little pointy things that stick out of the sides of their heads.  Should that ever come up in trivia - you'll be ready. (pictured right)

But I digress - we had a massive amount of clean up to do and how rewarding it was when we cleared away old branches and crap that has just been sitting there to find these tiny violet sprouts poking their heads up out of the ground along with what I believe is a rose bush, i pruned it a bit, we will see if it flowers or not.  We also were able to salvage a table and 4 chairs that with a little scrubbing were declared usable.  There are two large trees in the back yard, one in each back corner which provides the perfect amount of shade and breeze.  Today we planted some of our herbs that we have been growing hydroponically (yes the basil bush has moved outdoors) so has some mint and some cilantro and thyme which may not make it, we shall see.  We also bought a couple of tomato plants, some jalapeno pepper plants, celery plants and a half flat of pansies too, oh, also ivy (we have an ugly fence and very little privacy and some sort of flowering bush that seems like it will look nice.

My good friend is a gardner in NJ and has been taking pics of her garden an posting them, i like the idea, it's kind of an online journal and will help me remember what i did next year and what worked and what failed.  Below are the pics i took today, enjoy :)

our little pansies (see the ugly fence???)
Planted 4-11-10

Three Beefsteak Tomatoes (mmmmm)
Planted 4-11-10

Our Jalapeno Pepper plants
Planted 4-11-10

Celery
Planted 4-11-10

More Jalapenos
Planted 4-11-10

The left is the basil "tree" and the right is my Cilantro, Thyme and Mint (left to right)
Moved outdoors 4-11-10

Close up of the pansies, they are so cute!
Planted 4-11-10














I guess i should mention one last tidbit.  The neighborhood we live in, Greenpoint, was the sight of the largest oil spill that ever happened in the U.S. (yes, bigger than exxon valdez).  Although I feel that our soil is most likely fine we are going to send it in to a lab to be tested mostly out of curiosity but I suppose it would be the better to know than not know.  Once we have the results I will be posting them here :)

ok i have to run

~City Mouse.........or should I say......COUNTRY MOUSE??????

;)