End of Summer Gardening

My daughter brought her play camera to our city garden plot the other day and took some really cool shots. Yes, I love everything she makes, that is my job, but I thought it might be a nice thing to share with my readers. Here is my 5 yr old's view of a day in the sunshine of our garden.


Marigolds gone by, looking closely and smelling their pungent fragrance as she dead heads them. I think this is a universal North American gardening experience. So happy to instill these scents in her childhood memory.


This one is so beautiful, she held a stick up and made a growling face, but "It didn't work", she said. I think it is a great self portrait. Very summery and sunshine. Even though it is the hot sweltering end of summer, this image is sweet and self aware.


I asked her to take one of me for fun. She had her turn with the hose and soaked me earlier, I am drenched in this picture. We really have a good time together when it's just us. I love going to the garden with her. She helped me weed the beets at age 3. Now at age 5, she is making friends with mourning doves and asking if we can take them home. I said she has to catch them first.


Watering plot #32. I propped up the hose in our neighbor's fence so I could focus on the other plot. I love to see her perspective, her vantage point and her world.


Morning glories cover the fences this year thicker than in past years. The vines provide some much needed shade in our corner near plot #2. She was hanging out close to me picking these heart shaped leaves and giving them to me. She repeated over and over that she was giving me the most important gift of the loving heart. I made sure to tuck them into my pockets so I wouldn't lose them.

It was a really hot blazing summer day out there, but we kept cool in the hose. There were a lot of weeds to pull, but we did find some creatures to look at. I squished harlequin beetles, squash bugs and we had to leave the mourning dove where he was perched on the fence. I left that garden closer to my daughter. Girl time.

Veggies of the Week, 7/14/10

We grew all of this. I have no idea how. I think my husband bought some seeds and started them. I have a vague recollection of planting them in our city garden plot.... I remember a lot of traveling and distractions...

We ventured out to check on things in the garden last week. Weeds had taken over a lot of the area, some veggies were being choked out by the healthy weeds, but underneath it all, we found food! Thanks to a good friend or 2 that watered for us while we were neglectful gardeners, the garden lived and somehow thrived! Check out that bounty! WOW!

Blooms of the week 6/8/10

Can these Asiatic Lilies give a bigger and brighter show?!? I mean, this has been nonstop for 3 weeks now! I am so glad we took a chance on the mixed collection when we did. These hardy beauties have brought us lively color for us to enjoy year after year. I guess these have been established in our container garden for about 4 yrs now. It might be time to split them up and give them to some friends soon.
And lovely marigolds, how I love you. These seeds were collected at our community garden plot one Fall when the growing season was coming to an end. The red/orange/gold blooms on these 18" annuals are enjoyable all summer. Some of our other varieties of marigolds self seeded this year, so we have lots of orange ones, too. Also, our petunias self seeded all over the place and I have been tucking those into pots all over the yard for purple and pink color.

More pictures to come as the blooms keep on going!

Blooms of the week, Our Urban Garden

We have had nonstop blooms in our city container garden. So happy to share some heirloom irises and a peony bloom with you this week. I have been waiting for this peony to bloom for 6 yrs, I planted it as a tuber. Finally!!!!

Blooms of the week, Dwarf Iris

These are old fashioned irises, I got them from an old guy's garden when I lived in PA. He had such a huge range of plants that he would split them up in the spring and offer gallon buckets for $3.00. What a deal!

This dwarf bearded iris only grows 8" at the highest. It's great for the front of a border or tucked away in a heat tolerant container garden. Lovely!

Spring Blooms, photo inspirations

I thought I'd start a new posting ritual for weekends. I'll post a picture that I take of something that inspired me around the city.

This week it was blooming trees at Patterson Park. Always a great place to spend a springtime afternoon.

What will it be next week? Stay tuned.....

New Gardening Club

This week was the first all volunteer garden club at the Southeast Anchor Enoch Pratt Library. It was a great day, 73 degree weather, raking sun, a perfect afternoon to set out a fall bulb planting.

With gloves and tools in tow, a group of community members offered to help us plant bulbs. We worked with a new local business, Baltimore Contained, who supplied about 200 bulbs for planting that day! The mixture of naturalizing daffodils and dwarf irises are really going to make a beautiful showing next spring!

Here are some great pictues of the event!

Veggies of the Week

We visited our neglected overgrown garden yesterday to see what was happening there. Tons of tomatoes, carrots, beets, beans, wow. Finally the sun and rain have balanced in our late summer days and we are getting voracious growth (including tons of weeds). Hooray!

But washing the swiss chard, this little critter ran for it, trying to stay above the waterline. Very exciting. We are going to try and keep him healthy and encourage cocoon building. At least someone will eat all of that chard around here. And of course, it is tomato season. So happy to sample the sweet juicy heirloom tastes that we have been waiting for. All of these plants were started from seed inside in the spring. It is so satisfying to get a bounty after all of this time waiting.

Blooms of the week

Lilies are still going strong. We have some yellow and white Asiatic ones still hanging on. New fragrant soft yellow trumpet lilies are blooming this week, some tomatoes are budding out and grapes are getting full. Day lillies are looking good this week, too. So elegant and pretty, this peachy orange variety is so summertime to me.

They Don't Call me Tigerlilly for Nothin'!

These beauties are growing in pots in my concrete backyard in Highlandtown. We live in one of the most barren parts of our neighborhood. I have watched the greening efforts on my block fail as people disregard the new trees and flower pots as some of the residents meagerly try to maintain them against the odds. Our yard is fenced, so things are out of reach from metal pipe wielding kids, trash, and you don't want to know what else...

In my insistance on beauty, I bought an Asiatic/Oriental lily bulb mix for my blazing hot backyard about 2 yrs ago and have been totally stunned at the blooms that we have gotten from them! These pics are the second wave of lily blooms I have had. We have already had melony-orange and speckled freckly yellow/orange go by. White, yellow, and my stargazers are going to open in about a week or so. These plants are totally fool proof if you give them the basics. If I can grow them here, you will probably have luck with them, too!

City Garden, Flowers of the Week

These heirloom beauties just get better with age. The irises have been blooming almost a week now, the ones that have gone past curl up and hang in such a whimsical way, I just love these!

Wisteria, climbing up the ugly pluming vent in the backyard. It has a really nice light purple flower that has a little dot of green in it, so gorgeous. I was so glad to see this vine bloom this year, it has not bloomed in the backyard in previous years, so I am really happy to see it thriving. I couldn't get a good shot, the flowers are too high to see up close.

Gorgeous romantic hybrid tea in rust red. The image doesn't pick up the real brick red color of this rose, so rich and old fashioned looking. It has a light sweet fragrance, a lovely addition to our garden from a generous friend who left town. Thank you Marcea, this rose is so you!

Urban Blooms, last week's city garden

I have been MIA with the blog here, my apologies! I was able to snag a few pics of the backyard garden last week. Have a look:

Above, these heirloom brown and yellow irises are an old fashioned variety from my husband's grandmother's garden in Connecticut. They are very hardy plants that seem to grow and bloom no mater what kind of conditions they see. Our concrete backyard seems to make them happy, blooming more every year.

A handful of wildflowers from my daughter, fresh buttercups, always a springtime beauty!

Purple saliva, sage that is super drought tolerant, this one should bloom for a while.

I am so excited about the growing season. Check back for more urban gardening pics. I am determined to have a flower garden in the heart of a concrete neighborhood. This month, it has been 5 years and our garden gets better every year!

Spring Gardening in the City

In our city garden plots, we are waiting patiently for our seeds and seedlings to get strong and grow. Seems like this spring was a long cold and rainy one. Now it is suddenly blazing hot. We are crossing our fingers, hoping these little guys can take it. I think we had more in the ground by this time last year that was already growing well.

This year we are looking forward to potatoes, onions, peppers, spinach, chard, tomatoes, beets, peas, lettuce, watermelon, cucumbers, radishes, and Chinese cabbage... so far. We are already strategically plotting how to fight our pests the cucumber beetle, squash borer, and harlequin bugs. I'll have to do a pest post this year. We are ready!

Purple Spring Flowers

It's amazing to me that in our tiny concrete backyard, it is possible to grow a lush variety of flowers. This is what is blooming this week, so lovely!

Growing Seelings for Spring!

Today is the fist day of spring! HOORAYYYY!

We have already been digging in our garden plots that we rent through the Baltimore City Farms program. The ground is workable, fertile and ready to go. We had a great bounty last year and are looking forward to this growing season. We've even started some seeds in our basement using the 'ol flats w/ fluorescent lights set up. So far so good. We haven't had any dampening off or legginess as of yet... YAY!

Veggies of the Week

We got these Chinese White Radish seeds on sale at the end of the summer season. On a whim, we thought we could try them for a fall crop. We lost the seed packet, so I can't tell you what variety they are. Spread them over the ground and they grew -as radishes usually do without another thought of them.

Tasted them raw, and WOW, pungent and bitter. I could see their place shredded and sparsely sprinkled in a salad. Probably marinated in vinegar would be good, but I am a roasted veggie fan. I found this recipe, didn't have the sesame seeds and made it anyway. Tonight, I discovered that roasted radishes are AWESOME!

Radishes are really easy to grow, But I am never very impressed with them as far as eating them raw. But I am reconsidering their place in the garden. They may be a cheap and easy veggie to grow. I am happy with our fall crop.

Info seeker that I am, I thought I'd post some info about these little veggies.

Nutritional Value of Radish

Radish is a root vegetable with a rich flavor. It is used in most of the world cuisines but is very popular in Japanese and Chinese cuisine. Radish is a root vegetable with a rich flavor. It is used in most of the world cuisines but is very popular in Japanese and Chinese cuisine

• Nutrition Facts and Information about Radish: Radish has excellent levels of copper, manganese and potassium. It is also a good source of calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorous, zinc and sodium.


• Vitamin Content: Radishes are a very good source of vitamin c and vitamin k. They also contain riboflavin and vitamin b6.


• Calorie Content of Radish: 100g of radish contains 16 calories only. Radish is low in saturated fat and very low in cholesterol. They are also very good source of dietary fiber.


• Health Benefits of Radish: Radish has anti-bacterial as well as anti-fungal properties. It is beneficial for cough, respiratory problems, digestive disorders, asthma, bronchitis and liver and gallbladder troubles.

Who knew? I love the internet.

Fellow City Farmers

Had an awesome time visiting the many gardens of the Cylburn Arboretum. We attended the 21st Annual City Farms Dinner today. There were friendly competitions for the Best Veggies, Best Recipe, and Best Crazy Hat Contest. Awards were given out to deserving gardeners from City Farms and Community Gardens across Baltimore.

I'll definately be back to see the seasons change at this arboretum, so beautiful. A good place to explore for an afternoon, and a great selection of Japanese maple trees, too.