Minding the Patch: It's Not Too Late to Garden With Me!

You might recall that the original plan for Patch's patch was to have two of us planting, minding the garden, and blogging about it, but as you probably know, I've been on my own except for advice from other gardeners and Plant Maven Jane at . (My partner deserted me before she even met me, so I'm trying not to take it personally). I would still be delighted to get some help, even if it's infrequent or just to pick ripe vegetables and water while I'm out of town. Shoot, I don't even mind if you don't care to weed or blog when you visit the patch. Click my name above to email me if you're game. (I do have a short trip coming up very soon--please, someone volunteer to keep an eye out). 

As far as progress, I have little to report. The cucumber and okra plants are starting to look interesting, the strawberry plants I transplanted to a container and brought home seem to be coming back to life, and the one that remains at the patch seems to be doing well (considering), producing some tiny fruit and sending out runners. 

The tomatoes are growing and being productive, too. I didn't think they were growing well, but looking at photos from before, I realize they have grown a lot taller. When I first put them in, they kept slipping out of the cage so I had tied a couple branches to the cages, but I have since untied them all. Also, one of the Roma tomatoes is turning red! 

I was there last to check on the patch early afternoon on Sunday after hanging fro a little while at the Frankfort Country Market/Bluegrass on the Green to discover a very dry, very thirsty patch. Unfortunately, the spigots were out of order, but there were a couple of giant drums of water for us to use. Thus, I filled buckets and watered the garden the old-fashioned way, largely neglecting the okra and tomatoes, who supposedly are more drought resistant. This is only the second time it's happened to me--the first time was in May--so I'm not concerned about a hassle in watering this week. I hope it's just temporary! In any case, it looks like rain on Wednesday (fingers crossed). 

In other news at home, one of my dahlias finally started blooming! They'd get buds that would just sit there and eventually wither and fall off (or I'd snip it off) but this one finally opened. I'm including a picture because I'm pleased and for no other real reason.

Finally, allow me another quick sidenote: I didn't have my camera with me Sunday because I hadn't expected to visit the garden till later, so I took photos on my phone. I have Dropbox, which automatically puts all my pictures into a shared folder I can access on my laptop, so uploading them to my blog is a breeze. (I am not a paid spokesperson for Dropbox, just a fan).

Tell me how you think my phone pics turned out!