My garden this year

[katemonkey]

So my garden is mostly concrete, with two small patches of dirt along the back wall, under a lot of shade. So, after two years of trying to grow vegetables in my patches of dirt, I've decided to go for more container gardening.

Mostly gardening bags, which are pretty awesome, but, occasionally, things like this:

That's sutera growing in my hand-knitted hanging basket. You can now get the pattern for it, if you're interested.

My herb bucket, with oregano, sage, chives and parsley (and basil hiding behind some of the parsley). I'm impressed that they survived the winter, although I wish the coriander had as well. And it's great to have so much oregano.

I've started growing lettuce for trim-and-eat salads, and I also had a this Australopithecus figure that I got in a discount toy set. And she really looks great against the lettuce when it's fully grown, and I love this photo as well.

These are my potato bags, and, honestly, if I had realised how utterly easy it was to grow potatoes in bags, I would've totally done it yoinks ago. In the brown bag, there are Blue Salad potatoes, which are purple and should give me purple mashed potatoes, which is far far far too awesome for words.

So, against the back wall, I have two patches of dirt, but they're overshadowed by trees (that I have no control over and cannot get trimmed). So, this year, I've just put in some foxgloves, and I hope the shade works well for them.

I just need some decorative mulch or something, I think. The plastic forks are there to keep cats from crapping in my garden and ripping up my plants, but they're not doing as well of a job as I'd like. Any ideas?

I really like growing tulips, and Queen of the Night is the absolute best ever because, look at it! It's practically black!

And while everything else is just little sprouts and not really impressive, they're big, beautiful flowering wonders. And I love them.

And, finally, does anyone know what these are? Tiny blue flowers, tendency to spread all over the place, probably a weed. But they landed in an empty pot, and they look so good that I don't ever want to get rid of them.

So, what do you think?

Comments

[florence_craye]

Lovely! I just read an interesting idea to keep cats out of gardens: put a few drops of eucalyptus oil on a cotton ball and place the cotton ball in a baby food jar (or other container) that has a lid with a few holes punched in the top. Place a few of these around the area that you want cats to stay away from. Cats hate the smell of eucalyptus. Of course, you will want to check every so often that the cotton balls still smell of the oil.

I put some big twigs (like your forks) and eucalyptus in our garlic patch where a cat was stalking our local birds, and haven't seen it there since. We also have a little fence around that area.

[starprincess]

I've heard that cats dislike citrus and if you put some orange peels around your
plants, it will keep them out.

[rydra_wong]

Oh, damn, I've seen those blue flowers too. Some Googling suggests they might be a species of forget-me-not:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Myosotis_sylvatica%2802%29.jpg

[theora]

Was also going to say forget-me-not.

%$#& cats!

[cygnet]

I bought purple forks at the dollar store and was amused by the way they looked planted in my garden - but the cats didn't seem deterred. :-( I have finally settled on laying birdnetting directly on top of the prepared soil, pinning it at the edges every 3 - 4 feet with landscape-cloth pins, and cutting little x's in the netting where I want to plant. Visually, it's fairly unobtrusive, and seems to work quite well. After putting it on all my beds, the cats have pretty much stopped visiting my yard at all.

[starprincess]

Cool. I love the potato bags. If I hadn't already planted mine, I would
try that myself.