Update: first tomato

Because I'm so thrilled, here is another shot of the first tomato, probably a Japanese Black Trifele, on my volunteer tomato plant.

My last photo from four days ago.

The Friday mulch

An abandoned apple orchard is discovered, yielding heritage apple varieties. We need more discoveries like this.

A law student's goal is to convert vacant lots into community gardens. His community is very lucky to have him. Can we borrow him?

NYTimes on a community garden

Voice of America covers green spaces in New York.  This I didn't know: there are about 500 community gardens in the city of New York, under the Operation Green Thumb program, the largest community gardening program in the country.

Here's an idea: this city gives grants to groups in order to seed community gardens.

A great way to encourage self-help: this West Texas food bank opens a community garden, the plots free to anyone or any organization.

First tomato

Developing. This is on a volunteer. I'm starting to think it may be a Japanese black trifele by the leaves and the shape of the fruit. We'll see.

Garden volunteers

Icelandic poppies, courtesy of the wind.
The bees seem to be wild about them.

A bad romance

Having a heck of a time with slugs this year as noted in a comment over at Wild Suburbia.

Each morning, I get to my garden plot and spend the first few moments doing the dirty deed. I use a garden spade. I look under all pots, containers and as many rocks as I can find.

I think the slugs gravitate to my plot because of the many delicious and delicate things I have planted. The carrots have been decimated each time I've sown them.

I imagine the slugs singing "Bad Romance" while they chomp and chew through my garden at night. Here is my favorite version sung by the very talented University of Oregon a cappella group, On The Rocks.


So how do you deal with your garden pests?