Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Comeback Kid

 After my last garden related post, my dad made a quick call suggesting that perhaps (even though I had already dumped a ton of lime on the soil) that the soil was perhaps still too acidic. His pH meter, on loan, was placed in the mail the next day. 

And in the meantime, I took the suggestion of one commenter and threw on as much nutrition as possible in the forms of fish emulsion, epsom salts, and an organic, all-around fertilizer.

A few days later, the pH meter arrived confirming a very, very low pH reading, something like a pH of 3-4. So, more lime was unceremoneoulsy dumped on the garden. 

At that point, I wasn't counting on any plants surviving let along giving us any produce.

And while I have certainly lost a few plants, on the whole, the garden seems to be turning around. 

And keep in mind that these photos were taken last week and each of these plants have probably grown by 50-100% since then.



 One lost tomato plant on the left but a thriving basil on the right



 A few tomatoes truly taking over their cages



 Vibrant habenero plant



 A suddenly thriving eggplant, baby eggplants and all



 One humongous zucchini plant and one struggling zucchini plant



 These cukes now fill out that back fence



 I hope our St. Louis friends love canteloupe because they will probably be coming out of our ears



 Corn!



 A cuke and an invader



 But seriously, does anyone know what to do about an ant invasion? They are killing this zucchini plant.



 The beans are finally taking off



 And the herb garden is really filled out, although that was never really an issue



 Mint and dill (and catnip, until I hacked it down last week) are taking over the world, or the herb garden



German chamomile, another victim to the ant invasion

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Pay Attention to MEEE!

Though not as jealous as my parents' gorden setter, Malena, Frieda sure does love attention. And she'll happily take said attention from anyone. 


 Michael


 Nora, a friend's bassett who loved to push Frieda around with her nose


 Grandpa Reindl (maybe she gets the attention seeking from Michael, as he is loving some back-scratching attention from his mom in this moment)


 Grandma Reindl


 Michael, again


 Andrea


 And every member of the band 6-person band/film crew that spent a whole 24 hrs with us a few weeks ago. In this picture she is seducing Phoebe and Dan.


 And Aviv


 Rachel


 Dan, again


 Chelsea


 And of course, Pep


But she always comes back to Michael

Frieda took her first trip to the dog park today and had lots and lots of other dogs paying attention to her. I'll try to remember to snap some photos of the doggie-cuteness next time we go. 

As a side note, as you may tell form the blurry photos, I am pretty adamantly an anti-flash photographer. I apologize, but not really because I'm not changing my ways.