i'm a winner! plus garden porn!

welcome to my ghetto garden. this ain't no better homes and garden-garden, this is a hodge-podge of stuff held up with sticks and raised beds made from kiddie pools with holes poked in them. before i give you a tour, i just wanted to shout a quadruple "yay!" for winning river's appliance doohickey giveaway on her blog, wing it vegan. it truly made my day. and here i was feeling all sorry for myself thinking i never win anything! my first project will be making soy yogurt and dehydrating watermelon-(which i hear can be used in some yummy variations of very creative sushi rolls!) note: i did win a juicer from miss v's vegan cook book a while back, but haven't used it because a) i didn't realize it was a manual juicer, and b) i'm intimidated by a manual juicer and don't have much access to wheat grass. sorry, miss v! i'll try to score some at the farmer's market or find someone else who can use it.

now, let me take you on a tour:
these are cherokee purple tomatoes. you can't tell yet because they are babies, but they'll grow to be big, plump, with red and purple streaks where they almost look black. they'll be great meaty tomatoes, perfect for sammiches.

i have no idea what kind of tomatoes these will be. i was not very good at labeling things this year. i amended the southern indiana clay soil with worm castings-(i maintain the worm bin at work) and used the castings for fertilizer. i think someone fed tomatoes to the worms because i have a TON of renegade tomato plants growing everywhere, just look at all of them!
the cabbage is starting to get a head on it. i planted marigolds around them to keep bugs away. the gardening world refers to this as companion planting. nasturtiums are really good to eat and keep pests away as well. i have some growing, but didn't take any pictures. you can also use nasturtiums flowers and leaves as spicy pretty additions to your summer salads! marigold petals can be used as "poor man's" saffron.
the beautiful start of my green peppers. i also planted marigolds around them. every night i give all the plants a gentle misting of hot pepper wax, an organic insect repellent. if you look really close, you can see some of the bugs still have a time at the buffet!
i gave up trying to grow squash because of those dang squash borers. but low and behold, look what has been growing out of my compost pile! some sort of squash. what kind will it be?


what are you growing this year? need gardening tips? don't forget i work at a gardening store.

coming up next: another contest! just for kicks, i'm entering chocolate covered katie's pancake contest. lemme tell you sumptin. i made my own recipe that will totally take your taste buds back to a child hood bake sale!