The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 27 trips to carry that many people.
Winter garden clean up today included cutting down the canna lily stalks, pulling out the marigolds and leftover veggie plants, spreading mulch, and watering the cherry tree and other perennials. This last task was done with the rain water saved up in the barrel, before I finally winterize it by draining it and capping off the downspout. Soon it will be time to say goodbye to this beautiful garden, when I move to West Philly in February!
When I bought a beautiful lemon tree from Greensgrow over the summer, the fruit had formed, but was hard and green. By the time October came, and it was cold enough outside to damage this heat loving citrus, I brought it in and placed it in a south facing window, lemons still unripe. I read up and learned that they can take up to nine months to ripen, and need of plenty of water to do so. I kept watering and rotating the container, making sure the tree was getting good sun, and two months later, I harvested three lemons. And tonight, I made a quart of lemonade from the half cup of juice they yielded! Refreshing on this 60 degree night.
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve begun to winterize my garden: uprooting the tomato plants and other annuals and spreading mulch. Michael planted a weeping cherry to replace the fruiting variety that came out over the summer. The marigolds are still blooming though, and the iris blossom in front began opening yesterday!
October 31 is said to be the end of our growing season in Philadelphia, so it’s no surprise that the last of the last tomatoes are ripe. I used the final Japanese trifele in my stew tonight, a recipe with chickpeas, fennel, carrots, orzo, fresh rosemary, and greens, too, from The New York Times. I even used homemade chicken broth, which adds a ton of flavor!
Mizuna, red Russian kale, spinach, red mustard, arugula, and a handful of the last of the season’s tomatoes make for the perfect garden salad to accompany pizza tonight. I walked out with my headlamp on and picked a bowlful from the raised bed!
Yesterday, I brought 11 of my house plants outdoors for a day in the rain. The tropical humidity and warm temperatures in the upper 70s, along with the forecasted showers, made me think it would be a good idea to allow them to get some fresh air and rainwater. I made sure to bring them back in before sunset.
Within two weeks, I’ve harvested enough tomatoes to make two batches of tomato sauce. The latest included the black cherries and Japanese trifeles, as well as pineapple bicolors, which came from a volunteer plant that must have grown from a discarded fruit from last year’s plant. The recipe I created calls for one onion, several cloves of garlic, fresh thyme, two bay leaves, and of course, several pounds of tomatoes. I used my immersion blender to purée them, then a strainer to remove as many seeds as possible. It took about four hours to cook down to the desired consistency, and now it’s in the freezer for spaghetti dinners throughout the fall and winter.
I posted photos last week of the first signs of fruit forming, but as of last night, I noticed that now the eggplant resembles what it will be when ready to harvest. This heatwave we are having is going to be good for these vegetables! Did you know that when it is 90° outside, the top few inches of soil could reach 120? I learned this last night at the free workshop offered by PHS at the pop-up garden in Passyunk Square.
Two eggplants are slowly forming as the purple flowers turn into vegetables growing within the sepals and stems. I fertilized the raised bed on Wednesday in order to encourage them to grow before it gets too cold, as eggplants love warm and sunny conditions. I’m guessing it will take another two weeks for these to ripen. Between the first several photos (from two days ago) and the last one (taken this morning), it’s clear they’re growing steadily!
How Does Her [Philly] Garden Grow 