Sigh...

Brussels sprouts: another plant I don't think I'll be growing again. Like the cauliflowers, they take a lot of room and a lot of time to produce very little. I haven't harvested a single one yet, though I see someone stole a plant from me. Another reason not to grow them, by the way. Some depraved detritus of humanity steals from the Community Garden on a regular basis, which is annoying, but it only eats certain plants: beets, carrots, onions, cabbage and apparently, Brussels sprouts. No theft of peas, pumpkins or turnips have been reported, so mostly my food is safe. But I'm certainly not going to waste my time growing food so that some lazy jackass can steal it.

Six more weeks...

Only six more weeks of summer left. Poop... However, I think my Brussels sprouts might need it.


See?

I bet you don't see, so here is a detail:


Now you see? Tiny Brussels sprouts. Mmmmmm... Brussels sprouts... All my sources agree that they're tastier after a frost, so if they take six more weeks to get edible-sized, that's ok. So, I might still get some yet.

My cauliflowers, on the other hand, are distinctly unpromising. I found one that's got something like a head, possibly due to the fact that peas had grown over it and tied the leaves shut. It's a common practice to tie leaves over the heads of cauliflower; maybe I should have done that. So I did it after finding that minuscule head (too small to photograph). I guess, you know, six weeks...


And these are my tomatoes. I don't remember what kind of tomatoes they are. I found the plant by the shed, where someone had left a bunch of them in a wheelbarrow, presumably for lack of room to plant them. So I rescued this one, which seemed like the healthiest, and now it's got tomatoes on it. Mmmmmm... Tomatoes...

You know, this vegetable-growing thing is turning out after all.

Meanwhile, in the vegetable garden

The vegetable garden, 3 June:


The vegetable garden, 8 July:


The vegetable garden, 20 July:


Well. That ain't not bad, actually. I never thought the d-ed thing would produce anything, but there's quite a bit of greenery coming up. I even got to eat the spinach that are in the foreground in the middle photo.

The cool thing is, for the longest time, my garden looked like crap compared to everyone else's, but now it's starting to be one of the better-looking ones. Partly, I think it's because I'm actually there every day, or every other day at the latest. Some people seem to garden in fits, a few days once in a blue moon.

Another issue is fertilizing. Many people have been listening to The Local Garden Expert and adding nitrogen to their plants. Then some of them put way too much nitrogen and burned their plants. But either way, nitrogen is not the answer in a vegetable garden. Nitrogen grows leaves and stems. If you're after lettuce, that's a good thing, but if you want your plants to bear fruit, they need... well, I forget whether they need P or K, but that's what they need, not nitrogen. So I've been feeding my garden with tomato fertilizer, once a week, as per the manufacturer's directions, and it does seem to be working. Consider the following:


A pumpkin! First of all, last year I didn't even have my first flower until July 20, the first female bud was August 2, and the first growing fruit was August 19. So I'm doing well for time. Second, this vine does not have a pumpkin, it has four. This is the most developed one, and the others will get eliminated later on to leave only the top contender, but clearly, pumpkins like it way better out there than on my balcony.


Plus, it's colonizing the rest of the garden. Booya!

Then, there is this:


A Brussels sprout or cauliflower (they looked identical back then) on June 17.


A cauliflower yesterday, July 20. They don't have heads yet, but considering how minuscule and fragile they were when I bedded them out, I'm pretty impressed that they turned into such monsters.

Also:


The peas have pods, and some of them (such as this one) are starting to fill out.


The red onions seem to be doing well, though it's hard to tell since the important part is underground. Most of them you can't see anything, I just hadn't mounded this one yet.

And most importantly:


It looks like a jungle. If you ask me, that's the main point of a garden. (Someone described it as "artistic". I think she was trying to be diplomatic.)