Update Photo- Box #1 and #2

April 26, 2010 (same box as left one in lower photo)

May 20, 2010

The box on the right is actually what I referred to as box #1 in a previous post, because it was the first one I built. From now on I will refer to it as box #2 to keep things in order.
There are three boxes in total, but only two are shown in this photo. I will post a photo of the third next time.

As you can see, there has been a lot of growth since the last photo I posted of the box on the right. The one on the left hasn't been posted before.
I never, in my wildest garden fantasies, imagined I would be saying this- "Dear tomatoes, please stop growing. You're out of control and going insane." The plants are over 5 feet tall and growing!

What's growing in this mad jungle of mine?
Box #1
1 Cherry tomato
2 Tomatillo (which are taking over)
2 Green Chili
1 Bell Pepper
1 Serrano Pepper
Garlic

Box #2
1 Big Boy Tomato
1 Yellow Pear Tomato
1 Sweet Baby Girl Tomato
1 Patio Tomato
1 Spicy Globe Basil
Carrots

In between the boxes is yellow squash.

First Squash and Other Harvests

Yesterday I harvested the first of my yellow summer squash. I kinda let them overgrow (just look at the size of that squash!), so I was worried that they would be bitter tasting. Luckily that wasn't an issue, they were delicious. I won't be letting anymore grow this large though.

I cooked the squash with some green beans from the garden, onion, garlic, chicken, and quinoa. I seasoned it with fresh spicy globe basil and oregano.

I'm glad I ended up with some good squash. Most of my squash just turns brown and falls off due to lack of pollination. I guess I need to do some hand pollination.

My dill is growing well. Today I made some paneer and seasoned it with dill and thyme.

The other day I harvested my young lettuce growing near the house. I didn't even plant lettuce there, it just popped up out of
nowhere. What a wonderful suprise! I wanted to let it grow bigger, but the house is getting painted so I had to pick it before it got trampled and painted on. I made a salad with it, along with some nasturtium flowers and leaves, dill, chives, and sunflower sprouts.

As you can tell, I have been enjoying great food from my garden. I am so happy that everything is doing fairly well and I'm already able to harvest some stuff.

Also, I created a flickr account for uploading all of my garden photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerousa/

Garden Cats

Recently I discovered a litter of four kittens under the neighbor's house. The mother had the kittens outside and they haven't had any human contact. Which means they are wild and shy.

After a week of playing with Mama Kitty and offering small treats, the mom decided to move her kittens under my house. The kittens look around 5 or 6 weeks old. Well,the animal lover in me kept screaming "save the kittens from the life of a feral cat!" So I buy kitty food, start feeding them, and just hang out around them in order to get them accustomed to humans.

Anyways, lets skip over all that and get to the good part of the story. At this exact moment there are 4 kittens and a mama in my stairwell. I brought them in today. Well, it's more like I trapped them in rather than brought them in, but that is besides the point. I became nervous after seeing an opossum the night before and decided they would be safer inside.

I want to tame the kittens and find them homes. I have already found a potential home for one of them. My neighbor asked me if he could take one for his wife. So I will probably let them have whatever one becomes the most tame first. They have two cats already, both of which look healthy and have been spayed, so they seem like good candidates.

There is a crazy cat lady down the street who owns 30 cats of her own, plus she fosters cats until they find homes and she spays/neuters feral cats and provides them with food. Anyways, she offered to help me find homes for the kittens.

I want to insure the kittens are fixed so I'm thinking about requiring a deposit/adoption fee, which will be refunded after the new owners provide proof they spayed/neutered the cat. The deposit would only be $25, which is how much the clinic charges to fix a cat.

I would just keep them, but my landlord doesn't allow pets. I can't image how upset she would be if she knew they were inside right now.