Howdy, loyal readers.
My little garden is doing very well. I have so many little green cherry tomatoes I can’t count them all, I have Anaheim and jalapeño chiles coming out both ears (not literally), and everything else is super happy. I am really glad that I chose the spot I did for the garden this year. It’s obviously a good spot! Here are some photos from the garden:
…and the whole garden: 
Another new development in my plant menagerie is a Mesquite tree. My mom gave me some Mesquite seed pods about a year ago, and I hadn’t really thought about them since then. I was just recently cleaning off my potting table, and there they were, begging to be planted. I opened one, and put 1 seed into a small container with suitable dirt, watered it well, and put a lid on it. 5 days later, up popped a small Mesquite tree! I was surprised how quickly it germinated. It has grown quite a bit since then, and I have removed the lid, so it gets air circulation. I put a nice piece of screen over it to 1) protect it from the sun, and 2) protect it from the millions of voracious grasshoppers that are invading my yard now.
Here are some photos of my little Mesquite tree.
Under the screen: 
Several others: 
If you take a closer look at that last one, you can see that it is now getting its first set of the nice ferny little leaves that adult Mesquite trees have:
As always, all photos are clickable thumbnails. Thanks for visiting!
It’s amazing how much will grow in a small space as long as it’s properly watered. Good luck with the mesquite tree. Can it survive a winter of steady low temps as long as they’re not too low?
Comment by Sonja — July 2, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Neat to have some edible stuff in the garden, Katie! The guys in this house don’t touch any of what grows in ours.
Cute lil Mesquite tree! Hope it grows big for you!
I’ve been whacking back my jungle since returning from vacation. Barrels & barrels full…yikes!
Comment by Rosemarie — July 2, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
Wow, you’re getting some nice tomatoes, too! We picked our first ones on Monday, days earlier than usual. They were delicious. Vine-fresh tomatoes are the best part of summer, followed closely by sugar snap peas (which we still have plenty of. Yum!)
Your mesquite tree is adorable. I can’t believe how fast it grew! Good luck with it.
Comment by Caryn — July 2, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
If I remember correctly, you need to be careful where you plant a mesquite (or where they happen to pop up) at least in the desert of Yucca Valley. They are extremely fast growing, and will totally sprout their roots to your leach line if you have a septic tank system, and (at least in my case), Eff up your plumbing. I had a sitch where the plumbing line to the bath was choked off from the roots of the mesquite, had the plumbing fixed and the mesquite tree removed, and it plucked back up from the ground in the same place, and is now oh, 8 ft. tall again and I’m worried. Be careful where you plant your mesquite!
Comment by Laurie — July 2, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
wish i could grow pretty plants
given my current location, though, they’d probably come up warped and blackened with oversized pods and undersized stems, flop over and grow sideways.
Ben
who is really bothered by the pollution today
Comment by Ben — July 3, 2008 @ 6:22 am
Hi Katie. A Mesquite tree always conjours up thoughts of cowboys and the old west for me. Shame they don’t grow here or I would have one.
Sounds like you are really having fun with your garden and it looks great. There is nothing so satisfying as eating vegetables from your own garden.
love, Lorraine
Comment by Lorraine — July 3, 2008 @ 8:17 am