Garden Report - May 2005-

Talking of my balcony garden… Dill sprouts? These look like dill sprouts resulted from my second attempt this spring. It took more than 3 weeks for them to sprout. So unusual! Well, it’s been very disappointing this year, to be honest. Last year I didn’t plan well ahead of time, so I ended up sowing some seeds quite late. When it got very hot in July, most of my herbs were still young and weak, and they died one after another because of the heat and disease. I didn’t want to repeat the same thing again, so I seeded herbs in late March this year, which I thought to be the perfect timing. What went wrong? Well, we did have a strange weather this spring… we had a cold snap in March, then it got unusually hot in April for about a week… But I don’t think that should be the reason why all the herbs I seeded this year–-- parsley, sage, dill and basil --- didn’t sprout at all. Especially, the basil seeds were usually like fail-safe…there was no year that they didn’t sprout, as far as I remember. Lemongrass Look at the lemongrass… I bought the young plant in late March and planted it here. It’s just turning brown now instead of growing. Right next to it, where covered by a piece of newspaper, I sowed parsley seeds again today. This is my 3rd attempt this year! Sigh. Now on a brighter side: Blueberry "sunshine blue" Good thing is that my blueberry is doing fine, except that right now it’s growing more leaves rather than blooming. This blueberry plant is a strange one actually. When I bought it last November, it went into almost full bloom right away. Someone told me that those flowers just die in winter and would not bear fruit, so I took them off to give the plant a rest during winter. I guess my biggest mistake was that I still kept taking off flower buds in late February and early March because I thought it was still a bit too early for the normal blooming time for blueberries. But maybe for this particular kind, sunshine blue, it WAS the normal blooming time. I expected my blueberry to be in full bloom in April, but it didn't happen and instead, my pretty sunshine blue started growing more leaves and forgot about flowers. Ahhhh… ! I guess I can’t expect many berries this summer… Dog Rose This is definitely doing good. This plant was just like this in early spring. Now see how much it has grown. 　 Apple mint and spearmint...can't tell which is which. They’re always fine, no matter what. Rhubarb My crazy attempt of growing rhubarb in this warm part of Japan is still going on. I don’t expect my little rhubarb to grow much bigger than this in this planter, though… I might bring this planter to my parents house again sometime soon and ask them to plant this rhubarb somewhere in a shade in my dad’s orchard. Well, things don’t look too exciting right now, but we’ll see…