Proto-garden

When we moved in to this house last month, friends began to provide us with the botanical means to make it a home. The very first day we had pots with two new tomato plants, one oriental eggplant, and one basil.

Since then? A mixed pot of herbs and edible flowers, a hugeongous pot of mint (the DM's favorite), another tomato (cherry), peppers, chives, and a pile of native flowers. We've not yet got everything in the ground... still nursing it all in pots and rushing out periodically to cover the lot when we get a ridiculous overnight temp below freezing. (You might expect such a thing in June in Australia, but we're north of the 38th parallel for pete's sake!) Tomorrow morning we hope to turn one of the backyard beds and get some of these little fellers settled.

But two days ago.... miracle of miracles! I discovered proto-tomatoes! On all three (different) tomato plants! Yippee! This is almost as fun (and certainly less nerve-wracking) as finches nesting over the front door. They're small and timid... hiding away under clumps of leaves, but they're there! And this time the rotten deer can NOT get to them. THIS yard is surrounded by 6-foot-high wooden fence. I might actually get to eat these instead of the ones with the Tim Burton stems from the grocery. Which, incidentally, no one can eat right now because of a tomato-borne salmonella outbreak amongst commercial output. One more reason we can't wait for the local Farmer's Market to open this weekend.