(also, testing out the brand new WordPress for iOS app.)

A quick and very, very dirty panoramic image of our garden so far (as of last week). Watch for a short video from Eliza in the near future.

See also: Video: Our backyard, so far.

/via NPR.

^*Flash is required but the photos are still boner-worthy.

This is how I found my seedlings this morning. I’m fairly certain they will not recover so I lost about two weeks of growth. The culprit? My cat Pickles. The blame? Me. I put these little guys in a position that he could easily access and I knew that he would eat them if he could and then I ignored the situation.

Time to start over.

This little guy was hanging out on our eggplant.

Not sure what Susan did or why she has a black eye but these are cool flowers nonetheless.

Chili peppers from our garden. Looking forward to melting my taste buds on these babies.

Though our garden is getting over watered, there is life. Zucchini flowers, lettuce, strawberries, and green beans are starting to take off.

While waiting for a ride this weekend I walked over to a small patch of wild flowers growing behind our garbage cans (there is beauty everywhere in this world, isn’t there?). I was attempting to get a half-decent shot of this bumble bee that was bouncing from flower to flower, sucking up the nectar while at the same time pollinating the entire patch by himself.

I suppose I managed to get a half-decent shot of him, but I really appreciate the details in the flower itself – the fact that it is just beginning to dry up on its edges, that its a color that I can not identify (I call it a pinkish purple), and that it grows behind garbage cans.

We live in an apartment building that, much to our dismay, doesn’t have a lot of yard area. When our landlord offered a small patch of grass to us for our own use – we were exited. Allow me to quote Eliza on Twitter:

“After living here for 3+ years, my landlord told me today I can have a garden. I think I am going to cry.” – @elizard

So, we got to work – and work it was. First we had to prepare the area for our garden. Here is what the area looked like before we got started.

Step 1: Get rid of the grass

Typically when tilling a garden you can just till the grass over and allow it to die under the soil. A lot of the grass that was growing in this area had some pretty funky root systems and so I didn’t want to deal with the grass if it tried to make a comeback. So I simply got rid of it.

I didn’t have a real spade for this part – which made it all the tougher. I ended up suffering some pretty hefty hand wounds that are still healing now.

Step 2: Till the soil

Turning the soil over a few times, getting rid of rocks (and there were many, many of these in our garden area), and breaking up any of the large clumps of soil help for plants to take root.

The biggest challenged we faced with our soil was the number of rocks. We’ll be picking rocks out of this area for years to come. But, that’s Pennsylvania – one big rock.

Step 3: Planting!

The next day we set out to find some plants. We were starting late in the year so we planted both potted plants and seeds depending on the type of vegetable it was. Lettuce, for instance, will grow from a seed now and be ready in a few months while tomatoes and peppers of all types we started from potted plants.

Here is a list of the vegetables and fruit (since tomatoes are technically fruit) that we planted in the garden (those marked with “seed” means they are starting out as seeds):

• Onions
• Strawberries
• Carrots (seed)
• Lettuce (seed)
• Red and Green Bell peppers
• Banana peppers
• Chili peppers
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Big boy tomatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Eggplant
• Winter Squash
• Green beans (seed)
• Corn

We ended up planting, what I think is, quite a lot of plants given the area that we have. I just found a stock pile of bricks that I’m going to use to edge the garden, hopefully in the next day or so. Once I do that I’ll share some photos of what the garden looks like now. I’m really hoping that we have a decent harvest this year, learn a lot about gardening, and have fun spending time together in the garden and outdoors.

This Dogwood is in full bloom and is on Jefferson Avenue in Scranton, PA. I wish I had seen it during the day.

Taken: April 17, 2009 in Mayfield, Pennsylvania.

The buds on the trees are pop, pop, popping into these really great explosions of tree life. Reds and greens of all shades, future leaves that will create the food that the tree requires to produce this year’s growth, next year’s seeds, and the energy it will need to lay dormant during winter.

I have no idea what the criterion for such a contest is but the results are absolutely stunning. The winner, Cheng Slu Wai from Hong Kong (pictured above), is without a doubt gorgeous but how does one possibly make the call?

Also interesting to note that most of the top entries were from Japan with Vietnam and Taiwan also being strongly represented. Only one from the United States.

Source: The International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest Results 2008.

Date taken: December 20-24, 2008

While on my run.  The clouds over the past few days seem to be much fluffier and far larger than I’ve seen in a long time.

Date taken: May 25, 2008 | A tree at the Lackawanna State Park.

Adequate rain fall, cooler weather, and plenty of sun has made northeastern Pennsylvania richly covered in deep green this spring.  As summer quickly approaches, I’m sure this particular shade of green will begin to give way to a more yellow tint, but for now we’re enjoying some of the greenest greens I’ve seen in a long time. 

Date taken: September 2, 2007 | This moss was pwning the sedimentary rock.

Taken: in Phoenix, Arizona on October 26, 2007. This is one thirsty plant.

Date taken: August 20, 2007 | Left: Heading to a better spot. Right: Holding onto its color. (info)

Date taken: October 18, 2001 | Some things come in small bunches.