Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Dear Bakker-it.com: you just lost a lover


Lasciate perdere! Bakker e...la mia insoddisfazione. Bakker che delusione! Leggi le opinioni su Ciao.it

As the saying goes... “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Say it ain't so. I usually don't go around blabbing about my gardening love affairs, but this recent fling with Bakker-it.com was, sadly, a very short-lived romance. Consider this an updated opinion of my experience with the catalog/mail order company. Three strikes and you're out!

In the early fall of 2009, I ordered a variety of bulbs which included the more costly Himalayan blue poppies and allium forelocks. We planted them all but neither himalayan or allium came up this spring. Of the rest that did develop (blue alliums and assorted freebies), overall flower quality was very weak.

In April of this year, an order for Salvia Hotlips microphylla rootstock arrived in a nicely packaged container but after flowering, it turns out not to be Hotlips but Hardy Plumbago! (above photo) Do the math. 2 bulbs plus 1 rootstock equals customer dissatisfaction. See ya' later Bakker-it.com, it was sweet while it lasted.

For some good news...the tomato plants grew a LOT in the past 2 weeks.

Today

15 days ago

Today's high: 24°C / 75°F

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Rural scene in northern Italy

The falce (FAHL-cheh) or scythe, is a tool that men and women, young and old alike, are often seen using in an overgrown field. Gas-powered weed whackers are used too, and can be heard echoing all across the valley, but it's the falce that makes quite the idyllic farming scene as workers swish the blades through tall grass. The cut grass are usually heaped into mounds and I've never discovered what became of them afterwards, but while driving home one day we saw this person on the side of the road. I don't know how the heck he did it...it wasn't secured in a net or anything...but all you could see was this pile of grass on two legs.

The weatherman predicted thunderstorms yesterday and today but all we're getting are clouds, occasional drizzles and sporadic bursts of sunshine. If it continues like this I'll be one happy gardener. Everything is growing really well in the new terraced box frames and I'm out there pinching suckers off the tomato plants almost daily. I took these photos just this morning.

Today's high: 22°C / 72°F