Welcome to my garden of 2005

Or garden-wanna be! Well it is my patio but I am trying my best to turn it into a gardening area, since we rarely use it for anything else.

As you can probably tell from the photos there is a tomato tree, a mint plant, a lot of basil, parsley, and a few other pots with lots of green sprouts coming out of them. These are flowers and radishes in the making. I am holding my breath to see how many radishes I will actually harvest since I crammed so many in such a tiny tin box. For those of you who know the song, I may well end up with radish that "I will pull and pull and not be able to pull it out".But I am happy with the progress of my green thumb so far. I never really thought I could do it, since I had many a failing experience with plants and animals in Lebanon, but now I have mustered enough heart to try it again.

The tomato started with a tiny plant and we have replanted it three times already and bought an iron cage for it. It has numerous flowers making their way into actual fruit, and one green baby tomato still making its way into prime time. I will surely let you know what it will taste like when I finally harvest it. I am planning to make tabouleh someday from my garden, or patio. That will be the day!

Other than enhancing my gardening skills I am working on my people skills. I am expecting a group from Turkey on 9 July and that should be interesting. We will be going to North Carolina, New Jersey and New York. An interesting assortment of places, wouldn't you say? But why complain, a free trip is a free trip even if it was on business.

Speaking of trips, what are you guys up to this summer? Any trips? How about a trip to your keyboards to drop me a note....

Write soon.

~Ranya, the gardener

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." - Plato