Whales and watering

Yesterday I went on a whale watch with Anna, who had purchased a Groupon for it several months ago. It was a bit chilly, but amazing. We saw at least four separate humpbacks, and the naturalist on board was able to identify three as Ursa, Venom, and Pixar - each whale has distinctive markings on their tail flukes, as individual as human fingerprints, which allows for naming and identification. Probably the best whale watch I've ever been on (I've only been on three or four ever, but still).

I did not take this picture. I wish I had. There is a photographer on board each ship, and part of the Groupon was a USB stick that had all the photos from the day on it. I would've paid additional for it - it was hard to get decent pictures with so many people on board.

Voyager III, the boat we went out on. I totally took this picture.

We ended up stopping by Haymarket, a fruit and vegetable market that occurs every Saturday, and which I don't get to often enough. The food is cheap and if it's in season, usually good quality. The key is that it is often very ripe and must be used quickly. Hopefully I'll get around to that today - I ended up with blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a couple avocadoes.

I had to stop by lab, but I was eager to get home to my plants and check in with how they were doing. I thought I had seen a first pepper plant sprout when I left, and when I came back, I was pleased to see I was right. I am still waiting on the English peas to appear, but I'm starting to lose hope.

My first (and only) bell pepper seedling. We were very happy to see each other. In the foreground is one of my three sugar snap pea seedlings, who are growing great guns and I am starting to wonder when I should be transplanting them, as they are getting quite tall.

My other plants are doing...variably. The good news is that the tomatoes and first set of strawberry plants seem to be doing extremely well. They are definitely expanding and I even have a few small green berries that I am watching eagerly.

Heirloom tomato plant, day 1 after transplanting.

Heirloom tomato plant, day 8 after transplanting. That Miracle Gro is serious stuff. I was worried about the brown on some of the leaves, but I think I didn't mix the fertilizer with the water well, and that area may have gotten a concentrated dose.

That's a berry, yo.

Other plants, however, do not seem to be thriving. The two strawberry plants that somehow ended up in my cart during my second trip to Home Depot are not looking as well. They didn't look as robust even when I chose them, but I was determined to have more varieties, and my other 4 plants were doing so well I thought I could nurse them to health upon potting. So far, I haven't killed them, but their condition hasn't been upgraded from "serious."

Brown-edged leaves! Noooooo! I may or may not have successfully quashed my urge to water them immediately upon seeing this.

My other concern is my dill plant. Its leaves are also starting to brown around the edge. In addition to this, I realized I have no idea when to start harvesting dill. The plant was already pretty large (I think?) when I purchased it. Do I start pruning it already? If so, I have to add that to my list of herbs to use - the plants I bought from Trader Joe's are already entered into supercook.com, and as soon as I find a bread recipe whose first step is NOT "throw everything in the bread maker," I plan to try out a rosemary thyme loaf.

Brown-edged dill. Uh-oh.

Thyme and rosemary in the foreground. A mysterious herb in the background that I haven't gotten around to identifying (there are around eight possibilities listed on the back of the Trader Joe's marker). Can anyone save me ten minutes of google image searching?

Also, not related to anything about whales or gardening, but if anybody is interested in owning a castle, there's one on sale in France for the reasonable price tag of 950,000 euros. This led me to the realization that there is a website that lists dozens of castles for sale throughout Europe (and even one in the US). My favorite is definitely the one in Italy that comes with an automatic countship.