my spring garden, pt. 2

Three weeks ago, anticipating the oncoming death of the batteries in my trusty 35 mm camera, I purchased a new set when I found them on sale. A few days ago, the batteries died, and the new set is nowhere to be found, nor can I remember where I put them (School has been stressing me out lately! I never lose things!). I prefer to shoot my snapshots in 35 mm, but lucky for you, my readers, I defaulted to my digital camera, so this entry was photographed only a few minutes ago!

Being a grad student in photography, we have endless discussions about film vs. digital. We theorize about this and we also discuss the practicalities. Most of us have a bias one way or the other. I have a bias towards film. I'm not opposed to digital cameras, and I do use them often, but there are many things I like about film. This quarter, I'm in a c-printing class, or color darkroom, so I have to shoot with film. The hands-on nature of c-printing is something I love. There are arguments made that you can either spend hours in the darkroom or hours in front of the computer, and for me, I'd rather spend hours in the darkroom. If you are reading this and consider yourself a photography lover, whether as a hobby or a profession, what materials do you prefer to photograph with?

And now, on to the pictures! I've posted a few photos of my garden, but today I thought I would give a proper walk-through and show off all of my plants.

Thinned out seedlings from my potted thumbelina zinnias. I feel bad about thinning, but really, it's worse to leave them in and allow the plants to be overcrowded.


Giant double zinnias and multicolored sunflowers along the edge of my building.

Four pepper plants of various varieties. Bell peppers, sweet peppers, hot peppers.

Nine tomato plants! I want some serious tomatoes.

The tomato plants are getting huge. Eight varieties, nine plants.

Two eggplants. Black beauty and white gretel.


Salad greens. Lettuces and spinach. The spinach is starting to bolt, so I need to hurry up and pick most of it.

Red cabbage.

Swiss chard.

Peas that got a late start...but are doing well so far! Crossing fingers.

Herb container. Basil, thyme, dill, chives.

More thumbelina zinnias. I'm obsessed.

Cilantro.

Red raspberries.

New addition: lime mint plant! Was on sale at my favorite local grocer.


Chocolate mint! Still alive from last year's farmers' market in Arkansas. I now have multiple containers of it.

Thumbelina zinnias, pre-thinning (refer to the first photo).