What's the haps?

Garden update time?  Yeah, I thought so, too.

I was looking at my pea vines and thinking to myself, "I don't remember them being this tall last time."  So I decided to look at a picture of the peas I grew last time.  And I was right.  They weren't anywhere near as tall as they are this year.  I don't know if it was the variety or what, but dang!

In case you can't tell, the one on the bottom is this year's.  But of course you can tell!

If you're wondering why in the world my vines look so jacked up right now, it's because we had a big wind storm that threatened to pull the whole thing down.  Because the top one-third of the plants were not supported, I tied them all together in some last minute maniacal bundle, in the hopes that they would hold each other up.  Turns out it worked!  For now, anyway.  The support stakes are definitely feeling the pressure, so I'm not entirely sure how long they will hold out.

The pinwheels are to deter birds.  No idea if it will work, but what the heck.

Guess what else.

This!

Which means this!

I can't tell you how excited I am about that.  And also this.

Yummy!

It's so cool to actually be eating out of the garden now.  I'm amazed at how thrilling this is turning out to be.

I'm also excited that the green bean plants are finally making some real progress.

I hope this means that we'll actually be getting some decent fruitage!

I don't know what to do with Scruffy Clone!  I put him in there as an experiment (I'd heard rumors you could do this with tomato cuttings).  But now that he's doing well and all, I realized that I don't really have a place to put him.  Which is a shame.  I hate to just let him die in that inadequate little makeshift planter...

Considering putting him out on the sidewalk with a sign around his neck:  Free to Good Home!

The end.

An exercise in patience...

I'm not generally a very patient person, although I try very hard to be.  Especially in the areas of my life where it's crucial.  Such as the times I find my daughter coloring on the wall, or my son using the couch as a launch pad.  So when I go out to the garden looking for something to do, and finding nothing to do, I often find myself disappointed and a little bored.  Why can't this garden hurry up already?  I want things to do!

So what do I do?  I make up things to do.  I move pots.  Like this one.

Hey, Scruffy Cutting--you've perked up quite a bit.

Yep, I think this is a better home for you, now that you're more established.  (Incidentally, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this Scruffy Clone when it's ready to transplant.)

I add more support strings to stuff, like this.

Remember when Scruffy was just a stick?  He sure beat the odds!

This support setup, by the way, is ridiculous.  I was motivated by the fact that one of the branches was so long that it was growing into the flower patch on the other side of the bed.  I used the string to raise the branch up out of their personal space.  (Control yourself, Scruffy!)  I realize this is the dumbest way to support a tomato in the history of gardening, but I've learned to work with what I have.  Which apparently isn't much.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, stuff I do to pass the time in the garden.

I look for things to thin and prune and weed.  Oh, and I'm sure those five pieces of grass need to be swept off the patio.  And today, I more than likely will give the peas another string hug.  Mainly because they are taller than me!  See?

I think that makes them nearly six feet tall.

If nothing else, there is always the taking of snapshots!  And finding little things to blog about!  This helps pass the time. 

But you know, the garden does give me little things to be excited about every day.  Such as the fact that I'm eating sugar snap peas.

I think we'll have these with lunch.

Or the fact that Squishy is blooming.

Male flower.

So pretty.  And also edible!  Which I only learned recently.  When I get some extra male flowers, I'm going to try one.

Buds of joy.

This bud is a female.  Can't wait for it to open!

There's also the fact that despite their rough beginning, some of the green beans are actually gaining some ground.  Several of them are still stunted, but I haven't lost hope.  I'm probably going to pull one of them.  It is severely stunted, and although it is growing, it is just tiny and feeble in appearance.  There's a second one that may come out as well, due to some suspicious looking leaves.

The largest and healthiest of the green beans.  (I named these guys Desmond, then later Stunty.  Officially, their name is Desmond McStunty.)

I mostly get pure joy from the garden.  However, there are a few things I find discouraging.  Such as the fact that a few of the pea vines are starting to yellow at the base.  If I remember right, this is what they do towards the end.  But it seems to me as though they've only just begun to produce.  But hopefully the yellowing will be slow to progress and I can get a few more weeks out of them.

Hang in there, Climby!

There's also the fact that birds have been trying to eat Squishy Junior, my crookneck seedlings.  I'm trying to protect them with little cup collars that I pinned to the ground with homemade U pins (thank goodness for giant paper clips!).  I only had three plastic cups, so the most damaged  of the seedlings has been left out, since I want to give the healthier ones a fighting chance.  I'm trying to deter the birds with pinwheels.  Oddly enough, they haven't touched the cucumber seedlings.

Protective cups on Squishy Junior.

Bird damage.

Ignored cukes.  They feel totally dissed.

Or the fact that a mole has chosen my legume bed as a great place for his tunnel network.  Which may account for the yellowing peas for all I know.  But it seems that the plants that are most affected are the flowers that I placed along the border of the corner patch.

Looking less like a snapdragon and more like a droopdragon.

There's also the fact that planting flowers in the tomato bed may have been an imbecilic decision on my part.  At the very least, I have got to do some thinning and reigning in before they take over.

Holy smokes, this is starting to look more like a flower bed than a tomato bed!

But to end on a positive note, Squishy is downright enormous.  I had to pull him away from the corner because he was dipping into the lawn.  I also pruned three of the lower branches.  They were resting on the plastic of the soil bag, and I just thought that was a recipe for fungus.  But doesn't he look spiffy?

Just beautimous.

The end.

Free Wood

The other day, on the way to the chiropractor, my mother in law and I saw a sign.  It was on crappy flat board, and the spray paint words read, "Free Wood."

Perhaps I should have started with an experience I had on Sunday while I was visiting yard sales.  We stopped at one and saw that they had several boxes full of old bricks.  I use the term brick loosely because they weren't actually bricks, they were manufactured blocks of salmon-colored brick-stuff of varying shapes and sizes.  There were no prices marked on the boxes, and I was thinking I'd like a few pieces to make a perimeter around my plant bed.  I asked the lady how many she'd give me for two or three bucks.  I mean it's a yard sale, so making offers is part of the deal--especially when you're talking about items that are not marked with a price tag.

I don't want to make this story lengthy or boring (as the situation turned out to be), but in the end she wouldn't part with them for less than a dollar per brick, claiming the value of the bricks was upwards of eighty to one hundred dollars a box.  Needless to say, I walked away brickless.

Now, back to the free wood.  I stopped and dug around in the pile and came away with several boards.  I did this with them:

I decided that although wood may not be as aesthetically pleasing as brick, it looks pretty darn good when it's free.  Also, if I'm going to pay retail prices for bricks, you can bet I will be buying new ones.

 Oh, by the way, the beans look a lot better now, I think.  Is it just me?  I think adding the potting soil helped a little.  The soil was very woody, so I used it as a mulch, and they have perked up quite a bit since I did.

It's time to name a crookneck, and I am lacking creativity.  I mean Squashy is too much like squash.  I was trying to think of something that goes with crookneck.  Curvy?  Curly?  I dunno.  I'm goin' with Squishy Junior for now.

Anyway, the point is that Junior is up!

What a cute little bundle!

Yawn... Okay, I'm up!  I'm up!

Since Junior was planted the same day as the cucumbers, it seemed only fitting that they should also sprout the same day.  I guess that makes them twins.  Cucumber, I dub thee Crunchy.

They're fraternal twins.  Crunchy is a bit more slender, and also not a squash.

I'm kind of in a hurry, so here are some pictures to enjoy.  Laters!

The end.

Itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polkadot zucchini...

Okay, it's not exactly itsy bitsy, nor is it teeny weenie.

Good grief, Squishy--control yourself!

But Squishy has yellow polkadots.  I don't know what they mean, but I'm hoping they're more interested in hangin' out and bein' friends than they are in destroying things.  Wanna be friends, Yellow guy?  Can I call you Yelly for short?  (It's not bad enough that I anthropomorphize my plants, now I'm anthropomorphizing their freckles too.)

Looks like someone sneezed butter.

Moving on, I also detect something a little off about Scruffy.  His leaves are rolling just a bit.  From what I've read, this can mean any number of things.  I just don't know which number Scruffy is dealing with.  Any suggestions, faithful readers?  No?

What gives, Scruff?

I'm hoping it's a watering issue that I can amend by... doing something else, I guess.

I was gone all day, and when I came home, it seemed like Climby had grown four inches and bloomed twenty more flowers.  So pretty and happy!

Such a delicate, feminine plant.

So dainty!

So demure!

But this is the best part.  This started happening earlier this week.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I squeed just a little bit.

Oh you delicious pod, growing so sweet and tasty!

The tendril wanted some attention apparently.

Ah, there we go.  Harbinger of yummitude!

This one is so itty bitty!  So cute, like a fat little infant.

I mulched Stunty (the slow growing green beans) with potting soil.  I hope that makes him a little happier.  They're hangin' in there, and they are actually growing, even if it's a little slow...

Happy little row of what I hope will be deliciousness someday.

This one's downright pretty.

The end.