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.