Gardening, again, but brief.

The Pretty:

The beans now have wee little pods and flowers – the bees will be happy.

The Pitfall:

See all that?  That’s a 10′ long bed WAY OVERFLOWING with lettuce.  We love the lettuce.  Love it.  It’s so much better than any I’ve ever had before.  Not a *hint* of bitterness and a deep flavour that just can’t be described.  I hate the idea that I may have to compost some of it.  I hate waste.  Anybody wanna come over for some?  I need to do something about it, fast, because otherwise it’ll bolt and the plants will be useless.  I think tonight will see me out in the garden with my kitchen shears, lopping off all but the barest bits to let more grow.  What I’ll do with *that* when it grows is anyone’s guess.

(the tomatoes are more visible there, too, and need their trellising up pronto)

Today Ken is an old man.  I warned him last night that we should go to bed early because he’d be old in the morning and he’d need all the energy/sleep he could use.  He ignored me and, instead, insisted we stay up and do things younger people do.  Guess who woke up super tired today? 

I made him a bento (which I totally should have photographed!) with a special “dessert” in it (*that* I can photo later) and he picked up some nice steaks yesterday so we can have more of the yummy marinade recipe I found.  It’s delicious!  I  ignored all the directions and just threw everything together (even being lazy and using dry minced onion) and then threw it and the london broil into a freezer bag and froze it (I wasn’t going to be using it right away).  We agree that you should cut your roast into steaks before marinading, not after, but otherwise it was perfect and they grilled up deliciously!   So we’re having steak and mash and green beans and I’ll make some sort of baked dessert.  He’ll get his presents after dinner, else he’ll never stop to eat (steaks bedamned).  I love him, and want to indulge him as much as I possibly can, whenever possible.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down in rushing, rising riv’lets…  At least, since I put in the tomatoes, and before that (though less constantly), it has rained almost every day.  What days it didn’t proved to be cloudy and every day has been unusually cold.  I’ve even had the heat on a few days because it was just not acceptable in here without it.  HOWEVER!  Finally it looks like our dreary days are over and summer is going to be allowed to join our little party!  Yay!

Despite the rain the garden’s not doing too bad, really.

(compared with this time last month – that big square thing on the hill is one of the tomato trellis’)

Bed A:

Hail and rain did cause me to lose at least 3 tomatoes and has stunted their growth (they’re on the outsides and the center of the bed – small but present), but they are growing a bit and the lettuce, as you can see, is doing crazy good and needs thinning, badly.  Peppermint is doing *nothing* (see the edged off area at the bottom right of the first bed? that’s supposed to be peppermint!) which irritates me to no end (invasive!  I’ve grown it before!  I know how invasive!).

Bed B:

Spinach was planted too late but isn’t doing *too* bad; brussels sprouts are doing well (I think – they’re new for me), dill is doing great, parsley and basil are going slowly but ok (I won’t show a pic because of the beds it’s the least spectacular right now).  Pumpkins are doing very respectably (they’re on the left of the 2nd bed above).  Oregano is at least appearing (similar set up to the peppermint but in the 2nd bed above).

Vines:

Right-to-Left:  Luffa finally germinated (looks just like squash right now so it doesn’t get a trellis til it’s bigger), peas are doing well, beans too, morning glories are loving the “trellis” we made for them (pretty, ain’t it? *pbbt*).

Bed C (next img down and I can’t get the images to cooperate, sorry):

The bed we’ve had the most growth from.  From left to right is cucumbers (trellis going up this week), chives which washed themselves left to intermingle with the cucumbers (we’ll see how that works), beets are doing well, radishs are doing great and are tasty and need to be cleaned out and reseeded already, carrots are… disappointing, more radish (standard on the backside, daikon on the front so they’ll grow another month before harvest), and then squash.  I got better germination than expected with the squash so the overfow bed to the far-right was where I put it.  It doesn’t seem to like it there very much.  I like squash so that’s a bit sad.

Misc Garden Spots:

Lilies are about to open (yes, I know, but I don’t weed when it’s raining!).  Shade bed in the back is doing well (compared to last month).  Lots of growth from the raspberries and hostas (comparison shows about 1.5-2′ of growth).

So that’s about it.  Definite change from last month to this, and that makes me feel good.  I worry about the “lost” month with all the rain and cloud-cover but we’ll see how things go the next few weeks.

Last month

This morning.  Not too bad.

This weekend we “celebrated” our 6th anniversary.  I say “celebrated” because it was closer to “recognized” since we couldn’t find a baby-sitter to get out and spend some alone time.  Along the pattern of gift-giving from last year, Ken gave the “modern” gift of candy (and some DS games which are completely addictive), I gave the “traditional” gift of iron (a Japanese temple bell wind chime).

It was also Father’s Day and the rain dampened that, as well (though with enough donuts we all forgot that).  The boys got him a DS stand, which he’d wanted and was pleased with.
Ken’s birthday is on Thursday, so it’s a busy week for us this year.  For those who’re considering when to get married, keep an eye on celebrations surrounding your chosen date of nuptials.  Birthdays, nationally recognized holidays and dates of importance do tend to complicate things down the line.

We had hail last night.  It’s pretty unusual in our area and it was of a size that I haven’t seen in years and Ken has never seen.  Lasted longer than I’d have expected, too.  Took out at least one tomato in the garden, though everything else looks fine.  I just hope the other tomatoes are ok and can make it through this odd weather we’re having.  It’s been cold and cloudy and I need warm and sunny right now (though the cloud cover does help them adjust to more direct sunlight, more slowly, so it’s not all bad).

So maybe the other day I was wrong and the worst worst case scenario would be nothing growing.  At least if it all goes nuts and over-runs itself I’ll know better what to do next year.

Transplanted tomato seedlings today.  I did it properly this time and spent the week hardening them off (didn’t harden off the eggplant or peppers enough and they’re not doing well).

1 Sweet Baby – cherry, hybrid, determinate

1 Pineapple – beefsteak, heirloom (indeterminate)

5 Reisentraube – cherry, heirloom, indeterminate

5 Dad’s Sunset – medium sized, orange, heirloom, indeterminate

7 Amish Paste – roma/paste, heirloom, indeterminate

4 Green Zebra – medium sized, green striped, heirloom, indeterminate

So that adds up to 23 plants, all but one are indeterminate.  I’m not sure which would be worse, to be honest:  worst case scenario#1 and nothing grows, worst case scenario#2 and they all grow crazy big (indeterminates can range from 6-20′ vines), overwhelm and bring down the trellis and produce too many tomatoes for me to manage to can/preserve.

I’ll have pictures next weekend when they’ve perked up a bit and I’ve had time to weed the garden.

For almost 3yrs we’ve been trying to teach Ethan how to catch a ball.  What normally comes easily to children has been impossible for him.  His depth perception, his stiffness, his physical gangliness have all interfered.  Typically he’ll close his arms too early or too late, or he gets overwhelmed and instead of embracing the ball he shoves at it (vid 2.6mb).

Last night, both with and without his glasses, he caught (vid 11mb).  (His glasses help with both upclose vision and depth perception.)  His eyes, by ALL obvious measure, have improved.  When we first realized he could catch I had that moment of choking realization that’s slightly over-exagerated and very emotional.  But then again, 3yrs is a long time.

Also seen flitting in those vids is Victor the Dancer.  Sometimes, he just never (vid 8.3mb) stops moving (vid 8.5mb).  He’s such a squirmy worm!  Is it any wonder I’m exhausted chasing after these two!  “High-energy” seems inadequate a label sometimes.

Ahh the rhythm of motivation.  Got some radishes out of the garden.  Eggplants and hot pepper seedlings all died.  Luffa, which I thought wasn’t going to germinate at all, did.  Flower seeds I planted haven’t at all.  FICKLE!

This week I’m very slowly and gently hardening off tomato seedlings in the wild hope they survive the harsh, cold, cruel world when I transplant them this weekend.

It’s been raining cats and dogs and we’ve found several rather serious sinkholes in the beds.  Water, and soil with it, is draining out under the edges that we had to prop up since our land is not so much level.  So we’ll have to fill in the holes and put something around the base in the problem areas – maybe some of that quality crap-clay we’ve got.  I need to plant  something between the beds, too, but don’t know what.  I don’t think I want grass, but don’t know what else to use.  Maybe it’s time to think about stone or bricks or something.  The rain has also made my sense of motivation to get anything done each day waver.  Yesterday was a good day, today not so much.  Thank goodness for leftovers!

We also need to figure out why Victor keeps breaking out in poison ivy-like rashes every so often.  He’s crazy sensitive so maybe it’s bug bites, maybe it’s poison ivy, maybe it’s the wind blowing pollen onto his delicate skin.

Also, what’s up with children?  Last night after dinner Victor started crying (at the table, no less) so we assumed he’d bitten his lip since he was indicating his teeth/mouth area and in the midst of trying to get him to open and show us he vomited.  Everywhere.  Did I mention it wasn’t at the table anymore but on the loveseat?  We discovered, mid-clean-up, that his mouth wasn’t the only orifice that had exploded with nasty, chunky, stinky stuff.  Post-clean up and bath and he was bouncing off the walls and assuring our frequent requests of “how’s your tummy?” with “Tummy *much* better, now!”  *heavy eye-roll*  CHILDREN!