In an attempt to write about something other than my fascinating baby, I will now turn the discussion to gardening. The garden has been somewhat neglected for the sake of said baby—it’s awfully mean to subject her to 90+ degree heat and hungry mosquitoes—but fortunately we’re at the stage of garden growth where little is required of me. I am reminded why my backyard looks incredibly barren in the winter as our little patch of fruits looks amazingly like a jungle right now. One zucchinni plant is so enormous it can’t even stand upright any longer and the cucumber vines are planning a garden coup d’etat; really, I fear for the safety of our beefy tomatoes. The first Romas were plucked yesterday. They don’t look the greatest, as the “zipper” effect shows, but I’m sure they’ll taste just fine. We’ve been enjoying fresh zucchini and cucumbers for a couple of weeks now. There’s just nothing better than fresh cucumbers and Ranch dressing to accompany a meal.
In the foreground of the second photo you’ll notice a sunflower… This one grew from some birdseed that fell to the ground. In the background you can see another one in the form of Jack’s beanstalk. Last year I grew one of these gargantuan flowers; this year we have two. The bold cucumbers are attempting to overthrow Sunflower #1 as well. Sunflower #1 simply scoffs and continues to demonstrate his skyscraping abilities. We have yet to see the actual flower heads on these mammoths, but they’ll show up before long.
6 Comments
rebecca Jul 20, 2004 12:10 PM
hot. today is stinkin’ hot in lincoln, nebraska. i whittled down errand running to bare necessities as getting myself, livia and necessary bags out of the car proved to be too darn sticky and hot!
“it’s so hot… [fill in the blank]” — what say you, friends?
Jeremy Jul 20, 2004 1:31 PM
It’s so hot… I’d be willing to embarrass myself by going shirtless—in my youth, it wasn’t so embarrassing, but age has added a few pounds where they’re not appreciated.
charity Jul 20, 2004 2:00 PM
i’ve been racking my brain to think of something witty and funny and i can’t do it!
bobw Jul 20, 2004 2:26 PM
I’m so jealous of your zuke success! ours were an abysmal failure thanks to the vine-borer. oh well. we have enough tomatos to keep us quite happy (and the neighbors too).
rebecca Jul 21, 2004 9:04 AM
our own zuke success was abruptly cut in half yesterday. seems one of the giant plants began to rot at the base — yuck. jeremy dug it out and now it looks like a dead alien is stuffed in our wheelbarrow.
Jeremy Jul 21, 2004 10:28 AM
Don’t be too jealous. As Rebecca mentioned, we already lost one plant and I suspect we’ll lose the other soon. After reading your comment, I looked-up ‘vine-borer’ and discovered that our zuke problems appear to be due to this nasty bug. I’m going to try to save the second zuke but I’m not too hopeful.