Now, We Wait

Remember those sprouts? Guess where they are. IN THE GARDEN!!

Yes, I have a garden. A real garden, with plants and worms and ants. Most people like worms, but I love ants in the garden. Sure, you have to respect them, but they really fluff up the soil. A couple of times I cut a hole in the black plastic covering a bed to plant something and came up with a pile of ants. All you have to do is stir them up a little then go work somewhere else. They get the hint and go hide somewhere else. Then when you come back, no ants. Just nice fluffy soil.

The garden is turning me into a real naturalist. There are at lest three kinds of ants in the garden. All kinds of worms. The Girl found a pink worm. I didn't see it, because I was stuck at work while she got to play in the garden with The Man, but he swears it really was bubble gum pink. Most of the worms I've seen have been huge, fat nightcrawlers. Underneath the black plastic and mulch the ground is nice and soft and moist, perfect for wriggling around, safe from birds and whatever else eats worms. I assume something else eats worms. Maybe toads. I saw a toad in the garden one of the first times I was out there planting. I have an old birdbath. Well, half a birdbath. The pedestal broke but we saved the bowl. I think I'm going to put it on the ground in the garden so the toads and other crawlies can get drinks. I'll just have to watch the water and not let any mosquitoes get started in it.

The garden is officially planted now. The Man has a tendency to freak out about things. He was convinced the garden was going to be ruined if everything didn't get planted by this weekend, so he went out there with The Girl and planted a bunch of stuff while I was working. Peas and carrots and asparagus and cucumbers and I don't know what else. We have lettuce, green beans and lima beans, all kinds of peppers and tomatoes, corn, watermelon, 3 or 4 different melons, and 5 or 6 kinds of squash. I got a lot of heirloom vegetables from seed catalogs, then found seed packages for 50 cents at the grocery store. That's where most of the squashes came in. I've never tried a butternut or buttercup squash, but for 50 cents I figured I'd see what they're like.

So now just about everything is planted. I still have to get the corn planted, but I want to plant that in stages so it's not all done at once. Now The Man can relax. Or he could if he didn't hurt his back planting shit. He shouldn't have planted anything. The last thing I wanted was him hurting his back even worse, but he was freaking and it was always raining or just plain muddy when I was off, so off he went. Now, his back hurts, but hey, the garden's planted. I just wish he would have waited. Another week or two wouldn't make that much difference.

I ended up snapping the garden in half and putting in a big triangle flower bed in the middle where Buddy is, making the finished product a rainbow of plants. I've been concentrating on the vegetables and haven't done much with the flower bed. That's where I want the birdbath to go. Of course, I want to put a lot of flowers there, and put in a little bench where you can sit and relax, enjoy the garden. I have an angel statue named Annabelle that's going in there, too, but she fell over and broke her wing. I didn't think tipping over would hurt a bunch of concrete, but it did.

But now the garden's mostly done vegetable-wise. The Man can relax. Until the vegetables start coming in. Then he's going to be canning his ass off. He's worried about our tomato plants being small compared to some other gardens he's driven past. We have over 80 tomato plants. We're going to have more tomatoes than we know what to do with. And if he tells you it's my fault the garden is so huge don't listen to him. I made the mistake of asking him how many tomato plants he wanted, so I guess it is my fault since I listened to him. And then our first batch of seeds crapped out on us for some reason and we had to replant all the tomatoes and peppers, and he suggested I should maybe plant two seeds in each cell, so I ended up with a bunch of extra plants. It seemed like a shame to waste them so some of the best extra ones got added to the garden, too. Now The Man is talking about planting all the rest of them along the back of the flowerbed triangle.

So if you want any vegetables just stop on by. The Man plans on setting up a little vegetable stand in the garage and selling the surplus. Plus he wants to share with my sister and brother, his mom and aunts and our neighbors. Zucchini for everybody.