Growth

What's going on in the garden? Well, I'm so so glad you asked. What's that? You didn't ask? Oh well. here you go anyway.

I am in love. My garden is so cute. Somehow in the last week or so, plants have sprouted new fruits. I have eensy beans, tomatoes, and even one baby pepper. The swiss chard is glossy and red-veined and beautiful. The beet greens have turned out to be not green so much as burgundy. I read somewhere recently that this particular variety of beet is used as a dye.

If you've ever eaten too many beets at once, you'll know why.

The tomatoes seem to have gotten rid of their aphids, thanks to the insecticidal cottonseed oil I sprayed. I need to spend some time today looking everything over to make sure there're no new pests to manage.

The plants that have come from the seedlings I began inside are tending to be smaller and less hardy than the ones I bought when Jamie was here. I'm especially concerned about the Frigitello peppers; I'm not sure they've grown at all since I put them in 6 weeks ago. :-(

On the bright side, the Indian Stripe tomatoes I thought I had killed seem to have pulled through. One even finally has some buds on it! The patio tomatoes (Extreme Bush) are lush and green. So green, in the case of the one planted in a large pot in potting soil, that I realized it was probably time to prune them. You see, if the plant puts lots of effort into growing gorgeous foliage, there's less energy for the fruit. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, is not ideal for my purposes. So I chopped off a couple of its arms. I'm still not entirely certain I can identify "suckers" (certain especially useless branches), so cross your fingers that I've not done too much damage to the plant.

It's supposed to rain this weekend. There's a tropical storm brewing, which is fantastic (so long as it's not too harsh). I've been irrigating my crops (heh. i like the sound of that!), so it's not like my garden is in harm's way (yet). But really, we need the rain. I hope I'm not jinxing it again.

The last laugh is indeed on me, though. I'm working this morning (after two 12-hour days in a row), and I'm also hoping the rain holds off long enough for me to cut my freaking grass. It's been two weeks, and the it's just too much for me. My front porch is also, apparently, under attack from some kind of very viny growth. I need to rip that out. I can do that in the rain, though. So I'll start with the...

Oh FUCK. I just witnessed a feline attack on a robin. Time to go rescue. Fuckity Fuck FUCK!