mumbling and fumbling my way through backyard restoration
Let me tell you what’s awesome about my life right now. Every morning and night, I walk outside and pick ginormous ripe blackberries right off the vine.
Let’s me tell you what’s less awesome about my life right now.
The rabbits are eating everything else.
Every. {edamame}
Thing. {green beans}
I can’t talk about it. Send foxes.
I peeked out my window yesterday to two bunnies noshing away on the edamame.
They were too fast to snap a pic, but they looked like this:
Well, this with some edamame leaves poking out of the sides of their mouths.
And my edamame no longer looks like this:
This pic is two weeks old, too. So imagine even more sadness.
My neighbor reports they ate ALL his edamame down to the stalks. I spotted them before mine were all eaten, but the plants are about 1/3 gone. I think it’s too late to re-seed, too. I netted it as best as I could with the bird netting, but I don’t expect that to stop them. Maybe we’ll take in a stray fox.
Hope your weekend is cottontail free.
Sincerely,
Mrs. McGregor
As I type this I’m staring out my window at the four most ripe, delicious, ginormous, and plump looking blackberries.
These are not them. This picture is from last week. I’m too chicken to risk waking my family by going outside to snap some pics. Also, this chair is comfortable.
From where I sit there’s just one problem: I can tell two of the four have been nibbled on by the birds.
Not plucked. Not swiped. Just nibbled.
Does anyone else think their own hands look weird in pictures?
You know, now I’m sitting here contemplating eating the already half-eaten ones. It’s definitely a new low when you consider eating someone else’s leftovers. {This also applies to the consideration of half-eaten grilled cheese off a partly-finished kid’s plate. You swear you’ll never do it, but every parent eventually hits a new personal low.}
There is a fake owl around here somewhere… I went looking for it in the garage yesterday and couldn’t find it. This should tell you a lot about the current state of the garage and also that I can have a hard time finding something unless it hoots at me.
Aaaaaand there’s my Shark Tank idea: a cell phone that knows when it hasn’t been picked up in four hours and starts hooting softly every five minutes.
OOOH and then it can get louder and more frequent, like every four minutes, and then every two!
Wait a second…
Don’t you steal my Shark Tank idea…
I want to be the one to tell Chris Sacca he should consider a different shirt.
We are back from our little vacation jaunt. Sorry not sorry for not telling you, internets. While I don’t own fine things, I still don’t want you robbing me of my peas.
Oh wait, maybe inviting that would have been a good plan, because as I may have mentioned before:
THE PEAS HAVE TAKEN OVER.
Next year I will make so many adjustments to the pea situation. I definitely did not take into account the following factors:
*sigh.* At least they taste good! But I do think I could prolong the health and pickability of the crop with some better planning next year.
{And seriously? Pickability’s not a word?? I REVOLT.}
If you read this blog because we are real life friends and you honestly couldn’t give a rip about gardening…
THIS IS NOT THE POST FOR YOU.
Cause here comes the check in round the horn…
The pinkeye purple hulls look great to me. This should tell you a lot to you considering I’ve never grown beans before.
There’s a story behind this okra which I keep meaning to get up on ye olde blog, but alas, it hasn’t happened yet. Just know that this is the miracle okra, and also, when I feed it to my family it might genetically alter our DNA. I’m at that intersection between laziness over replanting and familial responsibility. Jury’s still out.
Tasty little niblets.
Speaking of laziness, it’s time to put the bird netting over the blueberries.
Also: a magical rainbow chalk pathway appeared to show the fairies the way home.
I did not place this pathway. This isn’t because I don’t like the feel of chalk. My friend L won’t touch chalk. I think that’s weird. But she thinks it’s weird that I’m creeped out by puppets and get-to-know-you games. And she’s the kind of friend that will text you at 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon and say “hey wouldn’t puppets PLAYING get-to-know-you games be extra creepy??” To which I might reply FRIENDSHIP TIME-OUT.
I really have been meaning to add a piece to the fairy village, but see above, re: laziness.
I fertilized everything the other day and realized once I had put the bag up that I forgot to fertilize the corn. As I may have mentioned a time or two…
Nah, to lazy to type the word.
I’m enjoying the squash before July hits and the humidity is visible and these same cute little plants are covered in powdery mildew.
Y’ALL. The peas are delicious. This is by far my most favorite pea season. Oh, we’ve been eating them. BOTH the bitties like them fresh out of the pods, and oh, we’ve been eating the cooked kind for dinner and freezing copious amounts. I will make some major adjustments for next year’s pea allotment {mostly because I don’t want to create a pea crop where small children and animals can be lost,} but that’s for another post.
The edamame was planted in two rows, but it’s the weirdest thing: the row farthest away from the drip irrigation is doing great, and only like 2 plants on the row closest to the drip have sprouted. I replanted one day last week, so if the new seeds don’t sprout I will know that soybeans hate water and may also hate light and happiness.
We ate our first two blackberries! And by “we” I mean the bitties, because as I just mentioned, there were only two. Mom guilt. It’s very real. Don’t ask me and David about the four cookies we purchased from a special bakery two weeks ago and never shared with the girls. That’s a totally different thing.
I have too many tomatillo plants. David does not consider this a problem because he likes the salsa. But this is a problem if they don’t allow each other enough food/light/water {I see you, edamame} to grow healthfully. I know I should snatch a few out of there, but when you’ve grown something from seed…well, I just caaaaaan’t.
These bush beans were one of my favorite crops from last year, mostly because they were delicious, but also because they were so low maintenance. {HEAR THAT, FOREST OF PEAS?}
Here we have a compact variety of zucchini that I’m pretty stoked about. I’m sure you would be excited if I shared with you the name of this variety but that would mean I would have to get up from this chair and, well, you know…
I grew the jalapenos from seed again and I really think that’s going to be the last time. Because I get all motherly and attached, and then when they’re still 1.5 inches tall after being in the ground a month and a half, well, it’s just too hard to pull the plug.
This funness is called ground cherry, and I can’t wait to give one a try. They aren’t called ground cherries for nothing–this pic doesn’t really do justice to how low-profile these plants are. I can’t wait to see what it’s full height will be. These should yield a sweet, tomato-like yumminess in a husk.
That is, if I’m not too lazy to remove the husk and actually, you know, eat the ground cherry.
