Beets. I'm pretty sure.

Good afternoon people, we have beets.

(Detroit Beet Seedlings)

I'm, like 99% sure they're beets now, too.

Why not 100% sure? Well, it turns out that, in addition to being wildly lazy, I'm also a little bit retarded.

See, I *thought* I'd planted the new bed in the following order from the back:

Snap peas/sweet peas (on the fence)
Chard
Peppers
Beets/Radishes
Lettuce

So, when I saw little sprouty things coming up all over the place in the "Beet/Radish" section, I was like WOO! We have radishes! and maybe soon we'll have beets BUT NOT YET and also Hey! There's some lettuce over there. It just went downhill from there and it was a boisterous and misguided time in general.

Then a few days later during a particularly introspective and thorough garden staring session, I was like, why does my lettuce look funny and reddish instead of bright green like my radishes which are growing in rows even though I *know* I didn't plant them in rows? And, huh, what are these little sprouts around the edge of the lettuce patch? Is THAT what ugly marigolds look like as sproutlings?

Was I drunk when I planted this garden? Something doesn't seem right.

Indeed.

So, off to The Google I went to find out, once and for all, what a Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce seedling really looks like and to get to the bottom of exactly what type of shenanigans were going on in the garden. I mean, in my imagination, baby lettuce sprouts should be bright green things with semi-rounded leaves, but right before my eyes where I had allegedly planted the lettuce I was seeing red-stemmed seedlings with long narrow leaves. I think you see where this is going.

Well, no big surprise here, but in my brief two second searching of the glorious Google Image Search for "black seeded simpson lettuce seedlings" I found a picture of Wow! Those look exactly like my radish seedlingswaitaminutehere..."

(Black seeded simpson seedlings which have since been thinned.)

Thus followed a heated image search for radish seedlings that resolved the "is that what Ugly Marigolds look like as seedlings?" question with a resounding "No that's what a radish seedling looks like you idiot." and then also the big realization that those weird looking red-stemmed lettuce seedlings with long narrow leaves were actually, yes, BEETS.

(Perfecto radish seedlings)

Oh.

This is when you look at me like I'm wearing my underpants on my head and ask how come I don't use plant markers like a normal person.

Well, I have a perfectly good reason why not: because I drew a picture of the bed in my garden notebook so that I'd know *exactly* how many of each thing I planted and where because I didn't want to cut out any more plant markers because I'm, let's say it together - LAZY.

(Suddenly I'm realizing my original fear that someone would see my sloppy writing-with-garden-gloves-on handwriting)

And why didn't I just go into the garage and get this amazing hand drawn garden diorama when curious about the alien beings shooting up in the garden? Well, obviously it is easier to go all the way in the house to the Internets to search on my suspicions than to go open the big heavy garage door and consult my very informative drawing which would have resolved everything but sadly lived behind a very squeaky heavy door which I was unwilling to slide open.

See? LAZY.

And also a little bit in denial about my memory's true abilities.

So, as it turns out, I planted the garden like so:

Snap peas/sweet peas (on the fence)
Chard
Peppers
Lettuce
Beets/Radishes

Whoopsy!

Good news though is that we have beets, radishes, lettuce, snap peas, sweet peas AND chard coming up in the garden regardless of whether I can recognize them.

I suppose this is what happens when you grow something new. I mean, I can find a tomato, pea, cucumber or squash plant among rows and towering rows of plants at the nursery with one eye tied behind my back, but until now had never had to identify a radish, beet or chard sproutling. So, alas, I learned a thing.

(Rainbow chard seedlings)

(Strapping young snap peas - ON FENCE)

Ok, perhaps I learned a few things. BUT WHATEVER BECAUSE we have beets. WOO!