Bubba-built-me-something-for-the-garden news

Last week when I realized that shit.shit.shit. the garden was going in at this time last year and I was doing The Science and we were on our way to tomatoes and shit.shit.shit I've done nothing yet it nearly sent me into a full panic.

I began to plan.

I began to track my seed shipments.

I began also to realize that I'd be following all my upcoming long Saturday runs with hours of yard work to catch up, which, YAY because that never tries to kill me or anything.

Thankfully, last weekend (Which is two weekends ago now. Yikes.) I made it out to the back .40 to pull the weeds before Bubba could go at them with the Evil Round-Up. And even though he's a fan of the "just fucking nuke them" strategy, I still have this annoying hang-up that does not allow my brain to justify growing organic things over here while dousing over there with disfiguring chemicals.

I'm an incredible pain in the ass. This is true.

Somehow though, even with my Pain in the Ass status, Bubba still came out to help me instead of letting me pull weeds and think about what I did or whatever you do to kids when you want them to learn a lesson or lie in the bed they made or whathaveyou. That was nice of him, I thought.

So, we pulled most of the weeds (the rest will get demolished when we start redoing the yard - but that's later - focus!) and reacquainted ourselves with Skinny the Apple Tree who'd begun to disappear behind the overgrowth.

Before. Monstrous.

After. Less monstrous. And hey! There's Skinny! (Back corner)

It was a nice time, before I removed the cages from the winter vegs and shifted my focus to the actual garden tasks that needed to take place before I could have my love affair with summer vegetables.

I had to do The Science, for sure.

And I had to turn the soil.

And I had to amend said soil.

And I had to stand and stare at the whole thing a lot because that is my typical method for any exhausting project - to stare when feeling overwhelmed. You can imagine that tackling something like this after running 9 miles can be a little overwhelming since your body is like, BITCH, STOP ALREADY, but your mind is like, BITCH, WE NEED TO PLANT THINGS.

It's an overwhelming time, y'all. And so I stare a lot. It keeps my Crazy on the inside, if only momentarily.

After the turning, testing and amending of the soil in three of four beds (the fourth is still occupied by the fava beans which have not yet done their thing. COME ON ALREADY.), I came to a stopping point that had me stumped.

And after a few minutes (a full hour) of staring at the stumptastic bed, Bubba came back out to see what what was up. Or more likely, he came out to see if I'd had a physical breakdown and was unable to transport my weary body back into the house, but whatever, there he was. And with an unbelievably perfect answer to my stumpy question.

The question was this: How the hell can I build a contraption for my beloved Kentucky Blue Lake beans (Hi, Bean Twin Elizabeth! Are we excited yet?) that is, at once, wide enough to accommodate half of the 3'x8' bed and also tall enough so that the beans can really stretch their legs, all from materials I have on hand?

See? Hard stumpy question, that one.

I have always grown beans and snap peas on 4 ft fences, but that's proven to be too short for them and I've always had to help them out by wrapping their flailing fingers around the top of the fence after about a month of growth, which doesn't do anyone any favors. And by "anyone" I mean me because I need a lot of beans and these short fences make for fewer beans.

I mean, sure, I could go out and procure some fancy pre-built bean pole contraptions or buy long bamboo poles, but that all seemed somehow unnecessary because, in my head, we had to have *something* around this fucking place that could serve as a proper bean support.

Thankfully what I *do* have is Bubba because he thinks of things that don't even cross my pea brain. Things like why don't we use this leftover conduit and wire from the garage project which just happens to be in 10 ft sections and would be ever so tall if constructed properly.

OH WHY DON'T WE JUST?

He's vurry smart, this Bubba.

So, after about 30 seconds in his mind (and many days in mine - I'm slow) he'd gotten the conduit down from the rafters in the garage, the ladder up in the garden and BAM! Bean Tepee to the Stars.

To the Stars, y'all. It's very tall.

Oh, and of course, I immediately got out there with my twine, upcycled clothes hanger spikes (I'll show you these some time) and anal-retentiveness to string up the future homes for my beloved beans.

Bubba imagines the beans way up there.

And then, once showered and properly soaking in cocktail hour, I went back out and surveyed my industrial chic bean tepee that could not be finer, taller or more sturdily constructed from materials that we just had taking up space in the garage.

And to think, these were just a few feet away the whole time.

Also, please notice that this is level AS ALL GET OUT.

I love that a lot.

Also, I need daily temps to get to 70 before I can plant a damn thing so I'm trying really hard to be patient with our 65 degree days (I KNOW - IT'S SNOWING WHERE YOU ARE AND I'M SORRY.) because I know we also need more rain and it's also only March.

*Sigh* I'm not long on patience, folks. This is well-known.