Adopt a Crop update: I'm a cheater + Big Moment

As you may recall, I had to do a second sowing of the corn seeds because, well, the first sowing was more of a serving than anything else. A snack size serving for, what I now believe to be, a very annoying raccoon.

I think, at last count, with the two sowings under the protective cover of the Supah Technical frost cages, I was up to 17 germinated seeds. Of 27. That's not too bad, but with corn, you really need all the rows full and accounted for, otherwise there can be pollination problems and other mysteries that exist with corn and about which I'm totally ignorant.

Blissfully so, I might add.

So, still wanting to have a full house of corn but not wanting to roll the dice on more seeds, I went the Big Fat Cheater route and bought some corn seedlings at the nursery while my mom picked out her Mother's Day squashes. Nothing says, "Thanks for not killing me during my terrifying teenage years!" like an eight ball squash, I say. Thankfully, the nursery had Silver Queen seedlings, and so I didn't have to cheat AND compromise - that would have been awful.

Can you imagine? Let's not.

Anyway, I planted the corn seedlings yesterday afternoon and then spent some quality time admiring how the bed no longer looked like a balding middle-aged man anymore. Yay! No corn comb-overs!

Don't my plugs look natural?

And then this morning I went out to do some more Not a Bald Dude Corn Bed admiring only to find that a Bastard Raccoon had spent some clandestine moments tromping through the bed crushing everything in sight while surreptitiously dropping a load over the edge right into my path.

THANKS, ASSHOLE.

So, sadly, I had to do some propping up of remaining plants this morning and will have to go back to the nursery to fill in the holes he left with his giant STUPID JERKOFF paws/ass/tail. And then I had to get out the shovel to deal with the special coiled pressie he left steaming and collecting flies in my garden path.

*sigh* If only we embraced firearms in this house...

In happier news, he was a lazy raccoon and stuck to the thoroughfare, not meandering into any of my other beds to, say, take a nap in the lettuce or climb around on the bean lines. If that were the case, I'd be writing this post from the loony bin because that kind of scenario would get my brain to snappin'. Or I'd be up on charges for discharging a firearm in a residential area. Not that I own a gun, but still Crazy makes you do things...

Hey! Speaking of those plants I love with insane devotion:

You just try to tell me this doesn't warrant a crime of passion.

I brought in the third lettuce harvest already last night. Lettuce = Teacher's Pet.

And don't you fear, my chickens, the Adopted Crop of Lemon Cucumbers is alive and well over there away from the Hwy 101 of veg beds.

I predict that soon there will be photos of cucumber blossoms right...here -----> X.

I opted to put cages up around them this morning in case the Bastard Raccoon decides to make a reappearance and also because, with four seedlings per mound (there are two), growing at the rate they're maintaining, those leaves are starting to need some support. So, support I will.

*Patience*

In other FABULOUS AND EARLY news, we have our first tomato.

That's all I'm going to say. I don't want to clutter this perfect moment with a lot of chatter.

Go on, then, just relish the moment with me...

Reeeeeliiiiishhhhh iiiiiiiit...

Ok, I'm back. Isn't he huge and buttcheek-ish? I'm in love. The thing is the size of a marble. I'm thinking he might be the biggest Better Boy to grace my yard ever, but we'll see. No pressure or anything.

Oh, and lest I forget everything else in light of this beautiful buttcheek tomato, we also have ripening cherries,

Bubba tasted one and says they're still too sour.

artichokes,

I'm eating four for dinner tonight. You know, just to prepare.

and the tiniest hope of cilantro. Guess those seeds were a mite old. Oh well. It'll bolt in, like, three minutes anyway, so I'm not sure why I bother at all.

It might be bolting right now.

Also under the header of, Why Do I Bother, the last bed of tomatoes and basil looks like hot crap. Something's chewing on all of them and they aren't really growing. So, while I technically have four tomato plants and a dozen basils in the ground, I *really* have two tomato plants and six basils growing. The rest are busy sucking wind over there where I suspect they don't get enough sun and/or the "Bug Buffet" sign is drawing too much attention.

The sunlight may be the reason that the lettuce did great here last year, but not so much with the tomatoes. Sad.

For comparison's sake, see I'm The Mightiest Tomato Plant in All the Land, here:

I'm sitting on a nuclear waste site. Don't tell.

And, I guess, that's all the updating I'm ready to do right now. But I do have a recipe to share with y'all soon that'll take care of some of those greens (collard, chard, kale, totsoi, etc), let you play with your pasta machine AND include bacon. It's purty good. And if I hadn't had pupusas and beans for breakfast this morning (technically it was 10:30, so is that even breakfast?) I'd be eating those leftovers right now.

Instead, I'm going to be full until lunch tomorrow.