Friday, June 05, 2009

Adopt a Crop update: Cage-free cucumbers + First beans

I know you're all desperate for a garden update since I haven't talked about it in, oh, five whole minutes, so here I am to tell you that WE HAVE BEANS.


Yes. I picked our first handful of beans this morning while I sat on the garden bed bench amongst the rapidly narrowing paths. It's a time I never think will come when I'm planting seeds in the beds, but inevitably June arrives and thus, the benches vanish into the plants.

See you in the fall.

Soon I'll have to move to my garden chair to eat my breakfast, drink my morning bev, watch Rocket spy on the birds at their feeder and generally hide from reality, since these paths will be nearly unnavigable in a few weeks.

Which is fine. I need tomatoes more than I need sitting places.

Don't worry, the birds are in no danger whatsoever. She's all talk.
I won't lie - sometimes I just hide out there like no one can see me. Like it's my big green fort and I'm seven years old and giving my My Little Ponies punk rock haircuts.

NO BOYS ALLOWED.

This morning while I sat out there, admiring the tall tall beans and picking a few, I realized that, hey, that's not a bean leaf. Nor is it a lettuce leaf or a nasturtium leaf that is weaving its way all through the bed to the other side of the waitaminute...you're a cucumber.

Hello, cucumber plant. I see you.

Yes, whoopsy, I never fully caged in one of the cucumber mounds so, HELLO, it has gone over its short wall and started to climb its way through the nasturtium, lettuce and under the beans to, well, I don't know. Where do cucumbers go when they're not carefully caged in and growing upward?

Wherever we damn well please, that's where.

Well, I guess we'll find out because it's way too late now to do anything about it, so I'm just going to let them do their thing. Maybe they'll climb up the bean tepee and make themselves at home putting out fruit from a more vertical position or perhaps they'll climb out the other side of the bed and just do whatever plants do when they're not under constant surveillance from The Garden Frau (that's me).

Either way, all the cucumber plants are showing signs of future fruit, and the Cage-Free Cucumber has blossoms on it, which means Cucumbers Soon! And then Pickle Chips soon! And good things like that. Yay.


Cage-free is better - or so say the hippies.

And did I mention I picked some beans this morning? The first ones of the season? Yes, well, I could get all revved up about it except that I know that soon we'll have so many friggen beans from our plants and from the farmshare that I'll be wondering why I was so adamant about having a 100% germination rate with the beans when HOLY we don't need so many.

I should note here that, when building the tepee, I thought it was too tall.

Thankfully, when beans run out of line to climb, they just climb each other.

Early spring eyes are often so much bigger than mid-summer bellies. Weird, that.

I expect to have a similar reaction to the tomato bounty that may soon be upon us. And I'm already having that reaction to the lettuce which is impossible to keep up with even with giving it away and eating salads big enough for two people.

Lettuce is a meal, right?

And the corn. Oh the corn. It looks, in my unbiased opinion, super beautiful. And, much to my delight because I'm a meanie, it's now big enough to rustle. In the wind. So when the breeze cuts through the corn, the leaves all brush together and make, what I think, is a very peaceful growie kind of sound. But, if you're my neighbor, they make The Creepiest Sound on Earth.

*rustle rustle*

He hates the sound of rustling corn. Freaks him right out. Like small glassy-eyed haunted kids are going to come staggering out of the corn all, "I want to eat your brains!" or whatever Children of the Corn say. Which I wouldn't know since I never saw the movie. Thankfully, since I can still enjoy the rustling of corn while sitting amongst it instead of, say, running back inside until the wind dies down.

That's what weirdos do.

And here's one of my garden watchdogs who won't go trampling through the corn in a well-meaning effort to rid the yard of squirrels.

Who said squirrel?

6 comments:

  1. Super bountiful backyard! It's lovely! I am jealous, but then that is my fault I never got out in my yard and did any work at all. There's alway sfall vegetables and winter vegetables...yeah, like I'll get to that before then!
    Enjoy!

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  2. Corn creeps me out because it reminds me of the movie Signs...seeing that alien leg hidden amongs the corn stalks???!!! EEEEK! Look out for tall, skinny, angry aliens in your corn patch!

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  3. I was just standing out in the garden, contemplating the tiny cucumber plants and wondering if I should put up some fence behind them for climbing. Probably, otherwise they'll invade the cabbages, and I can't be having THAT.

    Yes, this is what I spend my Saturdays (and every other day) doing. Because I'm cool like that.

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  4. Man, I am SO jealous of your garden right now!!! Looks like you're going to have an INCREDIBLE harvest this year!!!

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  5. the garden loooks fab and all, but i am desperate to find a recipe for those carrot cake cookies. i have no idea why i can't find it. do i just follow the link? help me!

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  6. i love corn and the feel of it deep inside me!!!

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[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.