I saw the sign

I'm sorry if I just earwormed you for the rest of the day with that title. Know that I've earwormed myself and I'm pissed at myself and a little curious as to why I do these things.

Sometimes I can be so inconsiderate.

Anyway, I did actually see a sign. A sign that it's time to get the vegetable beds ready to plant.

And the sign wasn't the upcoming March 1st date on the calendar which happens to be our last frost date even though I realize that the majority of you are up to your rooftops in snow and hate me unmerciful for talking about gardening and putting up pictures like this from my yard.

You should know that I took this photos from a prone position while I enjoyed some fleeting, but lovely, sunshine with the dog.

Forgive me. I'm totally a bitch like that.

No, the sign was actually this, and big props to you if you can identify this and know what it means to the greater garden situation.

Have you seen this plant or its tiny boner?

I'll give you a minute to think it over, search my archives and compose your carefully worded, yet totally spontaneous response...





Go on, then.






OK - this, my friends, is the first fava bean of the season. Which means that it's time to cut those bitches down and turn them into the soil so they can fix it from all the untold damage caused by the glorious but mostly-useless-except-for-this-recipe corn.

This also means it's time to start leading the neighbors away from the garden because they get ruuully sad when I tell them that there won't be any fava beans to eat because they must be annihilated and returned to the earth before the nitrogen sucking beans grow to life.

They may be big and beautiful, but don't be fooled.

Thankfully, this year I remembered to give them a packet of seeds so they could grow their own and not turn them under and then get to eat them while I hacked mine into pieces and buried their bodies in the dirt.

Sometimes I can be such a murderer.

There are, of course, other signs of good growing things to come, but none carry with them the same onerous task of murder.

Unless you consider Strawberry Pie to be murder. Which I do not.

Or Lemon Wafers, which I do. (HATE)

Or Purple Kohlrabi which looks too alien to be considered actual murder if one were to actually eat it, which I haven't yet.

These peas though? They died shortly after filming. Fare thee well, small peas.

The broccolini is bolting a slow death because I haven't harvested it fast enough.

And then, there are signs in the front yard that I *may* not be a total crackpot idiot because HAH HAH shit is growing like I said it would.

OK, fine, so the contractor has been walking all over the newly sprouting bulbs and grass plugs, so they are looking vaguely like shit, but he shouldn't be out front next spring so I assume they'll come back in proper form and won't be, like, traumatized from the stomping.

Of course, wherever he IS working will probably see some signs of wear, but if we manage to keep him around and busy on our house that long, it should be very worth it. He's quite good.

Meanwhile, Bubba thinks the plants will be stronger and better for abuse, but we'll see if that kind of Darwinian action is possible from mere wildflower bulbs. I sort of doubt it.

And now let me apologize again for that barftastic title. I'll try to do better next time. Or at least use a title that doesn't torture you for the rest of the day.