Team Melons - you're effed.

DONG.

I say, "Dong" ever time I find a new cucumber on the plants. Or when I see a cucumber I've seen before on the plants. Or when I weigh one and it weighs almost half a pound. Or when Bubba walks around naked.

Because it's all dick jokes and gin cocktails around here, friends.

DONG.
(Because of the cucumber garnish.)(GET THERE FASTER, PEOPLE.)

But seriously, Team Melons, you're looking a bit effed right now. And by, "effed", I mean SUPER FUCKED because your melons are moving slow as shit and the cucumbers have already put out two dongs. Even though the first one was the size of my thumb because it's one of those sour gherkin types that old Jews like pickled. Also, young Jews do, too. And naked gentiles!

Look, every strange niche audience loves kosher sour dill pickles, regardless of their size.

Also, I believe these audiences (and possibly others, though I can't speak for mainstream society because, obviously.) also enjoy watermelons. Which is unfortunate because the likelihood that we're going to see a lot of those this year, enough to feed the masses of freaks who love these fruits, is awfully slim.

Yeah. And this is the BIG one. EFFED.

It's not been hot enough for the watermelons, so they're not even putting out flowers yet. It's basically sad in the melons department. Like, they're alive, but they've clearly decided to rest on their laurels and just amuse passersby with stories of years passed, when they were big and abundant and being forced into too-small boxes against their will.

It was a glorious time of produce abuse to be sure. And they're really riding that gravy train. As though it will even get close to making up for their below average performance this year.

DOUBTING IT.

We'll see. Maybe temps will warm up and the melons will pick up the pace. Maybe the nasturtium will get the hell out of the way and let the melons drive. Maybe Bubba will walk out to the garden in the nude and give the watermelons some motivation to get to work.

...because obviously melons are motivated by things that look like cucumbers...YES! You get it.

...because Bubba usually walks around our yard nude while carrying cucumbers...YES! That's exactly what I meant.

I love how intuitive you guys are.

So yeah, that's the update on the bitter rivalry between boobs and dicks in my garden. Dicks - 2, Melons - 0.

Now I'm going to go spend the weekend with Africankelli, if you don't mind, because this gal really needs some girlfriend time and also a lot of drinks.

#1 Tomato Day

OK, that's probably the worst photo I've taken of #1 Tomato Day, but we're frankly all pretty lucky that a photo was even taken because this handful went right into my mouth after the shutter went off.

And by "shutter", I mean that stupid touchscreen button on the phone.

I know I should stop taking photos with my phone but, alas, this is my life now. Where my phone is never more than a butt cheek away. Because it lives in my back pocket, not because I put it in my ass.

WHERE ARE YOUR MINDS RIGHT NOW? Gross.

Anyway - it's #1 Tomato Day (plus also #s 2 and 3 if you're counting up there) and YAY. Also yay for the constant tomato stalking proving to be worthwhile rather than just a torturous pointless wander through the garden around the many piles that Jada lays out for me on an hourly basis.

Quiet thank you to the scooper for keeping me arm's distance from the piles and the ironic "Yard Dumps" bucket for keeping me from having to walk aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way to the front of the property to dispose of the piles individually in the big can.

And I'm sorry for talking about dog poos when there are way better things like the coming of the next tomatoes and the rest of the garden's thorough insanity to saturate our minds and eyeballs.

Let's do that then:

TWO Better Boys just thisclose to face-stuffing ripeness

The fabled Paul Robeson with its alleged smoky flavor. We'll just see about that WHENEVER YOU DECIDE TO RIPEN, JERK.

The glorious Jaune Flamme. I shall eat thee in two bites.

Yeah, so the tomatoes are nearly upon us. Which is sort of scary given that we've already been set upon by the cucumbers and THE BIGGEST TOMATILLOS THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN.

Um, since when are tomatillos the size of tomatoes?

I'm truly in awe (and terrified by) the fucking huge tomatillos the garden produced this year. I got the seeds anew and started them in The Suspicious Grow Op and really didn't think that they'd do much and then they did MUCH MORE.

Hello and...

...WHAT IN THE SWEET FUCK?!

Yeah. Never in my life did I think I'd have a tomatillo situation like this. Where the plants are bigger than tomato plants and the fruits are bigger than tomato fruits and the plants themselves (because always two, remember?) have the capacity to overtake an entire raised bed plus snuff out most of the nasturtium around them.

Just yikes.

So, there's that.

Oh  yeah, the cucumbers are also yikes.

DONG

But also cute.

And handily hanging from its trellis like a good little dong.

And being all photogenic.

And prepping for pickling

And getting in the jar like a good bunch of pickles.

People, I've made so many pickles. We are never going to deflate as human beings around here.

So...swollen...with...pickling salt...IT'S GLORIOUS.

But oh, the other scary thing is the basil. There's...a lot of it.

And then, because I'm the basil grower on campus now and OOPS I overseeded my trays the last few weeks during the transition to pak choi so had a plants left over, I now have 50 more basil plants all over the place.

Good thinking, me.

*Sigh* I don't learn.

But I do eat basil at every meal now, so there's that.

And now I eat eggs, thanks to my ladies down the block that let me snatch their goods whenever I want them.

Thanks, Bitsy. Your fluffy butt is my favorite.

And now that we've started to go down the rabbit hole of photos with captions with photos, let's just look at my hops because they're fucking glorious.

I'll be getting in there with my macro lens soon enough so that you can see the gorge lupulin just aformin' under those petals. And then there will be harvesting, drying and finally BEERS.

Firstly, though - peel me a fucking grape already three years later.

Yeah. These fuckers are on their third year and are just now producing edible clusters that I would like to consume in one sitting, but alas, they ripen one effing grape at a time, so I have to wait.

Or, I have to eat them one at a time as they come ripe therefore dooming myself to an unsatisfying non-feast until such time as they produce enough so that I can't keep up with their ripening.

Like the apples now do.

One harvest out of three and we're already behind eating these.

So yeah, that's my big problem right now - eating all of this gorgeous shit that I'm so hot to grow. And it's my favorite problem to have.

WOE IS ME I'M SO HUNGRY. Oh. There's something to eat everywhere I look.

Good job, summer garden. And way to go me for writing the most disjointed post in the history of this blog.

*High five*

How this psycho gets ready to go back to a full time job.

In the usual Finny Is A Psycho tradition that you've come to expect, I spent my final moments before starting my new job last week killing my to do list.

Because nothing says accomplishment like cleaning the cat box.

Too bad I didn't have a second to spare before starting work because then I could have spent some much fantasized about time sitting naked atop this list.

Instead, I spent some much fantasized about time putting the spong away where I don't have to fucking see it.

What do you mean you can't see it either?

TEE DAH this only took me two hours and a hundred swears.

Yeah, I've wanted one of these tip out drawers for a hundred years and then I was nearing the moment when I was going to be out of free time forever because of the forthcoming full time farming job (YAY! I'm still so YAY over this. Obviously.) and then I was randomly reading some blogs and checked in on one of my faves and damnitall if girlfriend hadn't just put one in.

That tore it. I had to do it. IT WAS NOW OR NEVER. Otherwise I was going to have to look at that grody spong forever. And lest you think that I typoed back there, I did not. We call it a Spong. Like 'Dong' with a 'Sp'.

You get it.

And understand me.

Thanks for understanding. I like that about you guys.

Anyway, the spong and scrubber brush and drain stopper and just whatever the fuck else I decide I want to put in there have homes where I don't have to look at their grodiness.

Especially the spong though. It's the grodiest. Though I'm not sure why it grosses me out.

Moving on.

In my spree of getting shit done before starting full time work again, I did other shit, too.

Like breaking down all of our food for hiking the John Muir Trail.

Which included moving the contents of giant jars of peanut butter and Nutella into squeeze tubes yay fuck.

All I have to say about packing food for two weeks of backpacking is that it completely blows.

I even tried to cheer myself on through it by getting all super organize-y with the laptop up with my spreadsheet tracker going and putting on fun movies in the background and letting myself eat a few peanut M&Ms, but it still sucked.

All I could think about was how much I was going to hate all of this food soon. And how I'd have to carry it while hating it. And smell it while hating it. And eat it while hating it.

My fervent hope is that I at least come home hating Nutella so that it can't taunt my thighs from the store shelves anymore.

I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Anyway, yeah - I packed a lot of food up for our trip and I'm shipping half of it to our resupply guy this week and THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES to my amazing, badass, loves-to-put-messy-shit-into-squeeze-tubes sister who showed up just in time to put all the messy shit into squeeze tubes.

I was putting it off because the thought made me want to shit twice and die a thousand fiery deaths.

Can you guess what movie I was watching while I did this? If you can, we are soul mates. If not, blow me.

I did, in fact, manage to get to the bottom of that final to do list and, as my reeeeward, I fucked around in the garden for a while.

Nice reeeeward.

It's something. Not a lot. But something.

Tiny melon

Tiny lemon cucumber

And, not on my written list, but in my mental mind list FOREVER, was a trip to float in Lake Tahoe. Which I SO did even when all things were conspiring against me to just forget about it.

FORGET YOU, life's responsibilities

Instead of blood in my veins, I have the icy cold water of Lake Tahoe. Think about that, why don't you. Also, loving my hat Dig - all my friends in Tahoe want one now, too. So, like, expect orders.

I'm sure you can see why I love it here.

Then I did a bunch of other shit that had just been languishing in the back of my head being all, "You know, just get to me whenever you have a free minute, Mrs. I'm Too Busy For Everything Jerk Bitch."

Seriously, it's rude in there.

Planted my lamb's ear some buddies.

Picked a shit ton of Gravenstein apples.

Went on a death march style hike with the goofball dog who doesn't know how to use a backpack and my beloved Bubba who definitely knows how to use a backpack.

Watched Bubba pump his balls.
HAAAAAAAAAA!
This wasn't on my list, but I'm sure you understand why I had to include it anyway. Because of how you guys all understand me, remember? You remember.
Also, I said balls.
 HAAAAAA! 

Bid a tearful farewell to my hydro cucumber and eggplant crop. Love you, babies! Be good and don't get whitefly!

I hugged all of these hops.

I ate all of these peaches. Thanks, Nan!

Make crockpot plum jam.

Sampled the awesome Belgian that Bubba and I brewed.

Drank a LOT of cocktails while swinging in my recently resurrected Sky Chair.

Planted the long-coveted pineapple guava.

And probably there were other things I did, too, but who cares because that shit's over.

I'm a working woman again.

And IT'S FUCKING GREAT.

We'll chat on it.