Garden Blahs

There are times I just don't care about the damned garden.  There, I've said it.  It sits out there, all needy and weedy and parched, and I'd rather sit inside, in the air conditioning, and read about anything other than plants.  There are raspberries ripening, and I haven't picked them.  The tomato is succumbing to blight and stink bugs, and I have not ridden to its rescue.  The cukes for pickes and relish are hanging there waiting for me, and I just don't care to do the work they want me to do. 

The garden in January is all fantasy and longing.  The garden in July can be a pain in the ass.

Don't Blink

I was away for a week, and my garden behaved like a teenager with an empty house, throwing a party in the beds, inviting all the undesirables in, and catching all manner of bugs.  It also (like a child one doesn't see for a short time) grew.  And bore fruit, which is certainly a thing one hopes teens won't do while unobserved.

Alas, there was also a death in the garden.  I was growing a Red Kuri squash on Noah's swing set, and it was smashing.  Huge, umbrella-like leaves and teardrop shaped fruit smothering the structure, with a couple of purple hyacinth beans climbing up through the greenery in preparation for fall blooming.  In the week I was gone squash borers must have gotten to it, because when I returned it was mostly a drooping tangle of limp vines.  I didn't cry, but I wanted to.

In other news...

The lilies bloomed!  All at once, while I was elsewhere.  Here is the bed against the house out back, full of phlox and lilies and the crab apple tree, with herbs at their feet.