When vegetables attack
I transplanted lots of marigolds today. <3 David's not a big fan of them, but I love French marigolds (some of my favorite annuals after snapdragons and deep blue lobelia), so while I didn't buy a lot of them from the garden center this year, I did plant a couple packets of year-old seeds I had lying around in hopes some of them would come up. They finally have, so out of the flats and into the pots they went. xD With any luck I will have quite a few to scatter around the yard for color and pest-repellent and possibly eating by July or so.
The sugar snap peas have been producing for about a week now, and we got our very first homegrown strawberry today, which was delicious. We've even got a couple of little green tomatoes on one of the tomato plants already. Not bad for early June in Zone 4. I don't think we'll have any plums, blackberries, or cherries this year, but both currants and the serviceberry bush appear to be growing a few, despite having just been planted in the last month, so we should have some fruit. And David has a lead on some raspberry canes and rhubarb, so I think next year will be The Year of the Pies. >=D
This year looks like it will be The Year of the Onions and Beans. The onions we bought on a whim at Menards in March because they had little bags of fifty onion starts for a dollar. We didn't figure we'd get much yield from them, but it wasn't much money to lose if that was the case. I planted them early -- maybe the first week of April -- and all of them sprouted. Not only did they all come up, half of them are so large by this point they look like they could reach out and grab me and pull me into the onion patch to devour me for sustenance. If I wanted to thin the onion patch out at this point, I think it would require bladed weapons and possibly a flamethrower, just to be on the safe side. Seriously, we have one on which the green portion is like three feet long and over an inch around. It looks like tentacled alien monsters are trying to claw their way out of the ground and into the bean patch, which is similarly vigorous.
Anyway. *cough* We have no good outdoor lighting, so this weekend I tried making oil lamps with jars, cotton wicks, and canola oil, in the hopes that they will prove cheaper and brighter than candles. (Thank you, Instructables!) It worked all right after I got the hang of it, but they're definitely going to need protection from the wind if I use them outside. Most of the thrift stores seem to have the right kind of glass lamp-shade thingies, because no one knows what to do with them anymore, so hopefully I can rig up some lanterns. And with any luck the neighbors won't look over the fence and assume I'm making Molotov cocktails and call the cops on me. xD
The sugar snap peas have been producing for about a week now, and we got our very first homegrown strawberry today, which was delicious. We've even got a couple of little green tomatoes on one of the tomato plants already. Not bad for early June in Zone 4. I don't think we'll have any plums, blackberries, or cherries this year, but both currants and the serviceberry bush appear to be growing a few, despite having just been planted in the last month, so we should have some fruit. And David has a lead on some raspberry canes and rhubarb, so I think next year will be The Year of the Pies. >=D
This year looks like it will be The Year of the Onions and Beans. The onions we bought on a whim at Menards in March because they had little bags of fifty onion starts for a dollar. We didn't figure we'd get much yield from them, but it wasn't much money to lose if that was the case. I planted them early -- maybe the first week of April -- and all of them sprouted. Not only did they all come up, half of them are so large by this point they look like they could reach out and grab me and pull me into the onion patch to devour me for sustenance. If I wanted to thin the onion patch out at this point, I think it would require bladed weapons and possibly a flamethrower, just to be on the safe side. Seriously, we have one on which the green portion is like three feet long and over an inch around. It looks like tentacled alien monsters are trying to claw their way out of the ground and into the bean patch, which is similarly vigorous.
Anyway. *cough* We have no good outdoor lighting, so this weekend I tried making oil lamps with jars, cotton wicks, and canola oil, in the hopes that they will prove cheaper and brighter than candles. (Thank you, Instructables!) It worked all right after I got the hang of it, but they're definitely going to need protection from the wind if I use them outside. Most of the thrift stores seem to have the right kind of glass lamp-shade thingies, because no one knows what to do with them anymore, so hopefully I can rig up some lanterns. And with any luck the neighbors won't look over the fence and assume I'm making Molotov cocktails and call the cops on me. xD