In the midst of Country Fair craziness and over 100 degree weather with the heat index Amy and I braved the heat and tiredness and went to work in the little garden. It was in major need of some weeding and the last little bit of planting. We worked in the garden from 1:00-4:15 on Thursday afternoon and probably EACH sweated off 14 pounds. It was truly disgusting. It wasn't so bad when we were leaned over planting or weeding, but then when we stood up, it all ran down your face. I so wanted an 80s sweatband. I am so grateful for Amy's help because I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done. We keep each other motivated and it is much more bearable when someone else is there. Don't worry, we each drank several bottles of water. We did well on the hydration part....but not so much on the sun protection part. We put sun screen on (and I even bought sweat proof!) but forgot the part of the directions that said in sweaty conditions it only lasts 80 minutes. And BOY were WE in sweaty conditions! So now I have a major and very painful sunburn on my back. I kept trying to tell myself that Erin is in 120 degree weather dressed from head to toe...but I was still hot...and sweaty!
On to the pictures!
This is a sugar snap pea plant. The crazy grass and weeds grew up all around the row where I planted them. We almost didn't even touch that row because it looked like a lost cause. When the plants are little I don't like to weed because I don't want to accidentally pull a plant, however, that causes crazy overgrowth by the time I am ready to weed. But...as we are really good at motivating each other, we attached it with gusto. We started by pulling the grass (because we know what that is) and suddenly I said, "AMY! Look at this!" and we noticed these in a row. We were SO excited and they are rather tall. Amy took some time to stake them up. Neither of us have grown sugar snap peas before, but they are one of my favorite vegetables! We also planted more of these.
My prized onions! There are two rows now and we planted 2 more more. We are going to have onions coming out of our ying yangs soon! But look how healthy they are!
A strawberry plant with a strawberry growing! We actually have a red strawberry on one, but it is moldy. We think it was sitting in standing water in the crazy rain last week.
Grandpa! This is one of your green onions! I told you on Father's Day that they weren't growing, but we found a few. Apparently green onions are a bit finicky. But we have a couple. We also planted another row.
This MAY be a carrot. We aren't really sure. We also had overgrowth in the carrot row and once we got to weeding we found a few of these little plants. They look like carrot foliage. Let's keep our fingers crossed!
Our strong and healthy potato plants. I am so amazed that there is an underground village of potatoes growing. I think it is crazy that each plant produces so many potatoes!
This may or may not be a cucumber plant. We are leaning towards may not, but we are also optimistic. We have had BAD luck with the cucumbers this year. As I said last time, we just rototilled one of the sections under because there ain't nothing growing there. This section had a few of these weeds that we are trying to convince ourselves MAY be cucumbers. In any case, I replanted the bad section with 2 rows of cucumbers and planted some in this section as well between the phantom cucumber/weed plants. Here is a little cucumber last year, what is your vote? Are these cucumbers?
Healthy tomato plants!
So I just need to say that on Thursday when we were working in the garden and doing some planting, I was thinking about how all of this works. Isn't it amazing that you can plant this tiny speck in the ground (in the case of a carrot) or something half the size of a pencil eraser (like a cucumber) and get a huge plant? Isn't it amazing? I don't know the biology behind plants growing, but to me it is truly a sign of God. This tiny little speck grows into a plant that produces food! A little cucumber seed can grow into a long viney plant that produces 20 cucumbers! It reminds me of the end of the school year when we had caterpillars that turned into butterflies. Again, if I didn't believe in God already, I would have no doubt after watching that process. These teeny tiny caterpillars eat a bunch of food, go hang upside down, their bodies change, they sit for a week, and suddenly, out of this tiny little hard chrysalis comes a beautiful butterfly! How does that big butterfly come out of the tiny chrysalis? How does its wings fit inside? How does it change? It is truly amazing to me and truly a sign that God is present.
In other news, on Wednesday I finally got around to making the garden in front of my house beautiful. Last year this is what it looked like. Two years ago I ripped out the ugly alien-like fern plants that overtook the whole thing. In the spring this year, I ripped out the big ugly evergreen bushes that weren't so healthy looking. I started to plant about 2 weeks ago, but then realized that I was in dire need of some more soil. It is way too wet and when it rains, all of the water sits there. So over the last few days, Adam brought soil from his house, we mixed it with peat moss I bought and built up the bed. I am hoping this will stop the water from pooling by the side of my house.
Oh yeah, but "we", I meant "Adam" mixed up the dirt and peat moss.
But I planted some pretty bushes, daylilies and hostas and now it is very nice looking! Now I am proud of all my gardens at my house.
My other project on Wednesday was planting grass seed in front of my house. Last fall they ripped out the sidewalk and replaced my front porch but never came back to replant the grass. I was going to talk to the association about it, but then I had leftover grass seed from planting grass in cups for summer school and decided just to try my hand at grass planting myself. We shall see what happens. Will I grow grass? I will keep you updated!
Last, but not least, look at my pretty pots! Amy, this is the snapdragon I told you about. They are all curving like this! Do they always do this? They are very pretty!
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