Spreading the Good News

We have early girl tomatoes! Beautiful early girl tomatoes.

We have deer visitors who didn't destroy much yesterday or today.

We have lettuce!

That's lettuce, right? I'm shell-shocked from the recent lettuce incident. Until this instant, when I googled the definition of the phrase shell-shocked, I thought it referred to shy, Disney-esque shellfish characters. I like my way better.

And we have another lettuce, even smaller than the first.

Someone made a deadly mistake when they put me in charge of lettuce. Baby lettuces are more difficult to care for and keep safe than baby humans are.

Moving on: we have lots of little Cayenne peppers.

I am pleased, excited, and I predict a prolific year for the peppers.

We have more surprise potentilla arenaria wildflowers. These are by our play structure.

My temptation (that I'm resisting) is to mark them with those flags for electrical lines so we don't mow them down.

The best part of having an acre and a half that we can almost basically let go and let grow ("neglect," one might say) is all of the wonderful surprises that randomly grow on their own. I've seen wildflowers, trees, shrubs, and possibly even an occasional fruit or vegetable randomly appear and grow on our property.

The worst part about having a feral acre and a half is the terrible surprises such as poison ivy. I just spent half an hour tracking down and poisoning young poison ivy. I feel like I need a holster to carry my Round Up Poison Ivy Killer.

Coach: this is a business opportunity for you.

Destruction

Why is there so much destruction? Are the stars not aligned for me (please don't get me started, but thank you to Susan Miller, astrologer)? Is God angry? Is the universe punishing me for using so many plastic sauce cups from Gordon Food Service?

There was destruction all over. I'll start big.

I live outside the Detroit Metro Area. My town is sort of notorious for the amount of deery visitors. We've been fortunate in that they've generally left us alone, until now. I do not welcome them. I do not feel that I can live in harmony with them. I'm feeling emotionally upset about this. The mother and baby deer ate most of a roma tomato plant, and several branches off several other tomato plants.

 Next: I'll admit, I sort of asked for this one. I love the bunnies. They're adorable. If something is cute in nature, I have a hard time being mad at it. Unfortunately, I treasure my giant sunflowers. I wanted four or five of them this year, and I got three of them in an asymmetrical arrangement. And now...today...a cute, adorable rabbit has eaten a young, giant sunflower, and one from the border.

At least the punk should clean up its plate. Right?

What puzzles me about this is, we've had a moist and fertile year. My goods have never been attacked by pests this much. The debatable amount of common sense that I do possess says that these guests should have plenty of dining choices (including some that are elsewhere, like in the neighbors' huge garden).

While this violation (to us; feast to them) was happening, my assistant and I naively admired the cute, snacking rabbits. I enjoy having rabbits as guests. But please. Not my giant sunflowers.

Finally...this one was completely my fault. I pulled this. The root came out so cleanly, and the plant was so attractive, that I took a second look. Then I asked my husband, who stared at this and then took a bite. "Delicious," he declared it.

I pulled out my own lettuce.

I frantically replanted it and I'm drowning it in water as a type.

I'd better check with you, my reading public. Is this lettuce? Or is it a weed? We went so crazy with seeds that I really don't know, but my husband said it was tasty.

We felt sad about the destruction, but we planted a few things too.

My helper and I planted more peas to round out garden 2, and some beets. And in the spirit of "What the heck - it's 2011," we put in a bunch of green beans on the west edge. Now I sort of want to add some spinach.

We put more basil along the west side of garden 3, since the carrots didn't do anything, and we put some more green beans along the south side. This was at my helper's insistence.

We threw some seeds for California poppy, other poppy, and coreopsis (butterfly food) all over the land, wondering if they'll come up. Hope so! That'd be fun.

Did I mention all of the marigolds that my assistant has planted?

And I have this to look forward to. I hope it's what I think it is.

Now I'm going to go eat a pan of Nestle Tollhouse cookie bars. What is a toll house, anyway? And please enjoy this history of the chocolate chip cookie.