Show and Tell

A robin enjoys garden 2; taken from inside my car

I don't know how mature these beets will get, but I like the plants so much that I'll always probably plant beets from now on.

First color!

First pick! This is supposed to be deep purple, but who can wait that long?

Cayennes. They're still not red, but they're so pretty.

Grasshopper. My assistant is fascinated by these and wants to catch them all. I'm curious what it is in my garden that they like so much.

I also saw a Monarch butterfly but it wouldn't sit still.

July 2011 took 20 years off my life, but the plants keep growing.

Deer

Deer. She took a bite and didn't like it. She left four of them for me, though.

Deer. She left tracks all over the garden.

Deer. She took bites out of three green tomatoes and decided that she didn't like them.

Deer. She completely stripped clean the green bean plant that she snacked on earlier.

She also stripped the leaves from this mystery pepper.

My assistant and I grated a bar of Ivory bar soap around garden 3, and for good measure we also grated a bar of this perfumed soap.

Here in America, we don't negotiate with terrorists. Including deer terrorists.

We will be grating more soaps later and looking into other, non-fence solutions. Fences are ugly and I'm not ambitious enough to pursue a fence this year.

U.S.A.!

Woohoo!

The grape tomatoes from my sister are total cuteness today.

And these must be jalapenos (?), but I don't remember planting jalapenos at all. They will be eaten, that is for sure.

Lookin' good, peas, lookin' good. I flopped the plant to and fro in order to get this photo. What do people traditionally give their peas to cling to? Mine cling to quackgrass and weeds.

Pretty Things

Stargazer lilies. They smell like bacon. What more can you say?

The cayenne peppers are so close to ripeness that you can almost feel your mouth burn.

And there are lots of tomato blooms, which pleases and excites me. I'm so ready to make caprese, panzanella, chili, and cuban beans and rice.

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.