It's a Green, Red, Christmasy Fourth

Happy Independence Day! Garden Insanity loves all things America, American, and Americana.

Here are some of today's views.

The hibiscus was a housewarming gift many years ago from my husband's aunt and uncle. I'm very pleased with how well it's done in Michigan (it winters inside). These are its first blooms this year.

We gave it some extra dirt and a lot of water.

It always is very thirsty.

In garden 2, we have a few new sprouts; I think they're green beans.

We found today's requisite lucky clover.

The tomatoes are doing beautifully.

The cayenne peppers continue to do well, and their current color and configuration remind me of Christmas. Spicy, delicious Christmas. It will be like Christmas when get to put some of these peppers in our burritos.

Happy, happy

It has been hot and dry this week. In fact, today's heat index is 101 degrees. Most of the rain that's been promised hasn't shown up. But most of my plants are doing ok.

Happy daisies:

More happy daisies, some happy sunflowers, and some exceedingly happy weeds:

I am reclaiming this little sunflower garden today.

Planting a couple new mega-sunflower plants. Six seeds, to be exact.

But what's this?

Nature beat me to it. Nearly two months after they were planted, these decided to grow.

I still planted more seeds. You can't stop me!

The alleged green beans that were sprouting a couple of days ago shot up toward the sky and now I almost have a proper row. Never mind the quackgrass.

I love green beans!

And my sad little roma tomato plants, including the deer-stomped and munched one, look pretty well today for all that they've been through.

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.

The Strawberry Garden Has Gone Gangbusters

Well, for me, an incompetent gardener, this is gangbusters.

We picked strawberries, pulled some quackgrass, and enjoyed the sunshine between all of the rainstorms. Yes, the rainstorms Cantore predicted have arrived, and we put in some marigold seeds and basil seeds before they started.

Something else that's on my mind at the moment is: is this roma tomato the little tomato that could? Or is it toast? I purchased this from Meijer and probably shouldn't have, but I'm a sucker for the underdog. It looks dry, but it has been receiving plenty of water. What do you think? I actually have two roma plants like this; they're about a third of the size of the rest of the (clearly healthy) tomato plants.

Seeds are alive!

And it always, always seems like magic when it happens. After my sister-in-law gave us all those seeds, I planted them with abandon, thinking it's been a wet year so far so maybe I'll get some nice, low-maintenance veggies.

These little cuties were first. I have three and I'm hoping for more.

They're sweet peas. I love eating new peas, and I can't wait for my four-year old to be able to enjoy this treat for the first time.

I also have three little green bean plants of varying heights. Three plants out of the approximately forty, six-year old seeds I planted.

There aren't any above-ground signs yet from the billion carrot seeds or the few broccoli seeds that I planted.

My meteorologist crush Jim Cantore (no! not J. Walter Weatherman) calls for rain all week, but it hasn't arrived (grrr), so I'm watering these as I type.

Green bean and carrot seeds

Today we planted a few more seeds in garden 3: I planted green bean seeds along the south perimeter and carrots along the west perimeter. It's like Janette, who gave these seeds to us, says: they're free, so if they grow, free veggies. These guys are way packed in, though. I'm out of garden room. So it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out. It's 90 degrees and dry here today and I'm irrigating seeds everywhere.

Planting and Growing Garlic

This How to Plant and Grow Garlic video , featured on the Garlic Facebook page, has me really wanting to plant and grow garlic. No one consumes more garlic than I do; it fights cancer (not medical advice), repels insects when camping, and tastes amazing.

I planted a bunch of seeds today in garden 2: sweet peas along south perimeter; carrots along west perimeter; broccoli along north perimeter. It's going to be interesting in there. My daughter also sprinkled California poppy seeds all over the yard. Michigan's climate is clearly and significantly different from California's, but I'd be thrilled if poppies grew.