- FROG IN THE GARDEN! FROG IN THE GARDEN! I was peacefully weeding around the grape tomato plants this afternoon, listening to one of my favorite podcasts, when suddenly there is this huge rustling commotion and a brown frog about the size of a 3x5 card crashes out of the weeds at the bottom of the plant. What are you doing there, little guy? It has been raining a lot, sure, but I haven't noticed any ponds springing up in the middle of the field. He hopped off into the distance, hopefully in search of a speckled log and some most delicious bugs. (Everyone knows that song, right?)
- Squash in the garden, too!
I picked two off the same plant, and we ate one for dinner the other night in this fancy-sounding herbed summer squash and potato torte, and it was pretty delicious. Eating vegetables you grew yourself is fun. Duh.
My two favorite roommates demonstrate the scale of the first proud squash:
Five or six more are in various stages of growth, although none are ready to pick yet. And the fourth plant, which has always been a bit runty, doesn't have any fruit growing yet -- it would be kind of cool if all of this spaced itself out and we had one or two squash a week instead of 10 all at once, wouldn't it? - There is this apocryphal story about me as a little kid in which I apparently went to the doctor for my whatever-month well checkup, and the doctor asked how many words I could say. My mom said, "oh, about 10, mama, dada, no, etc." The doctor said that was normal. A month or two later, we were back in the doctor's office, and he asked how many words I could say, and my mom said, "about a million." He looked at her skeptically, and I chose that moment to say, "Do you think the cord for your stethoscope is blue-green or green-blue?" I am sure this story has been more than grossly exaggerated over the years, but I am not exaggerating at all when I tell you that that's exactly what's going on with the tomatoes. I went from knowing exactly how many fruits were on exactly which plants to about a million tomatoes all over the place:
It is hard to take a photo of this exactly, but they are really exploding. All the cages except the biggest ones have been outgrown, and I'm putting up makeshift stakes like crazy. - Which is not to say that all of the tomatoes are pristine specimens of the platonic tomato ideal:
Is that a worm hole, you think? I am not that concerned, but I've definitely seen two or three of these. Do I pick them off? Leave them so the worms/bugs/whatever don't get into non-affected tomatoes? Hm. - The cilantro is on the decline, sadly, but the basil is really coming into its own:
More pesto is in my future. (The olive oil was rancid, ew. Kitchen detective Shannon solved that mystery from another state, she's that good!)
That's about all the garden news that's fit to print. This has been a bit of a trying week... I had a really annoying cold at the beginning of it and a really annoying grad-school logistical situation at the end of it, but both of them are now resolved and I'm really looking forward to just being here for the first weekend in a month. I'm going to something called Spiedie Fest with an old G*zette friend on Sunday and I cannot wait... I have never eaten a spiedie, which I am told is some sort of celebrated local sandwich, but I am a very serious fan of fests of all kinds, and this one has a hot-air balloon launch and also something called "frisbee dog exhibitions." That can only be incredibly awesome.
I leave you with a photo that will strike joy in the heart of exactly one of you, and you know who you are:
The Ithaca Ravelry site and the Stitch and Bitch group I've gone to a couple times alerted me to an amazing yarn sale. I dragged my very tolerant visiting parents to the store and came home with new Addis, three skeins of alpaca and silk blend and two skeins of a summery linen/cotton/merino, all for 50% off. Heaven.
2 comments:
Oh, the lovely squash and tomatoes! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I can't wait to have a garden in the ground next year, and not in a few spots.
The tomatoes look like bugs got to them, to me. I had a problem with a few, I've just left them on the vine. I guess you could pick them, so they don't sap food from the main plant. You have way more tomatoes than I do, which is why I leave them.
That yarn is pretty! I see much knitting in your future.
Oh man. that alpaca silk is divine!! You'll love knitting with it. I have a shawl out of some.
Pretty pretty tomatoes! my garden is on the downward slope. I'll fill you in soon.
Also. I looked at your facebook pics and I still don't really understand a spiedie.
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