For those of you who follow me, I apologize for leaving you hanging for a few weeks. As they say, no news is indeed good news, although I have a mixture of fails and successes in the ornery dirt patch that is my garden.
For starters, since last I updated, Ted and I gave our fowled friends, the white ducks, to a lady who has a beautiful barnyard full of animals. After re-reading my previous post, you'll understand how easy it was to part ways with my feathered friends. Since I no longer felt comfortable letting them amble around the yard without supervision, they were spending 90% of their time living in a hutch in the backyard. That is, clearly, no way for barnyard birds to live, and so Ted's grandmother found a woman who takes in animals, feeds them and cares for them, and runs a petting zoo for children. As much as I miss my ducks, whom I raised from a mere 2 days old, I feel no remorse thinking about the little kids who are going to stand beyond their enclosure attempting to mimick their throaty quacks. Here is a link to the video of the farm the duckies now call home: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=552319990505
Getting rid of the ducks really didn't seem to affect Margie, bless her soul. She has still fixated on the patch of lawn where the duck hutch used to sit, and at the risk of giving you all TMI, wholeheartedly believes that their droppings are akin to Chanel No. 5. After the ducks left, I watched helplessly as she writhed around on her back, in the small area that sat directly below the hutch. She was more pleased with herself than I can explain.
At any rate, things are progressing nicely with the house. Thanks to Ted's mom, the dining room and living room are no longer lilac sponge-painted; her and I painted the rooms a lovely olive shade, covering up the hideous and adding some color where there once wasn't. Taking advantage of the rollers and edgers that she lent me, I tackled an upstairs bedroom which was also a shade of purple. Now it is a teal-grey, definitely much more attractive and much less like a gramma's place.
As far as the garden is concerned, I have to say, I am surprised. After replanting several squashes/melons, I had very low expectations for the patch formerly claimed by the mole. However, after some TLC (and by TLC, I mean I completely ignored it for a few days), every single one of the seeds that I planted in that area sprouted. Every. Single. One. Which means that the zucchini and cucumbers might be a little bit crowded, but to be honest, I really don't care - because at least a crowded garden LOOKS like a lush, verdant oasis. Even if it is just a totally hot mess.
The flower patch is also a disaster area - they're all growing pretty haphazardly, but they're GROWING. I can't even believe that I'm going to have zinnias, and a few sunflowers are already 2 feet high and getting bigger every time I go out there. I have about 5-6 corn stalks thanks to the ducks - they ate their corn feed, dropped some feed into their water supply, and grew me a few corn stalks. I transplanted them, although I'm not entirely sure they'll grow ears without some cross polination something-or-other. We'll see, but if they don't grow fruit, it's still something green in my garden...
The radishes are growing so fast, I can hardly keep up with them. The leaf lettuce is doing well, the Swiss chard is successful, and the carrots are meagerly growing. My problem child, with the exception of my hearty basil plants, are my herbs. I planted rosemary, nothing. I re-planted rosemary, nothing. I planted chives, nothing. I re-planted chives, and got one, tiny, scraggley little blade. The parsely never arrived. Worst of all, the mint! I scattered the seed, I planted, re-planted, then re-re-planted the mint, and the only place I can get the mint to grow is in-between the paving stones on my back patio. I thought that stuff was supposed to be an invasive species - well, invasive species my butt! The only thing this mint is going to invade is the history books, as the first mint to ever not take-over an entire garden. I'm going to rue these words one day, I can just feel it.
Most importantly, and in the most exciting news of my entire summer, my tomatoes have absolutely exploded. Not literally, because that would be a real mess. The tomato plants, the Big Boys, the Cherries, and the Beefsteaks - they have all been such wonderful successes. Thinking they would be total failures, I planted them too close together. Now, I need to space them apart, and I attempted to do so in the famous scandal that will now be known as TomatoGate 2011. I transplanted a small hot pepper plant to an area that was better for its size, and tried to move a Beefsteak plant into its spot. I had it out of the ground for 30 seconds, and the once lush, delicious-smelling little plant wilted like a girl in the orchestra section at a Beatles' concert. I transplanted it, but I fear the damage has been done. I guess I should probably mention that it was upwards of 98 degrees outside when I did this - thinking about it now, if I were sitting comfortably in my central A/C-ed house and someone picked me up and dragged me out to Death Valley, I'd probably pass out too.
Here's to the tomatoes, which will make this all worth it.
