Rebuttals!

Yesterday we were supposed to "side-dress" the plants, which means putting out troughs or circles of fertilizer about 6 inches from the base. "Supposed to" means I really, really wanted to get the bag of manure out of the trunk of my car. It's "odor-free," which is pretty unsettling, but good for storage. But I still wanted it out of my trunk, even though I feel like it gives me some rural-style street cred to drive around with manure in my car.

We also had a lunch date with Eli, and we got to the garden too late. So, only time for pictures, and no work. Manure today instead....

First of all, some outcome indicators - a vase of lavender and a blueberry-blackberry cobbler. Only the blackberries were from the garden, and they really needed to be offset by the sweetness of the blueberries. But it tastes good, and the blackberries go back to a nice red color when they're baked.





Then at the garden, some promising signs. First of all, that cucumber that I thought was dying? Looks like there are new growths at every corner. You can see here the little baby cucumber that shriveled up and died, but behind it is the light green new growth, which hopefully will have a flower inside.



Eric showed Eli the cucumbers, and tried to show him how all the tendrils wrap so neatly around the trellis, but Eli just said, "We have to get these off!" and tried to unwind them. Tough crowd!



[Last week, we were standing by the plot, and someone came over and said, "Oh, you're the giant cucumber people!" Assuming "giant" was modifying "cucumbers," that was pretty cool].

Meanwhile, there are a bunch of plants we didn't plant. New poppies blooming every day.



A few more of those other little pink flowers that showed up.



And even a tomato plant in the corner! (see yellow flowers). Not sure how hearty it is, but since I spent $2.43 on ONE TOMATO at the supermarket the other day, I'm hoping this plant does well.



We have a little free space now since we picked the beets. Maybe we should get some tomato seedlings. Though I still worry about the rats and about human thefts, which other people have been reporting. E.g., someone said one of their cabbages was stolen. Cut right off at the base. Cabbage? There are strawberries and raspberries and cucumbers and about 30 other things that are more delicious (especially raw) than cabbage. But I digress.

So here are two cool things.

First of all, as those of you who've been carefully tracking my planting and maturity dates in your Outlook calendars know, I tried planting some flowers back in April - coreopsis, poppies, sunflowers, snapdragons, morning glories. None of them germinated or anything, and about 6 weeks later, we planted new ones (some poppies and sunflowers again, but otherwise just zinnias).

A huge plant came up recently in that area, and we couldn't identify it. But it finally flowered, and it turns out it's one of the coreopsis I planted back in April! It's just like how they got those seeds from near the Dead Sea to germinate after like 1200 years. The packet says they grow to 24", but this one is at least 3 feet tall already. It has tons of buds so it should be really pretty soon.



Finally, some cantaloupe biology. I mean muskmelon. As I think I've already written, muskmelons have male flowers and hermaphrodite flowers. The former just fall off; the latter get pollinated and bear fruit (it's not clear to me why the males are necessary if the hermaphrodites have both gametes....). Anyway, I was getting nervous because there were a lot of flowers but no fruit. Then a couple days ago, I found what I thought might be a hermaphrodite flower. For comparison, here's a male - just a flower on a slender stem:



And here's a hermaphrodite, with a rounded base underneath:



Then yesterday, I discovered the first baby muskmelon!



I hope they get less fuzzy and adorable over time, or I won't be able to bring myself to slice and eat it.

Update: Sunday, 1:32 pm:
It is not a good idea to distribute manure in your garden at noon in the summer in DC. I'll be in the shower for 4 hours if anyone needs me.

And Matt, I promise a return to relative brevity.

Summertime

I think early success led to high expectations, which I try (usually unsuccessfully) never to have. Rebuttable pessimism!

Two of the cucumber plants are still growing and flowering and striking adorable tendril poses all over.





But the other one looks ill - yellow leaves, no flowers, dried tendrils. I didn't want to take a picture so I didn't.

The soybeans just might be getting ready to soybean. Pretty little flowers, not very many. Did you know that soybean means "I am a bean" in Spanish? Well it does.



The regular beans are ready for picking! And they're delicious.



And on another bright note, here's a spontaneous poppy.



But the eggplant and cantaloupes, don't seem to be making any fruit. I did some reading about cantaloupes (technically muskmelons, actually), which have both male and hermaphroditic flowers. Only the hermaphroditic flowers turn into fruit. You'd think in my line of work I could tell hermaphrodites from males, but I can't. So the prognosis is murky.

But more often than not, pessimism is still rebutted:





Happy summer!

Adolescence

The garden has gotten so robust that I kind of feel like my plants aren't babies anymore. I feel like they're teens, and that sending pictures of them is kind of like continuing to put your kids on your Christmas cards once they're awkward teenagers. And yet here we are!

The cucumbers have gone crazy; there are some enormous ones, and many tiny nascent ones, and cool tendrils grabbing everywhere.






The blackberries are almost ripe, and I think the beets are ready:





Meanwhile, there are tiny adorable beans growing behind each bean flower (you may have to zoom in).



And, in closing, a stray flower I can't take credit for:



Goodnight!

Before/After

Returning to the garden after ten days away was awesome. Still slightly too jetlagged to write anything clever, so here are some before/after shots.

First, the beets. In this case the earlier photo is probably from about a month back; the second is from today:






Soybeans; the first photo is from just before I left; the second is from today:






Beans: The first is from about a month ago, the second from just before I left, and the third from today:







And a bean flower - no "before" picture of this!




So here's the whole garden, before and after my trip - amazing what happens in under two weeks. Check out the height difference in the cucumbers (on the trellises toward the right):





In other news, I pulled up some carrots and we had them with dinner! Very exciting. I had to leave the dirt on for the photo so you could tell I didn't just go buy these at Whole Foods in a James-Frey-like moment of desperate fakery: