Garden 2012

I could be weeding, but it’s pretty wet out, so I’m on my porch swing with a sandwich and a laptop instead. Only a few more Fridays that the kids are in school, and Fridays are my only non-working days, so gotta soak up the lazy while I can.

It’s been an odd Spring, here in Chicagoland. More Springy than usual. Other years we go Winter, Winter, OH HELL SUMMMMER! But this year has been (very mild) Winter, Winter, OH HELL A WEEK OF SUMMMMER! Then cold and dry. Then cold and wet. Then one day of HOT. Now back to Springy. It’s very confusing, but the plants seem to like it.

Been eating plenty of asparagus already, and the radishes are doing great. I’ll be making rhubarb pie this weekend, I think. Or cobbler if I’m lazy. And I might be. Moved the strawberries into a strawberry pot to make more room for tomatoes. Plus the chipmucks eat them all anyway. I have ideas about how to prevent that, now that I have a portable pot. Onions doing better than normal. Bunch of stuff self-seeded, like the bok choy, orache, broccoli raab. We’ll be eating lettuce soon. The raspberries that came over the fence from the neighbors are spreading a lot, but I like raspberries, so that’s fine. Peas, carrots, beets all coming up well.

Started seeds, of course. Green zebra and brandywine tomatoes, cukes, melons, peppers, basil. All pretty happy. Haven’t started the zukes and other squash yet. Can’t quite decide my game plan on them, vis-à-vis vine stem borers. Plant late, like last year? Worked, but the harvest is so late …

The beans are being moved to a new sunnier location. I’m hoping this means I won’t need a ladder to harvest this year, but only time will tell. I’ll post a photo when it’s looking like something.

Gave up on potatoes for this year.  Bah.

In a stunning upset, both the dill and oregano are coming up gangbusters. I know!

One more story. The neighbor kid was over here recently, and he said he loooves chives. I said, oh, you don’t have any? Here, I’ll pot you up some. So I randomly dig up a little dirt to put in the wee pot, and find N’s wedding band that he lost almost two years ago. What are the odds? So I asked N to marry me. He said yes.

Oddly, my grandfather also lost his wedding band in his garden and found it again years later. Apparently this skill skips a generation.