Sadness

I'm not a happy camper. Not only are the wards busy and stressful, but the damn boy stained the decks yesterday and splattered deck stain all over my plants. Not only are half of them withering away at every place the stain touched (which is pretty much everywhere), but the plants that I was previously planning to eat as greens (lettuce, sweet pea vines) are now totally inedible because they're covered in brown toxic goop.
And of course to top it off he trampled a few little guys too.
See, if I had just had memorial day off like the rest of the world I could have been supervising him/covered up my plants. Uuugh!
So. Angry!

Whee!

Look at me! I'm on the front page of Etsy with my Key Lime Pie Hairpins!

Garden update.

My latest obsession with the garden is still flourishing. Just look at the flickr...
Every morning I wake up and hop outside while the coffee's brewing/reheating to water a few choice sprouts, check my slug beer traps for victims, and pick off an aphid here and there.
Every afternoon I come back, water if necessary (I know, I'm a bum, I just can't bring myself to get up 15 minutes earlier to water EVERYTHING in the morning.), spray with my homemade soap/hot sauce insecticide (now with neem!), and do a quick check for buggies. (Which there always are. In great abundance.)
I've even known to come back past dark on a call night and check my slug traps by flashlight.
I'm crazy. I'll be so sad when this whole project yields nothing but a bunch of stunted, worm-eaten stems...but it certainly has been fun, and a great way for me to spend some time outdoors.
The picture above R is the corner of the deck, with the 'sun gold' tomato (not growing as well as its counterpart, the aptly-named 'better boy' in the ground), a little pepper plant, and my sage plant with 'grand rapids' lettuce sown underneath, just for fun.
Isn't the sage looking beautiful? I'd like to take a moment to talk about this most-beloved of my plants. In some ways it led to my gardening this year--it was a housewarming gift that flourished on my windowsill through the winter, and has yielded numerous cuttings (some living in my care, some given to others) and seasoning for a host of tasty marinades and casseroles. In fact, I'd never really considered using sage as a seasoning until I tried it fresh--somehow the fresh sage has a much more delectable and less overly-strong-breakfast-sausage taste to it. Plus, it's been super easy to grow. Just water and snip off a bunch here and there, and it rewards you by growing ever larger, greener, and bushier. I guess what I'm trying to say is...give sage a chance, if you haven't--in fact, if you stop by, I just might force you to take a cutting :)

Cinco de Mayo + one day

It's absolutely gorgeous out today--not a cloud in the sky, 70 degree weather, and a fabulous breeze. Why couldn't this have happened yesterday so that my cinco de mayo cookout could have ben spent outside?!
Oh well. Still ate 4 kinds of dip and enjoyed quesadillas with a side of burgers.
Today was a puttering kind of day in the garden-made a new trellis for my peas, of which I'm rather proud...see pictures above, alone and installed in the garden. I'd started crocheting an afghan-square type dealy out of jute quite some time ago (for a bag, I believe) and just crocheted it into thr crook of the branch. I feel not a little bit like a large spider (Arachne, for the mythically-inclined).
Yesterday I sowed some beet and herb seeds directly into the bed as well--there were some unfilled spaces still and I figured they weren't going to grow anything productive by themselves. Also made some strips out of old pantyhose and tied up some of my sugar snap peas to the tree branch trellises.
On the pest-control front, I discovered little green worms on my broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower, which I think might be some sort of cabbage looper worm, but am too lazy to google right now. Very sad. Still have large slugs (found a big fat 3-inch one in one of the beer-traps this morning!) and sprinkled some pennies around some of my plants just because...what else am I doing with those pennies?
Aphids are sprinkled sparsely over just about every one of the plants.
I bit the bullet and bought some Neem oil-based pesticide last weekend, and have continued spraying with my homemade frank's hot sauce and liquid soap concoction. I think I might just have to get rid of the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower---I planted them so late I doubt I'll get anything edible even if the bugs don't eat them all up first. Sigh.