Since stupid politics have been a focus on my mind as of late (and sure to be so once more after debate #2 tomorrow...) and retarded politics only seem to make me angry, I'm posting about something that make s me happy. My stupid plot of dirt in the back yard. Shown above is a shot of the overgrown garden after some some serious weeding, but before before me and the sweaty, yet helpful man-monster known as Curren tackled the soil itself in early May. And below is shot of it after a few hours of me ordering Curren around and pointing to where he had missed a spot with his shovel.
It was a good planting year with plenty of tasty Cima di Rape harvested and stuffed into my face. I had to give it away to the old man (not that he minded) I just had too much at times. After my final planting of Cima di Rape ended in failure (massive aphid invasion x1000) about late August, I had but a few things left in the dirt to grow and eat. I was down to raddishes, peppers, and edamame. The radishes eventually came up and were way spicy, the Edamame was awesome since it's such a hardy bastard of a plant, and the peppers still continue to produce. But, I had a huge plot left where the Cima di Rape used to be - mainly because I successively planted the stuff so that I'd have it on a weekly basis, and this takes up some space.
I needed some Fall/Wintery type things to plant. So I shot off an order for some Japanese pumpkins known as Kabocha. I liked the tempura version of the thing, so I planted the stuff in 4 mounds using a variety of 3 different hybrids. One was a small, single serving type thing, the other two were full sized but one was mega-sweet tasting. I tossed in the tiny seeds and left them to their own devices. I had noted their growth over the 1st month. Nothing to write home about, though one mound totally failed. I have one shot of the vines in their youth. It's shown above.
Then a few rainstorms hit, followed by sunny weeks. The Kabocha exploded. It was strangling out the peppers, crawling over my crappy anti-rabbit fence, and expanding way beyond what I planned. I've read
The Ruins and seen the movie, so this disturbed me a bit. The many,many little tendrils that shot off the main vine and wrapped themselves around whatever they could in a rather prehensile manner only added to this unease. I half expected the fucker to start speaking German when I was looking for ripe Red Peppers.
The leaves of the Kabocha form a protective canopy of sorts with a few yellow flowers here and there, as you can see by the top down shot shown above. Keeps the soil underneath moist and also chokes out most of the invasive weeds, which should make next years tilling a wee bit easier. But it makes finding the damn developing Kabocha a bit tricky.
And since the clock is ticking due to the earlier referenced Zebra Mosquito problem, I have like 5 minutes to get what I'm looking for before I become a walking feast for those fucking evil bastard blood sucking fucks. Here's what it looks like under the canopy and you can see one lil' Kabocha.
There's about 12 of the things out there now (that I can spot) so I'm stoked. But, there's one problem. Since I planted them without marking them, like a dumbass, I don't know which of the three types each Kabocha is. The only real problem here is that one type is not supposed to grow past a certain point, since they are of a tiny variety. I 've got to do some booklearnin' to figure that mystery out. Balls. I might do some garlic and fennel for winter. That's it 'till next Summer I guess.
I got a late start on garden crap this year, but it's finally starting to show some positive signs of life. Yes, they are but lil' sprouts, but soon they will be delicious.
And the growing season couldn't have started off better. Two weeks of rain soaking hell, then a week of stupid sunny heat death. The results were explosive for late May. Yay!
After two determined days of digging (in sessions a week apart to help heal all injuries) the garden plot is looking real nice. It's easily double what I used to have. Thanks to the old lady and our Cuban mercenary, the plot took half the time it woulda all by my lonesome. There's still lots of roots and crap to sort out, but the majority of the heavy lifting is behind me. Due to the lack of bloodthirsty bastard mosquitoes, this garden should be less scary to tend too. Now to figure out what to plant and stuff.
I planted the zucchini a bit late and it has been a stupid dry Summer thus far. So, not much love on the garden front. But the green beasts have finally started showing some fruit. This is one of the weirdo strains I picked up. It's a Florentine type zucchini. I dug it because it's has all these deep ridges (note the star shapes after cutting) instead of a smooth skin. Tasted just fine. I may have picked it a wee bit too small, but I needed something green for dinner last night. Such a strange vegetable, with the flower attached and the way it just grows into a tuber out of nothing. Creepy.
Since stupid politics have been a focus on my mind as of late (and sure to be so once more after debate #2 tomorrow...) and retarded politics only seem to make me angry, I'm posting about something that make s me happy. My stupid plot of dirt in the back yard. Shown above is a shot of the overgrown garden after some some serious weeding, but before before me and the sweaty, yet helpful man-monster known as Curren tackled the soil itself in early May. And below is shot of it after a few hours of me ordering Curren around and pointing to where he had missed a spot with his shovel.
It was a good planting year with plenty of tasty Cima di Rape harvested and stuffed into my face. I had to give it away to the old man (not that he minded) I just had too much at times. After my final planting of Cima di Rape ended in failure (massive aphid invasion x1000) about late August, I had but a few things left in the dirt to grow and eat. I was down to raddishes, peppers, and edamame. The radishes eventually came up and were way spicy, the Edamame was awesome since it's such a hardy bastard of a plant, and the peppers still continue to produce. But, I had a huge plot left where the Cima di Rape used to be - mainly because I successively planted the stuff so that I'd have it on a weekly basis, and this takes up some space.
I needed some Fall/Wintery type things to plant. So I shot off an order for some Japanese pumpkins known as Kabocha. I liked the tempura version of the thing, so I planted the stuff in 4 mounds using a variety of 3 different hybrids. One was a small, single serving type thing, the other two were full sized but one was mega-sweet tasting. I tossed in the tiny seeds and left them to their own devices. I had noted their growth over the 1st month. Nothing to write home about, though one mound totally failed. I have one shot of the vines in their youth. It's shown above.
Then a few rainstorms hit, followed by sunny weeks. The Kabocha exploded. It was strangling out the peppers, crawling over my crappy anti-rabbit fence, and expanding way beyond what I planned. I've read The Ruins and seen the movie, so this disturbed me a bit. The many,many little tendrils that shot off the main vine and wrapped themselves around whatever they could in a rather prehensile manner only added to this unease. I half expected the fucker to start speaking German when I was looking for ripe Red Peppers.
The leaves of the Kabocha form a protective canopy of sorts with a few yellow flowers here and there, as you can see by the top down shot shown above. Keeps the soil underneath moist and also chokes out most of the invasive weeds, which should make next years tilling a wee bit easier. But it makes finding the damn developing Kabocha a bit tricky.
And since the clock is ticking due to the earlier referenced Zebra Mosquito problem, I have like 5 minutes to get what I'm looking for before I become a walking feast for those fucking evil bastard blood sucking fucks. Here's what it looks like under the canopy and you can see one lil' Kabocha.
There's about 12 of the things out there now (that I can spot) so I'm stoked. But, there's one problem. Since I planted them without marking them, like a dumbass, I don't know which of the three types each Kabocha is. The only real problem here is that one type is not supposed to grow past a certain point, since they are of a tiny variety. I 've got to do some booklearnin' to figure that mystery out. Balls. I might do some garlic and fennel for winter. That's it 'till next Summer I guess.
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