Along with hating leaving my kiddos, I dislike leaving my garden. I’ve grown rather fond of it, and really enjoy tending to it daily.
When I got home Sunday night/Monday morning, I was too bushed to even consider going to see the garden – even if it hadn’t been night. All day Monday I sat around the house, not moving unless necessary, and just didn’t have the energy to go say “hi” to my plants all day.
In the evening, I started to get some energy back. Unfortunately, that’s when the kiddos needed to be put to bed, and even with my growing energy the exhaustion was too much for me. I fell asleep nursing Zac to bed.
When Darrel woke me up at 9:40 p.m. so I could go sleep in my own bed, I realized I hadn’t watered the plants or even taken a look at my garden.
In my tired, fuzzy way of thinking, the plants needed watering. I could do that in the dark, right? If I threw on the backyard lights, though, I could take at least a peek at what had been happening in my absence!
So I did. At 10:00 p.m., in pitch black held at bay only with inadequate lighting, I headed out to say hello to my plants.
Genius move, right?
It quickly became apparent that I needed more light, so I went back in for a flashlight. Darrel, it turned out, had harvested cucumbers for Zac while I was gone, but had forgotten to pick pole beans. Those beans were overrun with ready-for-the-pickin’ beans!
Why couldn’t this wait until morning?
Because I’m insane when I’m tired. It’s the only answer.
All in all, though, while picking beans at night isn’t easy by any means, it went okay. I got quite a haul!
The problem really came when I was investigating my cucumbers.
At the very end of the row, I had planted three little luffa plants just for fun. The cucumbers quickly overwhelmed them; blocking out all sunlight and growing right over them. So I knew I wouldn’t be getting any luffa’s this year.
When I made my way to the end of the climbing plants, I saw the last plant in the row looking a little sad and wilted.
“Oh,” I thought to myself. “That’s the luffa. May as well yank it so it’s not taking up any valuable soil resources from the cucumbers!”
So I yanked. Tore that sucker right out of the ground.
Only then did I realize it wasn’t a luffa…it was a cucumber.
A MASSIVE cucumber plant that was poised to give me a ton of cucumbers.
ARGH!!!
I happened to be on the phone with my parents at the time, and I frantically asked my mom if I could re-plant it. She said I could try, so I dug a hole with my free hand (the other was holding the flashlight) and tried to gently stuff the roots back in the ground. After covering it over with dirt again, I watered the heck out of it, praying and apologizing to my cucumber the whole time.
Yes, I talk to my plants. I know. I’m weird.
Three days later, now, and that cucumber just looks sad. I don’t know if it’s dying or trying to re-root and come back, but I guess time will tell.
Gardener=negative 1.
In better news, while I was gone, Darrel continued to spray the pole beans with my onion/garlic/cayenne concoction. I’m thrilled to report that there is new growth on the bottom of the bean plants, and the places where I noticed spider mites last week now have no signs of the nasty little buggers!
Onion=1, Spider Mites=0.
Yes!
I did notice that they seemed to have tried to move over to the cucumbers, so I started spraying both the beans and the cucumbers. I’m confident that, while I may not eradicate them completely, they are now reduced in numbers enough that I no longer face the threat of an entire crop decimated by them like the potatos were.
Whew!
Sadly, I don’t have pictures to share this week because yesterday it rained all. blessed. day. long. Great for the garden, but lousy for cameras!
But it’s looking really good in my garden right now, and, even though it’s a little late (thanks to being sick) I told Darrel that this weekend we WILL be digging up new flower beds and planting more stuff.
We need a TON more cucumbers and pole beans, for starters!
Anyone know if it’s too late to start potatos in Arkansas?
How’s your garden doing this week?
