August 5th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! To avoid getting drawn and quartered, I spent yesterday tending to the house, which I had neglected during Camp NaNo. I did take a little time to write out one scene for FTQ, but other than that, I straightened, I scrubbed, I recycled and I cooked.

I am hoping the remainder of my day goes better than the way it started. Just like every morning, first thing I do is take Colby to be emptied. Our route is through the family room, and out the garage door. I open the door, push the garage door button, Colby shoots past me, I step into the garage and right into a HUGE spider web. Now, I’m not scared of spiders, but walking through a web had me spazzing out. EEEWWW! How can a little spider build such an enormous web in less than six hours (the last time someone walked through the area)?

So, the garden is doing okay, I guess. We’ve had some zucchini, and a few cucumbers. The zucchini are tricky beasts. I look in the garden every day, then all of a sudden, there’s this baseball bat of a zucchini that I swear either wasn’t there or it was only about four inches big the day before. 

With the exception of one, which turned out normal, the cukes have been these short fat thingies, and they have had a really strong cucumber taste.

I’ve pulled enough beans to make all of one side dish, but now there are more coming on, so hopefully I’ll get another few servings. I do have a respectable amount of grape, cherry and regular tomatoes, but not an overabundance which is good. I had my first tomato sandwich of the season for lunch on Sunday – yummy – there is nothing better than a Jersey tomato!

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PICTURE MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR SOME VIEWERS.

My carrots, on the other hand, are a little scary. They still are not growing much, and like the cucumbers, have a really strong taste. When I pulled this little guy out, I was nearly hysterical laughing. Something is seriously amiss in my carrot patch. All I could think of were those screaming plants from Harry Potter. LOL.

I have several ears of corn, but I’m not 100% sure when I should pick them. Only one of the broccoli plants has something which resembles broccoli, but it is so small and will probably flower before it becomes anything useful. Not a single onion sprouted. Zippo on the cauliflower too (all leaves, no veggies). My pepper plant has not gotten over six inches tall. The flowers keep falling off of the eggplant, so I doubt it will produce either. We are still in “wait and see” mode for the artichokes.

The one big surprise is, I’m still getting strawberries. The plants are flowering like crazy. Unfortunately, because we don’t have the screened roof installed yet, the birds are getting the strawberries before we can. I thought the strawberries would be spent by the end of June??

Obviously there is still a whole lot I need to learn about gardening. I am going to do things differently next year. One simple thing is going to be placement of where things are in the garden. It would have made a whole lot more sense to put the things which produce first and then are done (like the peas, the radishes, and the lettuce and spinach) in the front of my troths as opposed to the back. This way I can get to them without having to climb over the other crops.

Next year the cucumbers will be using the fence of the garden to climb instead of the lattice, and I will coax it to do so. Both my tomato plants and my dill plant will be placed in cages right from the get-go. The corn will be planted, 3 – 4 days apart, from closest to the edge to furthest from the edge, so I don’t have to reach through unready corn to get to the ripe ones.

The most important thing I have learned is I will need to start the seeds in the house and then plant seedlings in the garden instead of just seeds. I feel bad for my little pepper plants. There are only two left, and they are trying so hard to make something of themselves, but it is not looking good.

This year, I just winged it. During the winter, I’m going to do some research on the plants I want to plant. Maybe if I get a clue, my results would be much better. Even though the garden wasn’t a booming success, I still had fun with it.

I hope you have a great day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

A conversation between two animals…

“What is she doing?”

“Who knows with these humans? They’re a strange bunch.”

“Does she really think those shiny round things are going to scare us away?”

“Looks that way.”

“They’re so silly.”

“Ha Ha. Let her think that. As soon as she’s gone, it’s lunch time.”

“I’m thinking tomatoes first, with a side of those juicy worms she put in to the soil.”

“Yup, and then some strawberries for dessert. I saw a few ripe ones when I did the fly-by this morning.”

“Hey, what’s the guy doing over there?”

“Hmm, dunno. He’s building something. It’s big, whatever it is.”

“Well it looks like he just finished, so we’ll get to see.”

“She has to help him. Why are they walking toward the garden with it?”

“Oh no, oh no. It’s going on the top. It’s covering the whole garden.”

“Well how are we going to get inside now?”

“We can’t you dope.”

“But what about lunch?”

“We’ll just have to go to the neighbor’s across the street. C’mon.”

***

Sorry, I had garden on the brain.

Your Next Challenge is:

You receive a text from an unknown caller…

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.