Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A Green Thumb?

I always look forward to summer, even though it doesn't really hold any promise of vacation for me and DoJo. People like to buy ice in the summer, so DoJo accomodates them as best he can. As for me, I'm the yard and garden man.

This is cabbage, broccoli, or cauliflower...I don't remember which. I've never grown it before, so this is an experiment.

It takes me about 3 days to irrigate the entire yard Thankfully, we have a well, so I'm only paying for the electricity to run the pump and not for the water. Plus the water is great for irrigating my grandkids.

My garden is mostly in raised beds (a.k.a. square foot gardens). Yes, they work, but the stinkin' vine weed loves them too. Yes, I put a weed barrier under the boxes, but vine weed is persistent, so I spend a good amount of time trying to keep my garden weed-free.

Here's my corn field. It's far from weed-free, but I work at it. I've not had much luck in the past with my corn, so I'm feeling good that these plants are actually growning. I was only going to plant 3 rows, but DoJo thought we needed more, so I fired up the rototiller and planted 3 more. I hope it grows because I'm really looking forward to some grilled corn!

Now for those of you who, like me, don't have a REAL green thumb...there's hope! Read on...

My 87-year-old mother lives with us. Grandma is physically healthy but she has dementia. Most of the time she just can't remember things and she repeats the same conversations over and over. Occasionally, she makes things up and really believes them. One family favorite is the time she imagined that DoJo was stealing all her money and she wanted to call the sheriff. Anyway, the real story this time is Grandma's green thumb. A few days ago, she took all her potted plants outside to water them. Among the plants she watered was this pretty little basket of flowers.

As you can see, this pretty little basket of flowers is silk. When I pointed this out to Grandma, she was more than a little miffed at me. She told me that the flowers in the basket were wilted until she watered them. Once watered, they "perked right up." I pointed out the plastic stems and the texture of the flowers, but to no avail. She just stuck her finger down in the wet florist foam and told me she knew they were real because there was soil in the bottom of the pot. It very well may be soil by now. Does florist foam decompose? Not one to let me have the last word, Grandma marched the basket of flowers back to her bedroom with a parting shot of "I don't care what YOU say, I KNOW what I'm talking about!" (That parting shot is more effective if you can imagine hearing it said in a Texan accent.) Okay then. I've decided to put Grandma in charge of the corn and keep her away from the vine weed.