Beans!

Holy jumping green bean, Batman! Check it out:

9:30 a.m. yesterday, June 15

Lanse says that when he got up this morning just after 7:00 it was taller, but had no leaves on it. Here's what I found when I went to the kitchen at 9:30 this morning, 24 hours later, June 16:

You can't quite tell from the angle of this shot, but the plant is curled towards the window. I turned it around after taking this photo, and now, at just after 11:00, all the leaves have opened out and it's curled toward the window again... in the other direction. If I had any faith in my self-discipline, I would set up a same-angle shot every 20 minutes for the rest of the day to watch this sucker's growing action! It appears I may have planted the cousin to Jack's Magic Bean!

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Garden Pix

Click the photo for the set on Flickr.

P.S. Something is eating holes in the basil (not gnawing the edges), and it's not me. I can't find any bugs or worms or spiders on the leaves or in the pot though, so I don't have a solution at the moment. Suggestions welcome.

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Self-sufficiency

We're nowhere near capable of being self-sufficient in comparison to friends of ours, but at the very least we may not have to frequent the produce aisle as much this summer. Last year the whole garden thing was an experiment, since I'd never grown food before (except the raspberries that came with our last house). We had tomatoes and green bell peppers, basil, rosemary and marjoram that did lovely things. Cukes and strawberries bombed.

So this afternoon we hit Home Depot Garden Center and got the things that did well last year, though I got something called Patio Tomatoes which they claim are better suited for container gardening (last year's were regular tall growers and kept falling over because everyone was sold out of tomato trellis things). Tomatoes, green peppers, basil, (the rosemary and marjoram are still going strong from last year... in fact, I should give the rosemary its own pot). But I couldn't just leave it at that, I have to continue the experimentation! I got seeds for green onions, because we've started eating a lot of those, and for green beans "bush beans", that apparently don't climb so hopefully they'll do okay in a really big pot. We'll see! All of the plants say "full sun: min 6 hours daily", and if there's anything the south's got enough of, it's sunshine. I really do want to spring for the container soaker hose I saw in a magazine once, but I couldn't find it back when I had the money for it, and now I don't. Stick one of those on a timer and we'll have the heat licked. I'll have to budget it in if I can find it again.

I got the seeds planted in peat pots, and planted the basil, and got the dirt set up for the pepper and tomato, at which point the mosquitoes were having an all church pot-luck on my legs so I gave it up. Tomorrow those two get into the dirt.

Oh, and Home Depot has a 1 year guarantee on the plants so if the Japanese beetles get any - or I kill them by treating the beetles, like last year - I can get a new one for free!

I will definitely keep you updated.

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