G is for Garden

...but it could also stand for Grossly late in your tongue. Sorry to have neglected my ABC's for so long.

A new garden is always beautiful, brimming with promise. We have a couple of trellises for peas and cukes, as well as a bean obelisk that Mike seems to think needs to be 8 feet tall. We'll never be able to harvest the top quarter or so of our beans, but oh well. We'll dry those pods once the vines come down at the end of the season.

We use our grass clippings as mulch for the garden, just dumping them in and turning them into the soil as we work. I hate the way deep mulch makes the garden look -- it's so messy -- but I love what it does to the soil. The zucchini doesn't give a hoot what the ground looks like, of course; it came bolting up first & promises to be pretty vigorous. I'll make baby zucchini pickles if they get too out of hand.

A strawberry volunteer came up in the corner of the plot with the tomatoes and basil. I decided to leave it -- we'll see if it produces anything. We also have one plot dedicated entirely to pumpkins, which will be fun. We'll save good-looking ones for Jack-o'-lanterns and can the rest for pies & muffins & whatnot.