Garden Gone Wild!

The girls are busting out of their green tops.  Red polka dots are strewn all over the ground.  It’s literally a jungle out there.  Of course, I’m describing hubby’s garden, which really has gone wild!

Hubby’s been working a lot of hours lately, so his garden is starting to look neglected.  His garden plot is not large, but the weeds infiltrate it and threaten to overtake it.

This morning, I glanced out the kitchen window while I filled the tea kettle for my morning cup of hot tea.  The garden plot pleaded with me to come out and tidy up or at least pick the cheery cherry tomatoes that burden the plants to such a degree that they are leaning completely over their cages and fallen fruit dots the ground.

“We’re so tired of holding up this thriving throng of tomatoes.   Please come pick them,” the plants seemed to call to me.

But first, I wanted to attack the kids’ bathroom sink, or I should say under it.  Remember I’ve declared war on all the stuff that’s harboring in closets, cupboards, nooks and crannies.  So first thing this morning, I wanted to accomplish eradication of stuff from that bathroom sink cabinet.

Oh,  the items that were hiding in there!   Long ago used retainers; denture cleaner to clean those forgotten retainers (can’t imagine how old that is!); bottles with what I assume used to be lotion but now thickly gelled goo that doesn’t smell so nicely; remainders of mostly used toothpaste tubes; combs and brushes; hair pins and fancy hair accessories from proms; hair gel, pomade, and mousse; Sephora body polish and body butter (what?? — remember I raised two girls) still proudly packed in its original container; and the list goes on and on.

And that was just the girls’ side of the cabinet.  It was just as bad on son’s side.   Believe me.

I brought the discards downstairs to place in the garbage can and again I glanced out the windows.   It’s fairly difficult not to see outside in the kitchen and family room of our house because there are five windows and a set of French doors.   Again the garden beckoned me.

This time it was the lovely sunflower girls.   They have just started blooming out of their green pods at the top of their sturdy stalks and they do present a lovely sight with their happy yellow faces turned towards the sun.

Oldest daughter has always loved sunflowers..  Once her bedroom was totally bedecked with sunflower paraphernalia everywhere.   So naturally, I thought, “What a shame that oldest daughter who lives in that far-away state can’t see these beautiful sunflowers.”

Time to take pictures!  I’ll just slip on my sandals and run out to the garden to snap some photos of those perky plants to send to oldest daughter!

One hour later.  Although the temperature is a nice 72 degrees, it’s sunny and humid outside.  I trudge back to the house, dripping with sweat, thirsty for a Big Gulp sized glass of ice water, laden with a basket of garden bounty, back aching from all that bending over.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ~Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1871.  You said it, Charles!  Can’t agree with you more!

That was probably the last picking for green beans and cucumbers.  Broccoli and lettuce are already finished.  Brussels sprouts popping out along the base of the stalks will need picking later.

In the next couple weeks, it will be time to dig up the carrots and sweet potatoes.  Green peppers, banana peppers, and cherry tomatoes still produce.

And of course, the weeds complete the jungle.  They’ve gone wild.  I gave a few of them the heave-ho, but my back started protesting….and that stuff in my house still snickers at me.

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