Is There Ever Enough Time?

​​We've Gone From This ...

... to this ...

​... and this ...

... and this ...

​... and even this. Yes, I'm growing old, fat, short guys along with the grafted tomatoes.

​A couple of the little bell pepper plants are struggling, I don't know if it's the heat or the shock of being transplanted (I saved them from the dumpster at O'Toole's). but I've got to say that the celery is going bat shit crazy in one of the pots.

​It was almost an afterthought, now that I look back at our festival of planting. I asked Becky if she wanted celery in the garden and she said "why not?" That's all it took. Mr. Bitterman complained that you can't really sell celery because selling celery sounds like some kind of word game, liking constant punning or weird rhyme schemes, but after Furious George insisted that once you grow your own celery, you won't go back to the store bought kind, it sold us.
​
​Bitterman and Furious, by the way, are looking good in their 3-T Lee's Junior Farmer's Overalls.

​(I've noticed a lot more people wearing overalls lately. And in weird places. I've owned a pair in the past (like the 70s) and wore them for yard work, but they just seem out of place nowadays in the airport or just about anyplace out in public. I do admit, they are being worn by old guys who seem like they no longer give a shit, but they still don't work.)
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                                                                                          Bitterman in a Mood.

​The small plants up front here, just behind the coffee drinking frog and the algae infested rain gauge (more about that in a minute) are the Socorro peppers grown from seed. The little tomatoes at the far left were grown from seed as well. Both are coming along, I just hope we have a long enough growing season to reap some benefits. In other words, no September snow storms like the one when Devon was born -- a foot of heavy wet snow that broke trees and busted gardens like nobody's business. Well, that is what the hoops are for. (By the way, that's a pine cone in the middle of the picture just about the head of our coffee drinking frog. It's not a present from the dogs, the squirrels, the bunnies or any other of the casual visitors to the garden that have been stopping by on a regular basis.)

​As for the rain gauge, it isn't there to measure the rain, for some reason. It appears to be there to catch the spray from the garden sprinklers, hold said spray, and grow fascinating kinds of water plants, like algae and brown goo. The yellowjackets seem fascinated by it, but it's basically a pain to clean every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

​It's amazing that any of this has survived the season, given the heat and the fact that bunnies and Roscoe have gone racing through the garden in their regular Chase to the Death routines this summer. (Score at the moment -- Roscoe - 2 Rabbits and One Squirrel/Squirrels and Bunnies -Zero, unless you count a disgusting case of tapeworms as a Bunny Win.)

We've been trying to train him to leave the wildlife alone, for his sake as well as theirs, but it's a long, slow process and Cesar Milan I am not.

​Roscoe wants to run his yard. The squirrels and bunnies want to gambol in the bulrushes as well. There's going to be fisticuffs, no doubt. God can't keep throwing furry tennis balls in the yard and not expect Roscoe to react.

Sadie just sits and watches. (We should rename her Chauncey Gardener.)
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​The Grafted Tomato Plant. (Good Lord! Am I guilty of Genetic Modification? Who Do I think I am? God? A God? Or a Demi-God? With My Luck, I'd be One of the Inferior Demi-Gods, like Rhesus of Thrace, which makes me sound like yet another minkey scampering around the backyard.)

​Frankly, there doesn't seem to be as much plant maturity for early July  as there has been in the past, despite regular kelp treatments. Maybe it is because we have a lot more space in which to grow, and, much of the garden has been taken up with growth from seed, which is still finding its height and bulk right now.

​Basically, we've still got a lot of small stuff and the plants aren't jammed together as they were in the past.

​On the other hand, we still have a great new crop of winter squash and cucumbers, which are going gangbusters, mainly due to a recent visit to the garden by Presidential hopeful Darnold Trump. He exhorted the plants to grow and make America Grate Again, as he is against any form of shredded cheese.

​What a guy. Taking time out of his busy schedule to rant at my vegetables and to make my model trains run on time.