Blog or folly?

It's been almost a week between the first and second posts. Is this blog a folly already?

How are the follies going? Glad you asked.

The garden is growing nicely. The tomatoes are launching up and should be up to the level of the support wiring soon. The pole beans and cantaloupe are another matter. They are taking their time and have a ways to go yet. I'm thinking of running some strings down from the trellises to the plants, but haven't come up with a good strategy for that yet.

The bush beans are shooting up as well. I love planting seeds. If you put in a plant, you just don't have as much invested in it as you do when you poke your finger into the newly turned earth (or in my case Mel's Mix), insert a seed, water and love, and wait for something magical to happen. Those little finger holes and seeds have now turned into four inch bean plants, and in another few months into probably more green beans than my family can or will want to eat.

One of the immutable laws of family vegetable gardening is that no matter how careful you are: how carefully you select the type and amount of each plant, you will invariably have either way too much or way too little of an individual vegetable.

I remember one year we planted 6 mounts of squash: 3 mounds of crookneck and three of zucchini. Everything grew nicely and soon we were eating the bounty of our harvest. Soon though, the zucchini was outstripping our ability to eat it, or want to eat it for that matter. We were having zucchini for breakfast (omelets, pancakes), for lunch in salads, and for dinner in any number of baked, stuffed and other ways. Pretty soon we began to even get surly about the whole thing and let them go. But zucchini doesn't stop! It keeps growing. I mean most vegetables have the decency to realize that you really don't want them any more and they fall off the plant and rot, but not zucchini. It just grows and grows. From the nice tender 4 inch guys up to the bit tough 8 in guys, to ridiculous football sized monstrosities. And they don't just get longer - - they fatten up as well. In the end, we just went out and beat them into the ground with a shovel. I wonder if Gallagher could use any zucchini for his sledge-o-matic?

Also a bit foolishly, but at the behest of the children (isn't that always the excuse) I planted a few of the cooler weather crops. It's been beautiful and cool this spring in Georgia, but it can't last, and when it get's hot, they'll bolt to seed. Oh well.

And it's funny. I've been working on the garden for two months now and eldest daughter not once wanted to help, but now that the plants are up, she's out there pulling up weeds. Granted she's busy with school and all, but weeding is pretty far down there on my list of what's enjoyable in the garden, so I'm bound to be able to get her to do some of the more enjoyable tasks.

Younger daughter has helped out as well. it's great to get out in the garden with a child and help them see the beauty of turning a seed into a meal. It puts things into a proper perspective. And it's fun. And it's something we can do together.

And if that isn't enough, I'm planting flowers this week. Perennials. I have a large yard and simply haven't got the time or energy to plant that many annuals. They're great for splashes of color, but until I get that perennial framework in, I'm sticking to them for now. I put in a couple of peonies yesterday. What a beautiful plant. Of course it wants a big hole, and my dirt is more what you'd call CLAY, which is more like brick than dirt. I was digging it up with a pick axe. Could have used dynamite I suppose, but I couldn't find it at home depot. Anyone have a good supplier?

Perennials are more of a struggle for me. They have so many chapes and varieties that I'm a bit overwhelmed. And I've really never done much with them before last year. It was so much fun this spring to watch all of last years plants come back (except for a couple of stinkin' coral bells *%@$) and not have to do a killer amount of work.

Gotta go. More plants to bury, I mean plant.