Pretty. Useless.

You are SO glad I found my camera and its slippery cable.

Chronologically, here's the first set of photos I cleaned off the old memory card:














I like botanical gardens. I like taking pictures of plants. I now have a membership to the Denver Botanical Gardens. It's one of the many things I like to do with my Fridays off.




This one looks like it would make an excellent basis for a Smash Putt hole.

But that's another story for another day.

Bustin' Out All Over

I have triumph to report.†

[SUMMARY: Ta-daaa!]

My cousin Tani, who gave me my first orchid and is a seasoned orchid-grower herself, told me once that if your orchid re-blooms, that's the sign‡ you're doing the right thing.

Now, my phalaenopsis orchids§ re-bloom like bunnies,@ but my two non-phals¶ sat dormant these last couple of years, until last Tuesday.%




[SUMMARY: *POW!*]

I swear I'm not exaggerating; I watered the sink-adjacent plants in the morning as I grabbed the kitchen trash to go out for garbage day. I removed something dead-looking on this particular plant, so I got a good and memorable look at it.# There was no bloom, no bud, just plant.

When I got home, I put Cat for Scale's bowl on the counter to give him his daily dose of canned food†† and there was a full-blown, vividly dressed, life-size orchid.

The next morning, the second was nearly fully open.

This is unretouched colour‡‡:



I bought this plant almost two years ago and it hasn't bloomed since right after I got it home.

[SUMMARY: Still waters run deep?]

This must be a metaphor for something.

*************

In other amazing orchid news,§§ the two orchids I made you look at last year are in bloom again as well.

[SUMMARY: Call me June...¶¶]

Actually the Fireworks orchid, the one Tani gave me to start my collection,^ hasn't stopped blooming.

If you do it right,## if your orchids are happy and you prune them judiciously post-bloom, they'll often bloom twice.$

Fireworks budded last February, bloomed, re-bloomed and just re-bloomed again,††† with new and tiny buds showing up every other day. It may never stop blooming.

[SUMMARY: It's ALIVE!]

That has to be a metaphor for something too.

Hell of it is, it really needs to be re-potted, but one is only supposed to re-pot during non-blooming cycles.

OK... that. That should definitely be a metaphor.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Which must be a welcome change for you after the bitching about work in the last post. You may also note I am changing the footnotation colour to green to match the new blog scheme and the coming season of floral wonder.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Not just A sign, but THE sign.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): The kind you generally find in the grocery store. The easiest orchid to grow, and I'm living proof.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): It's a multiplication thing, right?

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): The one pictured is a Cattleya. The other, still not blooming since eBeth gave it to me almost three years ago (though I nearly killed it at one point and have been nursing it back to health, so that may have something to do with it), is - I think - a Vanda. You're welcome.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Yes, Columbo, I know it was Tuesday because it was trash day.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): 'Cause as long as I was grooming, I gave it a good once-over to see if there were bugs, mold, dead leaves, buds, new leaves, a leprachaun...

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): As I am wont to do.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Forgive the Georgia O'Keefeness of it all.

§§FOOTNOTE (look at you, you're just beside yourself): Since I know you're on the edge of your seat.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (hit me with your rhythm stick!): 'Cause I'm bustin' out all over. Surely at least ONE of you (if not ALL of you) listened to Dr. Demento back in the day.

^FOOTNOTE (carated): The pink and white one in last year's post, as opposed to the yellow and pink one.

##FOOTNOTE (let me pound the point home): And by "you," I mean "I."

$FOOTNOTE (cashed): Like, in a year. Usually for three or four months, then the plant goes dormant for about six months. All previous re-blooms in my world have had a month-long break in between as the plant takes a little vacation between projects.

†††FOOTNOTE (must be Easter soon. Look at all them crosses.): Seriously... just as the last two or three blooms would hit that sad, wet tissue look and drop off, a new bud would fatten up on another stem and off it'd go.

Lookie!

I'm all featured and stuff.† Garden Planters-dot-com likes my tomatoes almost as much as I do.

Though I'm pretty sure it was the cucumber-as-John-Holmes reference that drew them in.‡

[SUMMARY: Gardeners are a saucy bunch.]

Meanwhile, a kitcen appliance tragedy§ has stalled my cupcake quest: the dough hook of my Kitchen Aid mixer is somehow jammed on the thing.¶ It won't push up, so I can't get the little knobby thing to travel the little groovy thing to take the dough hook off.

I was in full panic mode last night.

Having accepted a lost day of baking,# I'm a little more zen today.

[SUMMARY: All things are relative. Zen doubly so.††]

Do they have mixer repairmen?‡‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Apparently, I'm influential.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): The Google tracks of the wily gardener... it's all part of the circle of life.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I was distraught, in any case. Most of the world remained largely untouched by this turn of events. I believe Guy suggested, to my frantic Facebook post, "bigger hammer."

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): The spring moves fine, I soaked the thing in hot water and ammonia, there's nothing visible wrong with it. It just won't budge.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): And more than once contemplated whether cupcakes can be made either with a dough hook or in the fancy new food processor.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Apologies to Douglas Adams.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): And do they look like Gustavo Dudamel?

How My Garden Grows†

I sense you are dying to know how my garden is doing.

[SUMMARY: Psychic!]

It's very kind of you to ask.

Cat for Scale really enjoys gardening with me.

EnjoyED gardening with me.

A couple of days ago, he discovered he could walk through the slats on the deck railing and cross the rooflet to the neighbour's deck.

[SUMMARY: Wait... what happened to the garden? Hey! This isn't a summary!]

Oh, the first couple of times, he walked over, sniffed around and came right back, no problem. Last night, he discovered he could walk through the slat's on the neighbour's deck railing and cross the rooflet to *their* neighbour's deck.

This led to a very funny incident‡ in which I was screaming§ "Quill! Kitty! Come here!" at the top of my lungs, then bolting out the front door to ring the neighbour's neighbour's doorbell like a demented Avon lady.

When nobody answered, I dashed home, grabbed the treat jar and went outside shaking it viciously and yelling,§ "Kitty treat! Do you want a kitty treat?"@

"Meow?" I heard. I pressed my anxious little face against the trellis separating me from my pet.

"Quill? QUILL??!?"§

"Meow?" And there he was, bumping my ankle with a look I swore said, "Why are you yelling? I'm right here. Did somebody mention kitty treats?"

So I tossed a couple of treats inside and closed the door as far as I could.¶

Because I can no longer trust him to do this:




He's going to have to wait for me to install some sort of screen to keep him home safe before he can garden with me again.

[SUMMARY: The wild beast stalked the veldt.]

Anyway, back at the garden...

cucumber buds, cucumber tendrils twining on their own leaves, baby Brandywine,
fat little jalapeno, white cucumber, baby Beefsteak, banana peppers, Lemon Drops





...a beautiful baby Slicemaster cucumber:




...and a lush, spiny, fully-grown# and harvested white cucumber.




I took a whole bunch of pictures on June 20. Then I didn't do much with them, so I took a whole new batch on August 12, thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool to do the before and after?"††

[SUMMARY: Cool is in the eye of the beholder.]

My Hammacher-Schlemmer‡‡ Upside-Down Tomato Gardens:

left planter: cilantro, white cukes, Big Rainbow tomatoes
right planter: purple basil, sweet basil, dill, banana peppers,
Beefsteak tomatoes, Lemon Drop tomatoes and Besser Cherry tomatoes



My Topsy-Turvy Upside Down Tomato Planters:

left to right: Brandywine tomatoes, Anaheim peppers, tomatillos, jalapenos, Slicemaster cukes




I sowed the cilantro June 19, so here's June 20:




...and August 12.




In the last two weeks, the tomatoes, tomatillos and herbs have doubled in size and are positively fecund.

The bees are having a field day.

There is a Slicemaster cucumber that would make John Holmes blush. It hangs, heavy and obscene, at the very bottom of the vine, where it sways lasciviously in the slightest breeze.^

There are little white spiders on one side of the cilantro and ladybugs on the other and I wonder if there'll ever be a caged death match somewhere in the middle of the crop.

[SUMMARY: Gardens make you thoughtful.]

Most important, I *finally* got a ripe tomato,§§ one of the little, round Bessers finally got as red as I figured it was going to.

Funny story: eBeth had the Besser plant labeled as an Anna Russian. I Googled all the varieties of tomatoes she started for us% and found the Anna Russian is a medium-sized, pink, heart-shaped tomato.

Imagine my surprise to get a fire engine red globe the size of a 25-cent gumball. So I took it to book club last night to ask eBeth what it might actually be, since it didn't appear to be medium-sized, pink OR heart-shaped.

Once she said it was a Besser, I rinsed it off in Jeanne's sink and popped it in my mouth. The... I... *slurp*... FLAVOUR... burst!... *grrrgle*

"Oh... that's good," I said.

"I don't believe any of us have ever heard you say that," said Annie.

I was mildly embarrassed, thinking, "Man, am I so negative nobody's ever heard me say I like anything? Or maybe it's just a vegetable thing?"

"...having never been privy to your bedroom," Annie finished.

I blushed.¶¶

"...and your eyes kinda rolled back..."

"...and you moaned..."

I *really* like fresh garden tomatoes.

Just for posterity, the houseplants are also doing well.






[SUMMARY: Show off!]

Happy to help.

p.s. -- Chickens!##


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I probably shouldn't admit this in a public forum, where people who might want to hire me may find this out, but I've always thought of it as "Marin, Marin, quite contrarin, how does your garden grow?" I was five when that started and it just stuck. For the record, it's also "Eat, drink and be Marin."

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Really funny if you're a cat. Maybe not so funny if you're a frantic cat keeper.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): At a cat I'm pretty sure is stone deaf.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): In the same tone, volume and timbre used by Swedish thrash metal frontmen. Or Animal, the muppet.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): What with the hose hooked to the kitchen faucet. It sounds ghetto, but it was either that or let my father perpetrate acts of plumbing on my house.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I was expecting miniature cucumbers -- like the gherkins in the grocery store. These are like lemons.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): In all honesty, I took new pictures because the old ones were so outdated, then the before & after inspiration hit me and I decided to pretend it was my intention all along.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): After buying these, I love Hammacher Schlemmer... truly, madly, deeply. Best customer service I've ever had from someone who wasn't going to get a tip. I'm going to buy a third planter for next year's garden.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): I may be projecting... something.

§§FOOTNOTE (here's where the worm turned): The whole reason I started gardening. I don't know what those things in the grocery store are -- perhaps some breed of bouncy ball -- but they aren't tomatoes.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): As one does.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (red cheeks): Doesn't happen that often. Let's not get used to it.

##FOOTNOTE (chicken scratch): Because a day without chickens is like a pig without a lick.

The Promise of Spring*

When we got our seedlings from eBeth a month ago or so, I killed one of mine.% I knocked it over right there in eBeth's kitchen, burying its fragile leaves and delicate stem under a honking pile† of potting soil, compost and perlite.

I took it home and propped it up on a bamboo skewer,‡ but the next morning it wasn't even a green smear in the earth. So I planted a cucumber seed in its place§ and went on with my life.

[SUMMARY: To everything, turn, turn, turn...]

A couple of days later, I took my remaining six tomato plants outside to harden them.¶ Carefully following instructions,# I left them in the May sunshine for an hour then brought them in.

They were all noticably yellowed and a couple had brownish-greyish spots on them. I had burned my poor little tomatoes.†† Not fatal, as it turns out, but very sad. With all the rain we've had in Denverish lately, I couldn't take them out much, so they had a chance to recover in peace.

All but the littlest one recovered. It continued to look miserable. Alive, but miserable.

Sunday morning‡‡ I decided to take a trip to the garden center§§ for some herbs and another cucumber and I figured a good, solid beefsteak tomato would be a nice addition¶¶ to the more colourful heirlooms I already had.

I stopped to visit the plants on the way out and that tiny, spindly tomato -- a brandywine -- was more pathetic than ever. It was plastered to its bamboo stake and transluscent like wilted lettuce. I stroked it gently## and decided to get another brandywine at the garden center.

[SUMMARY: I'm both sentimental and practical.]

"After all, self," I said to myself, "if the spindly little guy makes it, you'll have that many more tomatoes to can. This can't be a bad thing."

The demon in the back of my brain was screaming, "It's going to DIE! You killed ANOTHER ONE! Are we there yet? There is NO HOPE! Can we get ice cream?"†††

Until that sickly tomato actually disappeared, I wasn't willing to give up on it. I put it out with the others Sunday for a full day of sun and fresh air. I brought it in at night and there it's stayed through a rainy Monday and Tuesday.

Today, there's a new leaf.‡‡‡ And it's standing on its own, tiny and delicate, but upright. And the leaves are growing out from the stem§§§ instead of hanging down in a most untomato-like way.

[SUMMARY: Cue the Handel! Sing out, Messiah! Hallelujah!]

As a chick who clicked her car fob at the electronic entry point on the office door *four times* before figuring out why the door wasn't unlocking,¶¶¶ I find this tale of hope and resurrection### very comforting.


*FOOTNOTE (asterisked, oddly enough): hearts and flowers... lalala...

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Well, it wasn't really mine until I wrecked it.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Honking if you're a quarter of an inch tall and have the tensile strength of bunny fur.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): All my tiny tomato plants have tiny bamboo stakes I made out of vegetable skewers. That's very nearly ironic, isn't it?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Which had two leaves three days later, so I like to think its tragic end wasn't for naught.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): It's like plant porn.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Apparently not carefully enough to read to the part where one should put them in dappled sunlight to start.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): The next day, there was a flurry of emails from the group of us intrepid gardeners. I wasn't the only one who burned her seedling.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I woke up at 7 frickin' o'clock. And went back to sleep. And when I woke up, I figured it was 10:00 and I'd better get moving or I'd lose the whole day. I went to the garden center, the office supply store, the pet supply store, Home Depot and Chipotle and was home by 11:00. Did daylight savings time end Sunday? I'm pretty sure I got an extra hour. At least.

§§FOOTNOTE (tendrils): The beauty of a new hobby is the wide vistas of new shopping it spreads out before you.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (sprinkler heads): For those of you wondering what a single chick needs with six tomato plants, I will be canning. Just call me Betty Crocker.

##FOOTNOTE (trellises): Because stroking your plants is a professional gardener-approved addition to the hardening process. Heheheheheheh. Plant fluffer.

†††FOOTNOTE (stakes): My inner demon is four.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (oregano!): I have yet to turn it over. *rimshot*

§§§FOOTNOTE (garden twine): OK, it still looks a little like a weeping willow (weeping tomato?), but it's noticably perkier.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (bulbs): If any of the PTB had seen me, I believe they would have fired me on the spot. After they stopped laughing, of course.

###FOOTNOTE (row markers): Dudes, wouldn't resurrection be a SPECTACULAR add to my saintly résumé?