So it's time to show a little of what's growing in our garden. Yesterday, sidepocket did so in his KTK diary. He is so very fortunate to have a well for water. As long as his pump is able to work he can use all the water he needs for gardening. We don't have that luxury and so must pick and choose what to grow.
At first we weren't going to have any veggies this year. But I realized that wasn't something I was comfortable doing. So we have a much smaller amount of stuff this year...just a couple tomato plants (and about a half-dozen volunteers from last year). I didn't plant any peppers. There is one pepper that came up by itself from the roots of a plant last year. How unusual, but I'll take it.
We also are growing pole beans after being inspired by sidepocket's newfangled gopher-proof pole bean garden. I built a pole bean garden myself. Gophers aren't a problem around here. Moles however do tunnel in moist dirt to find worms and grubs. Though they don't eat plants or roots they can wreck a plant when they tunnel through the roots. My pole bean garden is mole proof.
Though not as elaborate as sidepocket's pole bean garden ours is still a capable thing and will work just fine. I wrote a KTK diary about it about a month ago (http://www.dailykos.com/...). I used stuff I already had lying around here, which was some 3/4 inch diameter PVC pipe and trellis netting. I had some leftover rebar which I cut into three foot lengths that I used for the "stands" that the PVC pipe slides over to hold the structure up. All I needed was two connector pieces for the PVC pipe which cost me $3.12 at the hardware store.
I'm Scots on both sides so I guess that's my excuse for being a cheap skate when it comes to doing projects. I always love re-purposing things or using what I already have at hand.
I planted two beans every 4 inches along the bottom of the thing and they are taking off. Soon we'll be germinating four new blue lake pole bean seeds every two weeks that I'll then plant among what we have already. That way we can keep having a bumper crop of green beans until winter. That is if we have a winter this year. Last year we really didn't. The ground never got cold enough to make our plants dormant. Roses never stopped growing and even blooming. We are hearing about an El Nino building which can mean more rain for us. Fingers crossed here, but they said the same thing last year until the building El Nino basically went poof at the end of last August.
Here's some pics for you of blooming things right now which I'll put below the hand-holding clasp of orange.
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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