Entry tags:

[real life]

The last time I posted about my garden, all of you were all doom and gloom and WOE BETIDE YOU, NAÏVE GARDENER about my zucchini plants. And you were absolutely right. They are very productive.

But not one of you said anything about the green beans, and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust you again. Because, okay. I went out there one day a week and a half ago and saw a baby bean on my green bean plants. Exciting! I grabbed the camera to take a picture (shut UP, it was my own very first baby bean that I grew all myself from a SEED), and I did, and then I looked slightly up and it was like one of those horror movie moments, where the camera pans back and you realize OH MY GOD THEY'RE EVERYWHERE IT'S TOO LATE TO RUN.

They were, in fact, everywhere. Not baby beans, but full-grown beans. My green bean plants, grown by me from seeds selected by the earthling, have turned into a green bean factory. They produce a pound or two of green beans every two to three days, and if I should miss three days in a row of picking, they get very, very ugly. Even with diligent (or as diligent as possible; I screwed up the spacing there, too, so it's very hard to get anywhere near the green beans now, especially with the Lurking Squashy Threat I'll get into later) picking, I miss them, and come back to find a giant bean lurking somewhere. And, true fact: I can search through all the plants, pick all the beans I can find, and come back half an hour later and get another handful of beans. Either they're wily or they're scary productive. I'm guessing both.

(Having a garden, by the way, is like leveling up on a CSA; you'd better have a lot of recipes for the things you plant, my friend, because otherwise you will never want to see them ever again. You would not believe the things I have done with green beans lately. Or, okay, you would - it isn't like I cured the common cold with them, or built a scale model of the Empire State Building, but, still. I have a lot of new recipes, is what I'm saying.)

I'm almost afraid to tell you about the other garden development, because - look. I did not know any better, okay? I am innocent in this. The earthling wanted a pumpkin kit. I got one. I planted ONE pumpkin plant. And there were all these warnings on the kit about how it was not a toy and not to be used unsupervised, but there was no warning anywhere about the seed's unfulfilled dreams of starring in a SciFi original movie called The Electric Pumpkin Apocalypse.

Unfortunately, that movie is now taking place in our backyard. I am expecting Misha Collins and David Hewlett to show up in suspiciously clean lab coats at any moment, because - okay. About two weeks ago, Best Beloved and I were surveying the pumpkin plant - only a little fearfully, because we did not know then what we know now - and noticed that it had overrun the little brick borders of the garden plot and started to creep across the part that's still lawn.

"Think it'll make the walkway by the end of the summer?" I asked Best Beloved.

"Maybe," she said, surveying the six feet or so it still had to cover. "Maybe."

It's on the walkway now. In the other direction, it is almost over the fence to the neighbor's yard, and god only knows what they have over there that it could eat to grow stronger. Worse, okay, I planted this garden in the place that used to have a fishpond, right? Well, the previous owners had a sort of waterfall thing in the pond. For which they had to run electricity out to the back wall. The pumpkin plant is now intimately entwined with the electric outlet and the wiring. Very. Intimately. There are little green tendrils prying into the covered box.

Obviously, the major concern is that our pumpkin plant has already acquired superpowers. (I guess the bright side is that we may not need candles to light up our jack-o-lanterns on Halloween.)

Really, the zucchini-tomato mass, while still terrifying, is starting to look tame in comparison. Because, okay, yes, it is covered in baby green tomatoes, and I am frantically harvesting zucchini as soon as I find them, often sustaining moderate injuries to do so (screw shark armor; they need to make squash armor), but at least those plants are in a raised bed. They are contained. The pumpkin (and the green beans, for that matter) can go anywhere.

There are suspicious noises from the backyard at night, now. Thumps and slithers. I - I am very scared.

This may be how the world ends, people.




The earthling contemplates the pumpkin plant. Compare the size of the two-year-old to the size of the pumpkin leaves. Also note that this is after Best Beloved, at no small hazard to her person, hacked off half the plant.


The future site of the zucchini-tomato mass, on 4/10. Yes, I am well aware that I bungled the spacing, here. I am learning. Also, so far, living.


The zucchini-tomato mass, two months after planting. You see that little happy tag indicating what the plants are, in the picture above? Yeah, it's gone. The zucchini ate it. Which is a pity, because now I'd really like to know. Also note the trellises, helplessly adrift on the mass of greenery.