Abundance in the Garden

HELLO SQUASH!





This garden has now taken on a life of its own, a life with which I have no ownership or involvement. All I do now is occasionally water it; otherwise all I'm good for is removing the obese vegetables that seems to populate its borders.

The zucchini have apparently been hiding their numbers from me. What I perceived to be simply a collection of large leaves has indeed spawned some improperly large and numerous fruits. Likewise, the yellow crookneck squash are hard at work pretending to be squash blossoms; I discovered four fairly large squash hiding under clumps of blossoms, which in turn was defended by hazardous-looking bees.

So far, my approach to harvest has been simply to eyeball the plants and remove what looks ready. However, it appears that there is more to it than just eyeballing; I need to climb in and move stuff around every day to check for ripe veggies because things that appear small one day may grow exponentially larger by the next morning.

One may ask what the hell I spread in this notorious garden to produce such offspring. Indeed one may think that it may be a Chernobyl-effect, although so far none of the vegetables have eyeballs or multiple heads. In any case, let me be clear that there is no chemical fertilizer in this garden, no Miracle Gro or any of that other stuff to force out what I refer to as "zombie plants." These are plants that produce beyond what they are supposed to, giving the look of life to something that should have long ago died. Sort of the way cut flowers look when you put that white powder into the water and the blooms are staring at you intently and exhaustedly, even as their stems are wilted and dead underneath.

I thank the worm poop, my cockamamie compost concoction, and just plain old sweat and hard work (no, I don't think there is any sweat on the plants). Yay organic!!!!

N.B. It is with a heavy heart that I mourn the passing of my entire cantaloupe vine. Apparently in my efforts to stake up its heavy stems, I inadvertently shoved the trellis through its roots and killed the whole damn plant. I am pissed.