Friday, July 01, 2005

Peasblossom Cute

Carl and I have been working on a garden at his house. I am completely amazed at the growth taking place before my eyes. I am learning so much about plants and dirt and worms (Idontlikethem)...I mean, did you ever think about what broccoli looks like before it gets hunted down in the fields and smashed into your Lipton Cheezy Rice and Broccoli packet?? I hadn't. Each plant has a different personality, a different way of asserting itself...it's just so interesting. Take the turnips and zucchini, for example. If the punky turnips




and the lumbering, but muscular zucchini




ever got together, we would totally be getting 3am knocks on the door from disgruntled vegetation looking to score some beer and broads. Which they would promptly make away with. However, they would probably be mugged ten minutes later and left for dead by the wiley tomatoes.




Don't fuck with the tomatoes. One of the littler tomatoes decided to fuck with the alpha tomato, and now it swiftly on its way to being dust under the alpha's studded alligator boots.

I find the cucumber blossoms pretty, yet terrifying with their terrantula stems...




and we are all very proud of the beets.




But my favorite plant of all is the snap-pea. The peas have delicate little tendrils that creep out and snag anything within reach, which usually means they snag each other and hold each other in an adorable, tangled-up pea-hug. They have the most beautiful, tiny white blossoms...




and delicious, vivid green pods...




and I don't think we've managed to cook one yet. They go right from the garden to our bellies.




For some reason, I didn't think that any of this gardening would work. My logic-box didn't believe that the simple act of sticking an inanimate seed in the dirt and pouring water on it would produce recognizable etables. I would have just as soon believed that the bread and wine is literaly transformed into the flesh of a 2000 years-dead man. I am completely floored that the turnips and peas and tomatoes that I helped put into the ground as insignificant seeds are now living, writhing, food-bearing plantlife. As far as I'm concerned, I've witnessed a major miracle.

9 comments:

  1. I can't believe you just wrote a blog entry about your garden.

    I mean, I guess it's cool. If you're cool like my parents....

    *snickers*

    ReplyDelete
  2. ok, i get to write an extensive entry about my garden if YOU get to write an extensive entry about how your knitting projects feel about each other.

    and your parents are cool.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gardens are for old people and prolly those with a need to nurture

    ReplyDelete
  4. gardens are for people who like dirt and food.

    ~m

    ReplyDelete
  5. do you have overalls and a straw hat to go with this adventure in gardening?

    ReplyDelete
  6. we were thinking of interesting twists on the "american gothic" scene...leather and random objects instead of overalls and pitchforks...
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. doesn't surprise me that you have thought of this already

    ReplyDelete
  8. of course. BOth of us feel totally hick and amateur at this. We are constantly making farmer jokes.

    ~m

    ReplyDelete
  9. You know how long I've been gardening and all I know about plants and all that stuff.

    And I still get a hint of that "OMGWTF I totally didn't think that would happen" feeling when a seed I planted actually grows up out of the ground. What. The. Fuck. That actually happened. It stays like that. This is why gardening is just so fucking inexpressibly cool sometimes.

    ReplyDelete