Growth

Went out to the garden yesterday and saw something quite unexpected. Growth. Granted there's plenty of death, but I looked right past the wilted deathtraps and focused on this beautiful yellow beacon of life.

A flower on my peanut plant.

Two flowers on two plants to be exact. I was floored….and happy.

The sunflowers appear to be growing now too. I have no idea why the bottom leaves of most of the plants seem to be disappearing. The sunflowers have dropped some of their bottom leaves and I have no idea why. Aidan says it might be goblins and I'm leaning toward that too.

Look at this basil! It's big and bushy and alive!

Oh and the mint! It smells minty and it's alive too!! I have no earthly idea what to do with the mint, other than be excited that it's alive. I can't drink iced tea anymore and I don't do the mint sauce with lamb, so what else can I do with the mint? Anyone?

And the icing on the cake? Look at that little yellow thing on the top of one of my remaining tomato plants. It's a flower too! That's life, baby, and I'm soaking it up. I do realize that the bottom leaves are missing on this plant too, thankyouverymuch, but I'm focusing on the living today.

I have found something I can grow really well in the garden: grass. When we tore up the grass when we first started the garden people told us that it was unnecessary to remove the grass. "Just till it up!" they said, "mix it in. It'll be fine." Well I've learned a thing or two about what NOT to do and I can officially say you should NOT leave the grass. Remove all grass from your garden plot, new gardeners! If you leave it, you may find that the thing you grow best will be grass… and it's a complete pain to pull up when you're weeding. I speak from experience. I'm not sure if this is relevant for people in cold-weather climates with "real" grass, but down here in Florida where our grass is thick and angry, I can now safely say it should be removed before starting a new garden.