How My Garden Grows

     I guess the news is good. It's not bad, but it's not what I was hoping for, hence the resistance to say it is just straight up good. Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. When they took a culture of my mom, they found a bacteria. They didn't really tell me what that meant, but I assume that she has a bacterial infection. They are treating it now so that is all good. The swelling is still in her hip, but it appears to be going down, and the physical therapists have gotten her to walk, but she is still very weak. This could be a few things. Fear, the pain of the swelling, the infection, her lack of eating (I've taken her a few things, and she has eaten that, which is helping), all of those could be the reason for her weakness. The PT team has recommended short term rehabilitation, which means she will be going to a rehab facility soon. I made sure that she will not be going back to the one she was at after her hip replacement. I do think it is important for physical therapist oversee her strengthening, because that is their job, and they are going to be better at it than I am. She will be their for a short period of time to build her strength and then she will be back home where she belongs. 

     This has created a very weird feeling for me. I don't know what to do with myself, and now she will be gone longer, so I have time to myself, and I don't know what to do with it. I did begin making support stands for my peppers in a can. When they get big enough, they will want to fall over unless you give them support, so I had an old 2x4 laying around and I went out and got some dowel rods. This is the prototype for the pepper in a can stand.

     That's the idea, I'm going to clean it up quite a bit, and make it look nice. It's going to take a long time though, because I have 9 of them to make. That will cover my 4 plus the poblano (which isn't in the contest), and 4 for my buddy. I started on the first one, but I made a few mistakes, so it will definitely be one of mine. I want the really good ones going to my buddy. He deserves it, since he has given me so many pepper, tomato, and herb plants. This will only be a small token to a pay him back for all he's done for me.

     I still have a lot of sanding to do on that, and some more shaping, but that is going to be the overall appearance of them. I'll of course add a little stain and polyurethane to them, to make them look nice. I might even print the name of each pepper on them somewhere, or maybe not. I'm still in the very early stages of this whole project, but this will pass a lot of time.

     I do have lots of garden news. There is a lot going on in the garden right now, since spring is right around the corner, and we are getting higher than normal temperatures for this time of year. The first is the strawberries that I finally picked.

     These aren't as big as the ones that Morty ate, but they did the job. I of course let my mom eat the first one from the patch, but I had the second one today. It was a little tart, so it probably could have ripened a bit longer, to get that good sweetness in it. I don't have picture of it, but the Cherokee Purple is just about ready. Today it is a dark and deep red with some purple starting to come through. I figure if something doesn't eat it, I'll pick it in a couple of days. My blueberry plant was finally ripening, but something keeps coming and eating all of them, so I haven't had a single chance to get one to try. I'm super bummed, and if I find out what it is, I'm going to hunt it down, and eat it. Probably not, but it sounds vicious right.

     I picked the last pink beauty radish that I had in the strawberry bags, and it was huge, but I'm still not sure that it was fully ripe. I made a radish salad with it. It was just the radish and the greens from the radish. The radish had next to no flavor, but it brought a lot of flavor out of everything else. The greens have a tomatoey flavor to them, with a slight peppery aftertaste. Oh yeah, you can eat radish greens, and they are really good. Not just good, but nutrient dense as well. 

     That's the radish over there, so you can see just how big it was, and I think it needed to be a little bigger to bring some flavor out of it. I'm still new to this gardening thing, so figuring out when to pick things is going to take some time. I do have 3 more of those planted around the ghost pepper plant, and they were a bit behind this one, so I figure it will be a few more weeks before they are ready to pick. I'm going to wait even longer to pick them, to see if they get bigger, and more flavorful. I'll let you know.

     I had a few discoveries in the garden this week as well. The Tongues of Fire green beans are going and starting to get the signature red splotches on them. They are really cool, but once again, I have no idea of when to pick them. I'm just going to have to wing it, and pick them when I think they look most like a green bean. This is one of them, so you can see those red splotches on them.

     Pretty cool right? Right now there are only about 5 of them on the plant, and the plant is rather small, so it really isn't enough for even a dinner side, but I'll eat them none the less.

     The other discovery was this little gem that poked its head out when I wasn't looking.

     That right there is a head of cauliflower. That is the first of the four that I have planted. I checked the others, and only one other has a head starting. The rest are still a little behind the curve, and the broccoli is still in a grow phase. I'm going to be watching that head to see what that is ready to pick then I'll be eating some garden grown fresh cauliflower.

     I have several peppers that are flowering, and most of those are turning into peppers, which is pretty exciting. No super hots yet, but a bunch of mid level heat. Those will be great to add to meals, but they won't satisfy my new need for the heat. I do have some Scotch Bonnet flowers on the plant right now, so I'm hoping those turn into some peppers. They aren't super hots, but I really like the flavor of them, and they bring a good amount of heat, that will keep me content until some more super hots show up.

     Back to all that free time I'm going to have. I'm going to take some time each day, when I'm not working on the can stands, and start writing. At first it will be to finish the Violet Dahlia, but then it will be anything that comes to mind and hope a story idea comes to life. I still have some ideas roaming around in the back of my head, and I may put some work into them, but for now, it's the idea of writing to write and see if something remarkable pops up. I really think this is going to be fun, and when something good arises, I'll start sharing it with you, but until then, you will just have to wait. Peace in and goodnight.