Blackberry Success!

Despite my futile attempts earlier in the year to tame the wild blackberries growing next to my house, I have found a little path to enable me to have a blackberry snack whenever I want.  My first berry picking mission started out with high hopes.  I took a little Tupperware bowl turned basket, and envisioned myself quite quaint as I strolled off to pick blackberries.

Problem.  It was fucking hot and they have crazy-long thorns.  What I thought would be a quick stroll through the country side picking blackberries ended up being a battle to get out without tearing a hole in my shirt or lose an eye.  Imagine when Maleficent cursed Princess Aurora's castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.  

Didn't see a Disney reference coming, did ya?

So after my battle with the thorns, I did make it out alive with about 2 cups of blackberries.  Because I was anxious for my hard work to pay off, I immediately went to Allrecipes.com and made the the first blackberry cobbler recipe I could find for the Hubby and I to enjoy.  

Sadly, the cobbler came out kind of mediocre, to put it nicely.  It was more like a blackberry muffin in an 8x8 square pan.  Next time I'll just shove the blackberries in the freezer and do my homework to find a recipe worth cooking.  If any one knows of a good cobbler recipe, let me know.  I'm talking to you, CaseyRhea.

Blaming the Dogs Again

As many of you, I was drunk or out of town most of the holiday weekend.  [Except for a quick trip to the ER for the stupid hives.  Sigh.]  Which means I was unable to check my garden until today after work. 

Sadly, it appears one of my zucchini plants suffered some unknown illness in my absence.  

The other plants are fine, this one is just really, really wilted.  To solve the issue, I googled my little heart out, and found some possible answers.  This site seemed to sum up what every other site was saying.  You know it's a good sign when "causes of wilted zucchini" appears in the URL.

BUT - this didn't really seem to actually answer my problem.  There were no visible signs of disease, or nasty looking beetles.  (Which is a good thing because the chances of me actually hand picking beetles off of my plants is highly unlikely.  Ick.)  And while it was ridiculously hot this weekend, none of the other plants were wilted.

So after some more amazing CSI sleuth work, I came to a startling conclusion.  Rocky fucking pissed on my plant.  

I guess I get it.  In my dogs' eyes, I've been spending too much time in my little garden.  Besides sitting on the other side of the chicken wire and whining any time I'm in my garden, Rocky constantly needs to remind the world that the garden is "his".  No matter how much I yell and scream, as soon as I let him outside, he now runs to the garden and hikes his leg.  

Gross.  I need to make a sign to warn people to never eat any thing straight off the vine from my garden.  

Once the sun sets tonight, I'm going to try to go out and rejuvenate the poor piss plant with some water and possibly Miracle Grow.  

New Goal: Grow Basil Immediately

This weekend, my dear friend Casey got me drunk.

But wait?!  What does this have to do with gardening you ask?  Oh don't worry, Casey is such a culinary genius that she mixed up a great cocktail with fresh basil from her garden, fresh locally grown strawberries*, lemonade, and gin.

The only downside is that it tastes so delish you don't realize how drunk you are until you make your husband drive you to McDonald's, order some french fries, and pass out before he can pull forward to the second window.  I'm not saying that happened to me, but I'm not saying it didn't.

What I learned from this experience is first, the way to a woman's heart is through a basil gin drink, and second, that I need to buy a basil plant asap.

*In full disclosure, I am not positive that the strawberries were local.  It is irrelevant to my drunkenness of that night.

Wordless Wednesday

Gardening = Extreme Couponing

Whoa Buddy!  I've got a baby zucchini growing!  I'm very impatient and wanted to pick it as soon as as I saw it today, but some how I was able to contain my excitement.  I'll post a picture of the little duder tomorrow.

I noticed yesterday that Kroger wanted $0.79 for a zucchini.  Fuck that noise.  Growing your own stuff is kind of like extreme couponing.  Maybe once I'm actually picking veggies I'll try to keep track of how much money I'm saving.  Sigh.  As if I needed to be an even bigger nerd, I'm now planning an Excel spreadsheet charting my cost-saving veggies?  What's wrong with me?  [Don't answer that.  I will not hesitate to shank a mother fucker.]

In other news, I've got about 6 green tomatoes.  I've already decided that this first batch of tomatoes are going to be picked green for fried green tomatoes.  They don't sell green tomatoes at Kroger, which probably makes them more valuable for my tally.  Plus, picking them early will help with my ridiculous impatience.

Miracle Grow Mishap

About two weeks ago, I went to Rural King during my lunch hour.  I originally went to get some plant supports for my tomatoes that seemed to be going through a growth spurt, but got easily sidetracked, like a baby distracted by shiny objects.

Not only does Rural King offer free popcorn (oh yeah, now you're interested, right?), but they have a pretty kick ass gardening section.  I was able to score some gardening gloves that are both functionable and fashionable.  What what?!  (My next shopping mission will include a floppy hat.)

I also picked up some Miracle Grow especially formatted for garden veggies.  A farmer who was in there talked me into it.  Okay, I'm not positive he was a farmer, but he was nice and old and in Rural King on a Monday at 12:30 wearing jeans instead of office clothes.  Using this criteria he seemed like a garden expert to me.  He promised me that I would see results if I used Miracle Grow once every two weeks or so.  Game on.

Fast forward through the rest of the boring day at work until I get home with my sweet new gardening paraphernalia.  As soon as the afternoon heat had passed, I carefully followed the directions to mix the Miracle Grow in my cute two-gallon watering can (another great purchase of the day), and watered my little garden.  It didn't take long.

Seemed like mission accomplished.

Later that night, as I tried to go to bed, I realized that I had a couple mosquito bites.  Not a big deal.  Then I noticed a couple more.  I finally rolled my lazy ass out of bed and went to the bathroom to grab some anti-itch cream.  In the (completely unflattering) light of the bathroom, I was able to actually see myself.  No, I didn't have a couple mosquito bites on my legs.  I had hives all over my freaking body, with a couple of very well pronounced ones on my legs.

Fuck.

I'll spare the details of my miserable night with hives.  It ended with me going to Urgent Care and getting a shot in my ass.  High point - the nurse complimented me on my pig tattoo.

After reviewing the day and what could have possibly caused the hives, I logically blamed the Miracle Grow.  And so, the box was shoved to the corner of the garage where I eventually planned on guilting the Hubby into applying it to my garden for me.

But yesterday, I broke out in hives at work.  Only this time, there is not Miracle Grow to blame.

Double Fuck.

So, it looks like giving my garden some Miracle Grow is on the to-do list for tonight.

Wordless Wednesday