Monday Garden Update

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A week ago, my scarlet runner beans looked like this.

Now, it was clearly time to get them in the ground.

The plan was to dig up the ground by the World's Ugliest Fence, and build a trellis structure for the beans. If everything worked out, the vines would disguise our view of the hideous cinderblock wall, attract hummingbirds, and produce loads of delicious beans.  We had to get to work, right away.

I turned over the soil, and dug in some semi-composted leaves. Robb built a lovely delicate structure.  There may have been a bit of squabbling, when it came time to erect our structure, but ultimately good humor prevailed.  (Watching demented cat videos helped, as well.)

Once we got the beans planted, we re-arranged the fence to keep the chickens out of that bed.  Nothing is more appealing to our hens than a freshly excavated bit of earth.  I did not wish to subject the beans that I had been tending to that kind of avian mayhem.

Speaking of avian mayhem, I brought out the other seed trays because the weather was so utterly lovely.  And what happened as soon as my back was turned?  Some sneaky little birdie swooped in, and bit the heads off of my cucumber plants.  The local songbirds are a bunch of Feathered Thugs.

For my own records, this is what's in the seed trays:

• a few more scarlet runner beans
• some mystery "green beans" that I saved from last year
• trail of tears beans
• royalty purple beans (what can I say? we like beans)
• orange and magenta chard

The figs are breaking dormancy, and as you can see, have baby fruits on them. The one fig to have any amounts of leaves yet is a mystery plant that I bought on craigslist, back before I had any clue what I was doing.

The persimmon tree is leafing out. The orchids continue to delight and amaze.  I keep forgetting to mention the absurd thing about my Naked Ladies -- because this plant goes completely dormant, I foolishly parked an up-ended flower pot on top of the bulbs. When I realized my mistake, and removed the pot, the plant was entirely blanched, like some kid of super-fancy asparagus.  If you look to the right of the orchid platform, you can see some particularly light foliage on the ground. That's my recovering Naked Ladies.

Again, for my own records, here's a list of what else is going on in the garden.

• the radishes, arugula, and purple mustard greens have sprouted
• the lemon verbena is leafing out
• the paperwhites which have been blooming since Thanksgiving have finally finished
• the hyacinths are winding down
• I trimmed back the volunteer oak tree behind the beehive
• the brugmansia in the front yard looks fantastic
• the one in the back looks worse than ever
• I need to deal with the colony of snails that live next to our driveway
• our red rose bush is about to bloom
• we're starting to see butterflies (and cabbage moths) in the garden

 If you're interested in seeing what other gardeners have been up to this week, mosey over the the weekly round-up at Daphne's blog.  It's a vibrant and diverse communities of growers.