I do hate having the nieces watch TV.

[conuly]

But if I take them outside with me to pick tomatoes, I won't come back inside with any tomatoes!

And anyway, they're naked, so no. Tomato picking only took a minute, so they're still ensconsed in Noggin right now. Seemed a bit cruel to take it away after a minute. Decided to update my journal a sec to rant about tomatoes.

I like tomatoes. I love tomatoes. Especially our yellow ones in the garden. Need them for a recipe for dinner - beets with onions and tomatoes. The original recipe didn't call for carrots, but we have carrots so I'm throwing them in. It's a good recipe, and I'm working on the beets thing anyway.

I like morning glories, too. They're like God's gift to mornings. They make waking up before noon a pleasure instead of a chore. Love morning glories.

The really good thing about morning glories is that once you decide you want them along your fence, or running up and down in your hedges, you only have to plant them once. Sure, they're annuals, but they make a fuckton of seeds, right? So you plant them once, and all your worries are over.

Not such a great thing when somebody's bright idea was to seed the morning glories with the tomatoes. I can only ask why so many times before I have to shut up!

I take some small comfort in the fact that the impenetrable hedge of morning glories must be keeping all the animals away from our tomatoes. Unfortunately, we are animals. I'm gonna be crawling around out there all autumn trying to make sure the damn things don't self-seed there!

Stupid morning glories.

Next year, totally planning our garden instead of throwing plants every which way. That's where our problem started.

And as regards the neighborhood kids (who adore going to our yard with my mom to "pick" tomatoes - they can pick the tomatoes better than we can, with their tiny little hands, but they eat them better too!) I may very well go around next late winter/early spring and ask all their parents if they'd like me to supply seeds and spend some time with their kids in their *own* yards. You can save a few hundred dollars in groceries by planting your own garden, and our garden isn't really childsafe anyway.

Comments

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Daniel doesn't plan gardens well either. He forgets that plants grow, and so he plants them REALLY close together. When we moved in, he planted an agave (century plant), 3 baby saguaros, a tiny ocotillo and a little palm tree all within about 8 inches of each other, despite my protests. The agave is now 3 feet across, the saguaros are growing IN to one another, and the ocotillo has grown all its spidery arms OUTWARDS instead of up, because the palm tree is shading them all. (Sorry, most of these are desert plants, we have a lot of them out here but I hope you know what they are cause you don't find them up there). It's ridiculous. Now I really wish I'd put my foot down, but he's always so sure he's doing it right, at the time.

[conuly]

Hey, ocotillo is in a book we read to the nieces, Roxaboxen. Is that ocotillo with an English pronunciation, or a Spanish one?

And I do the same thing, really! "Three inches apart? Pshaw. They're tiny seeds! Half an inch oughta do it."

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Spanish pronunciation. Oh-ko-tee-yo (to butcher it).

[conuly]

Yeah, I can read Spanish :P

Can even understand it a bit, assuming people aren't too fast or emotional (well... depends on what they're being emotional about. We keep telling the kids that they can understand mothers in any language!) for me to keep up.

Don't trust myself to speak it very often, though.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

The bilingual publication I've been writing for asked me if I could also write my articles in Spanish. I am so scared to look like a fool in front of native Spanish speakers, but I actually am fairly proficient at essay-writing in Spanish. At least, I was 6 or 7 years ago... I should just go for it, but it's so much easier to say I *can't* write in Spanish. (I'm such a chicken).

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I think if you follow it up with an offer to come over on (set date and time) and help the kid plant (seeds from garden etc.) you may well have a winner. Because many of the parents won't want to take them time themselves - but if you convince them that with only a little help the KIDS can take responsibility? Then it is on. Hell, gift them with some morning glories. ;-) OR MINT god knows they love it so - and it is maintenence-free.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Daniel doesn't plan gardens well either. He forgets that plants grow, and so he plants them REALLY close together. When we moved in, he planted an agave (century plant), 3 baby saguaros, a tiny ocotillo and a little palm tree all within about 8 inches of each other, despite my protests. The agave is now 3 feet across, the saguaros are growing IN to one another, and the ocotillo has grown all its spidery arms OUTWARDS instead of up, because the palm tree is shading them all. (Sorry, most of these are desert plants, we have a lot of them out here but I hope you know what they are cause you don't find them up there). It's ridiculous. Now I really wish I'd put my foot down, but he's always so sure he's doing it right, at the time.

[conuly]

Hey, ocotillo is in a book we read to the nieces, Roxaboxen. Is that ocotillo with an English pronunciation, or a Spanish one?

And I do the same thing, really! "Three inches apart? Pshaw. They're tiny seeds! Half an inch oughta do it."

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Spanish pronunciation. Oh-ko-tee-yo (to butcher it).

[conuly]

Yeah, I can read Spanish :P

Can even understand it a bit, assuming people aren't too fast or emotional (well... depends on what they're being emotional about. We keep telling the kids that they can understand mothers in any language!) for me to keep up.

Don't trust myself to speak it very often, though.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

The bilingual publication I've been writing for asked me if I could also write my articles in Spanish. I am so scared to look like a fool in front of native Spanish speakers, but I actually am fairly proficient at essay-writing in Spanish. At least, I was 6 or 7 years ago... I should just go for it, but it's so much easier to say I *can't* write in Spanish. (I'm such a chicken).

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I think if you follow it up with an offer to come over on (set date and time) and help the kid plant (seeds from garden etc.) you may well have a winner. Because many of the parents won't want to take them time themselves - but if you convince them that with only a little help the KIDS can take responsibility? Then it is on. Hell, gift them with some morning glories. ;-) OR MINT god knows they love it so - and it is maintenence-free.