Grow, baby, grow!

I'm a gardner. Well...a gardner of sorts. I have sucessfully managed to grow and harvest basil and my first tomato turned red just this week! My two sunflowers (one blood red and the other classic yellow) are 10 feet tall and seem to be in competition to reach the top of the gazebo with the one stalk of corn that I planted that hangs high above my head and does a little shimmy in the breeze every time I step out onto the deck.

Even in the dry, baking oven heat of Summertime California, I have managed to kill very few things. Ok, so the cilantro bolted (yes, a gardner term - as in, got too hot and flowered because it thought it was dying and had to produce it's next of kin so it's herby life would continue for genrations to come), the zuchinni has BER (another term - blossom end rot, which I think comes from calcium deficiency, or so I've been told), but other than those casualties and some petunia infested pests, my glorious garden grows!!!

Never in my 20-something years, minus my mother's green thumb years when I was a child, have I have never really attempted to grow a garden with any seriousness. Now every morning after work, I'm out there watering, trimming off old blossoms, and checking for growth. Literally, I've sat and watched things grow. Most mornings, I can be found talking to the plants and the occasional bug that finds shelter under a leaf or two. You know they say that talking to the plants makes them grow. Just ask the sunflowers. They'll tell you...it's true. They used to be like 8 inches tall and now they're gargantuan!!!


Occsionally during the daily leafside chats, the other major living thing that rules the backyard gets caught up in the excitement and next thing you know 85 pounds of half German Shepard and half Sharpei lightening bolts by with her windmill of a tail whipping at all g-forces of dog happiness and takes with her a wayward branch. "Don't trample my plants you crazy dog!" could very well have woken up a neighbor or two in the last few weeks. Upon leaving on a jet plane or other weekend adventure, I leave militaristic orders scribbled on the fridge with contingency plans and scenarios to keep my babies alive. Operation Keep it Green.

So, my plants are like my children. I go out there every day to make sure they're not completly out of watery resources and they have enough room to grow. I clean them up when they are crusty looking and ward off their attackers. I give them vitamins and nutrients. I have turned into a gardner and I kinda like it.