Plants & Pipes: Things Are Growing

These pictures are from May 19. The garden has received regular rain.

This basil self seeded from last year's plants. It's healthier and bigger than the seeds I planted myself.

The sage is lush and the purple blooms are evident. When the flowers dry, you can collect the round, black seeds and plant new sage plants.

This is a sunflower plant that also self seeded, probably thanks to a bird visiting a birdfeeder. It's over 3' tall now.

This is a bloom on the snap pea plant. They're climbing as they can. The longest is close to 3' tall.

This jalepeno plant looks good so far. Last year I didn't get much of a crop, so I hope this year is better. I like to put a few slices on sandwiches and nachos. The wife has a delicate palate and does not want added heat.

Our lettuce looks better. This variety is supposed to be more heat resistent. The temperature is supposed to reach the low 90s this weekend, so we'll see. One of the wife's co-workers gave us a large head of romaine-type lettuce from his garden. Once we finish that, we'll move to our own.

This is a transplanted okra seedling. I bought a few plants to get a jump on the harvest.

And this is a seedling from seeds I planted the week before. We'll see if the plants I started can catch up with the ones I bought and transplanted.

This shows the net fencing I installed to keep the dogs out of the garden. So far it's worked. No Alys-abducted asparagus, no deep holes dug, no uprooted transplants, and no unauthorized "fertilizing" from my canine helpers.

Alys is thwarted by the fence. She's not happy. She wants to help father with the garden.

So she takes her frustrations out on the pipe. Alys and Zoe attack each end of this section of drain pipe. Occasionally, chipmunks will run through the pipe going from one hole to another. I think the dogs smell them and really go after the pipe. Zoe just bites the pipe and barks; Alys bites it and shakes it vigorously left and right. They wear themselves out doing this.