Rockin' On the Roulette Wheel

Desire is the craziest thing. You can want things for no reason you understand, but you can't live without them. For a few days, the breeze smelled alternately like fresh air after a cleansing storm and bacon. I seldom crave anything heavier than melted cheese, which my every blood relative would eat off a garbage can lid, but a few times last week I caught myself wondering if the guy at the next desk might be better hickory or apple smoked.

Obviously, I wasn't spending enough time with my garden.

I wanted a greenhouse the way other people want flat screen TVs, and one day last spring I got one. It's like a plastic slip cover and wasn't expensive. Pete built it in a snug spot against the house. It's a lot smaller than it looks in the picture, above. Imagine our surprise, then, when we planted a few summer squash and a handful of spinach seeds in a big plastic planter, watered it between painting and moving and suddenly found THIS in the greenhouse. The dimensions of the shelf are 6' x 1'. Double that, add a Y Axis and you begin to see the FEED ME, SEYMOUR aspect of this situation. Yesterday, I looked around for Rick Moranis. I mean, wouldn't you?

All this foliage springs from this one planter. No, really! It's two or three squashes, mushrooming in size, if you will - if you won't, though, I'd get a machete. I'm not even stuffing them with plant food until they burp, but now that I've thought of it, that sounds like fun for everyone. I think I can terrify the neighbors with squash blossoms and Miracle Grow.

One point: these plants have produced more than a dozen blossoms and no squashes. We are thinking of ourselves as proud farmers of little oxygen molecules, and they are adorable.

In other news: a tomatillo plant someone gave us - was it Mom? was it Trout? - has taken over one end of the garden bed. I freely admit: this bushy giant surprises me every day. I've grown tomato plants since I could hold a shovel but I'd never grown tomatillos, so I planted this plant where a tomato would do really well. Good sun, good drainage, lots of water, but only about a foot and a half from anything else. Everything around it loves the attention of the bees but hates the bushy bushy tomatillo plant, which is threatening to out-produce the entire rest of the garden. Obviously, I adore this fantastic thing, which is now closing on seven feet wide.

I'm overjoyed! Next year, we'll plant tomatillos again, and this time, they're getting their own room. We'll teach them to smoke and drink to stunt their growth. I'm hiding the car keys.