The Wicked Garden Project - Phase Two

Well, May is certainly upon us. This means two things to me:

1.  School is almost out for the summer (5 more weeks!)

2.  Summer is pretty much here - Florida heat blows. I despise heat for many reasons...

Now I can add a number three to this list...

3.  Gardening sucks when it is unbearably hot outside.

We have accomplished a lot in the last two weeks. We've transplanted four varieties of beans, corn, peppers, okra (which we planted solely to pickle - we love pickled okra!) and four different kinds of berries in the Wicked Garden. The structure is up and completed, and Papa Bear even made me a sign for the door:

How cool is that?

But the heat...ugh. Now, believe me when I say that I am fully aware of my personal physical limitations, but when I need to (not have to, but need to) stop every ten to fifteen minutes or I am sure I will fall down dead, it tends to put a damper on the days activities.

Give me air conditioning or give me death!

We all ended up with a little bit of sunburn after last weekend. I believe that even my retinas were burned because my eyes didn't stop burning until this morning.

Here's the progress so far:

The Berry Patch (which is to the left of the cage structure).  We planted Blackberries, Raspberries, Blueberries and Strawberries.

All of the beans planted: Tendersweet, Purple, Soy (edamame) and your garden-variety (ha!) string bean.

We planted some sweet white corn in this corner.

Three pepper plants are in the ground: A 'mixed' variety, a red bell and a yellow bell.

In my exhaustive internet research, I discovered that certain lettuces grow better in containers. So I bought two big windowsill type planter boxes and filled one whole box with a mix of spicy and sweet mesclun greens. The other is half arugula and half baby spinach.

We transplanted five cherry tomato plants. I can eat a pint of grape or cherry tomatoes like popcorn...

I believe I have planted every herb I could get my hands on.  I love fresh herbs. This part of the whole garden thing is what excites me the most. I even found -are you ready?- Cinnamon Basil! The aroma coming off of this plant is incredibly amazing...I can't wait to eat it!

There are still tons of itty-bitty baby plants not yet ready to be transplanted into the big old scary garden. These baby plants will go into the garden in stages, but in the meantime, they are guarded by the ferocious and terrifying Twinkie. See the all-body block maneuver she's perfected? Nothing gets past our Twinkie...unless she's napping.

Which is what she (and Papa Bear) did after all was said and done:

Heat does that to a person....

We did find some interesting things whilst digging in our little Eden out back. 

                              Item #1:

                                               A little Fisher Price Finger Puppet Lego thing...

                              Item #2:

                                                                     A Throwing Star? 

                              Item #3:

                                A super-powered mega magnet...or a strong magnetic hockey puck?

I have deduced that toddler ninja scientists once resided on this property...and if there are more magnets like that one underground, that might explain the paranormal activity...hmmm.

Even though there is still quite a bit left to be planted and then protected, we are all steadily anticipating seeing our efforts in the garden hit full swing. We can't wait for our first meal from the garden!