Outside from the Inside

I'm sitting inside today.  Like, as much as possible.  I'm beat.  Bushed.  Pooped.  Wiped out.  Had a whole bunch of to-do's yesterday, ran all over town and generally enjoyed myself.  Really exercised the extrovert in me.  Today it's all about the introvert, the part of me that needs some time alone.  I mean, not really alone, since I'm sharing with you, but on-my-terms socialization, if you will.  I don't have to smile when you say things, because you're not actually interacting with me.  I don't even have to get dressed up.  Sweatpants, baby dolls, I'm rocking the over-sized sweats and LOVING IT!

I still love the outside, though, in all its out-side-ness glory.  I especially love my garden.  Oh! how I love growing things.  Changing things.  Improvements and whatnot.  The garden gives me ample opportunity to see things change and grow, improve and produce.  Take for example, these guys - the potatoes.  They used to look like this:

Don't keep squinting.
The problem isn't your eyes, but rather a smudged camera lens.
Sorta makes a body dizzy.

Just shriveled up little nubs, growing weird eyes.  Basically, they're gross.  You take the grossness, shove them in the dirt, and cover them up.  Then you pour a lot of water on them.  Then you wake up one morning, and there are little trees growing where there used to be grossness.

We've got approximately ... uh... 8+7+12... 27 (impressive, right?  that's where a master's in math will get you!) potato plants.  Half of them are growing in the beds like above, for easy dirt-piling.  The other half are living on Potato Mountain.

Potato Mountain.
Obviously.

All of the extra dirt/roots/crapoola we excavated (or however you say that) off off our back yard when we cleared it got piled up back here.  I threw down some soil, stuck in the grossness, did my thang, and now...

Potato mountain is home to a dozen thriving potato plants.  We're going to have potato plants coming out of our ears by Summer's end.  Which literally might be possible if you stuck a bit of the grossness in there and then did the song and dance with dirt & water, but I'm talking figuratively here people.  C'mon, no one sticks potatoes in their ears... right?

The other delight that I get from gardening is trying new things.  I LOVE new things!  This year, since potatoes are old and boring and I've done the tomato and pepper thing a few hundered times, I had to pull out the big guns.

Rhubarb.  That's right.  Rhubarb.  Like, the deliciousness that goes into this and this and this.  Where did I procure this delicate little morsel?  Oh, you know, the place where all great plants come from - Your local Aldi's.  Yeah, that's right.  Aldi's, the home of cheap butter, $0.59 bags of carrots, and, apparently, yard goods.  It was a gamble, I knew, but I took it and I'm so glad I did.  Also, the bag said that it contained 3 roots for planting, and I got 4.  Because I'm a rockstar.  Its like finding that your Gushers packet has 11 little yummies in it, but even better.  Excuse me while I go buy a pack of Gushers, I'm feeling lucky, punk.

The corn has also finally come up, which thrills me to no end.  The only problem I have is that pretty much all of the corn kernels I planted grew, and now I have to tear out 3 or 4 of these little babies in each area I planted them.  It just feels so cruel and heartless after they did all this work of growing.  But if I don't pull them, there will be no sweet corn.  And sweet corn is always worth it.

Are you growing anything new?  Do you have pictures?  I'd love to hear what is growing and changing, moving and shaking over where y'all are.  In the meantime, I'm going to keep lounging, and possibly hook myself up with a mess of this binness.  It just feels right.

Love and growing things,

TFW