Which came first…..the chicken or the joke?

I have been meaning to post for more than a month now about the anniversary gift our friend Aideen gave us.  (We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary at the end of April.)  Since Christmas, Aideen has been going on and on about how she was going to get us chickens as an anniversary gift.  I was not amused.  (See also:  March 7th post.)  I really don’t want to own chickens, for all the reasons listed in that rant.  But Aideen was insistent – we were getting chickens for our anniversary!  We would love it!  There is no stopping Aideen once she gets an idea in her head.  You just have to roll with it.

I made contingency plans – I would post them on Freecycle and claim that the cats next door ate them; I would try giving them to people I already knew had chickens; I would drive them to Drumlin Farm and leave them in a box with a note: “Orphans.  Please adopt or eat.”  I was prepared.  I was ready

Aideen showed up with a 7-pound Perdue oven-stuffer roaster and a dozen eggs.  She is endlessly pleased with herself that she had me riled up for months over this.  I have never laughed harder after opening a gift.  Or been more relieved.  Because really, when it comes to Aideen, you can never be certain.

How do you know he’s a king?

So part of our weekend was very much like the first 9 seconds of this video:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

(I resisted the urge to shout, “Help!  Help!  I’m bein’ repressed!” while planting.  After all, I was there of my own free will.  And there was no sign of a king, although Max thinks he’s pretty important.)

It’s been a very rainy and wet spring.  J was finally able to get the tilling done out back on Friday night, and when he was finished, it looked like this:

Once that was done, we could think about planting the pumpkins and watermelons.  We created mounds to plant the seeds in:

Put the seeds in……

And covered them up:

It was really muddy.  Really, really muddy:

It was a great excuse to wear my frog boots, however!  (They’re left over from my days as a Conservation Commissioner.  So yes, I’ve worn them out in public.  I’m not known for my fashion sense, but I am known for my practical footwear.)  The whole thing felt a little like a, well, Monty Python movie.  At least I was laughing as I squished through the mud with my hoe.

We planted Jack-Be-Little, Lumina, Howden and Orange Dream pumpkins, and planted Sugar Baby watermelons.  We have hope that we will get both plants and pumpkins.  Watermelons would be great too, but we’re mostly interested in the pumpkins, because of our love of Halloween:

Of course, in the end, they all meet a fiery death:

This is what passes for entertainment in the suburbs – flaming produce.

Psst! Hey kids, want some free seedlings?

Now that the garden is established, we had a dilemma as to what to do with the leftover seedlings that didn’t get planted.  We had tentatively discussed putting them on Freecycle, and last night J announced he was sick of tending to the unplanted seedlings and I should post them to the list.  He put the trays out on the front porch last night, and wondered if anyone would be interested. My experience with the list has been there is a taker for everything. 

Particularly free seedlings.

I posted this morning just before 8:30.  It’s now just over two hours later, and I’ve had over 30 responses.  It helps that we offered a lot of variety – tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, summer squash & peppers.  The first respondant sent her email within 2 minutes of my post and has already picked them up.  I reposted that the seedlings were taken, but the emails still keep coming in.  I’m the kind of person who responds to everyone, so I’ve been letting people know that they’re taken.  Several people have mentioned in their emails that they’re behind with seedlings this year and they wouldn’t have a garden without getting seedlings, so I’ve recommended our local nursery.  This is so much more fun than focusing on work.

Only one set of our plants is from a nursery – I purchased Brandywine seedlings when I was picking up flowers for the pots I have all over the front porch.  When I read The $64 Tomato the author went on and on about how good Brandywine tomatoes taste, so I asked at the nursery while I was there.  Sure enough, they had some, so I bought a flat of six and we planted five.  Bradywine tomatoes are an heirloom tomato, which I’ve discovered is code for “might not look so pretty.”  I am okay with that, if they taste as good as that guy said they do.  If they don’t, I’m totally writing him a letter.  False advertising!

The potatoes, carrots and lettuce have all sprouted.  I’ll try to get some photos tonight, even though the carrots and lettuce can hardly be seen (and I can’t weed right now, for fear of accidentally mistaking the carrots for grass blades.) The potatoes look really good.  I should really figure out what the signs are that the potatoes are ready to harvest.  I think I read someplace that the plants die, and that’s when you harvest them.  You would think, being Irish, I would have some idea.  But I’m pretty sure I’m the first person in my family to grow potatoes since we left the Old Country.