Through the Garden Gate

No, not this garden gate. My new garden gate.

Come on in! Don't mind the weeds.

After a few years of random bits of loose fencing propped up in this spot that kept falling over and scratching me and mysteriously disappearing when a piece of fencing was needed for something else, A. finally built me a gate. And a perfectly lovely gate, at that. He made it from various bits of wood he found around, plus some boards he made from the remains of the black walnut tree that tried to kill the sheep shack a couple of years ago. I love this gate very much, and I am very, very happy to finally have a gate on hinges at this end of the garden.

Now that you've had a chance to admire my pretty new gate, why don't you just step on into the garden for a tour of my mulch?

Plants, I mean. A tour of my plants.

Plants? What? Where?

Okay, so you can't actually see any plants there. That's because it's just a big pile of sheep-shit straw in which I planted the Ronde de Nice zucchini seeds. But soon there will be plants! At least, I hope so.

Ah, here are some REAL plants. Cabbages, obviously. In a nice bed of mulch.

The cabbages seem quite happy this year. They don't even seem to be infested with cabbage worms chewing their leaves into lace, as has been the case in the past. Perhaps the mulch repels cabbage worms? It kind of repels me, so I wouldn't be surprised if the cabbage worms are giving it a miss.

There are purple cabbages too, but they're not as big and I didn't take a picture of them. You'll just have to take my word for it that they have not yet died, and there are no cabbage worms on them, either. And yes, they are also mulched.

Why, look! It's more mulch! (And tomatoes.) Are you sensing a theme here?

Some of you may notice that I did not erect my kick-ass tomato support system this year.

And some of you may have better things to do than remember my method of staking my tomatoes.

But for those of you who DID remember and are wondering what the hell is up with those lame sticks on either side of the plants instead of my towering infrastructure of years past . . . well. I just didn't have it in me to spend the time to build all that this year. I know you all think I'm Superwoman, but even I have my limits. So those tomatoes will be tied to single stakes on either side this year AND LIKE IT. And if they fall over? Oh well. Fewer tomatoes that I have to can.

But wait! Before you lose all respect for me, here are some supports I DID build.

Pallets are like the little black dress of the woodchuck world--appropriate for every occasion.

Okay, so A. actually built one, but they were my idea. And I did cobble together the other one. The one that isn't as nice-looking and the one on which one of the cross-pieces has already fallen off, but I tried. I used a hammer and nails and everything. Those are for the cucumbers to climb up. We like to empower our cucumbers to reach for the sky.

And on that inspiring note, let us leave the garden and all do our best to reach for the stars ourselves.

Or something.