Peter Piper

It seems like growing up we always “worked out in the yard.” My grandpa had a huge garden (I wonder now if it was as big as I remember). We almost always had a garden growing up. And now that I am an adult with my own place, I’ve found the magic of gardening. Abe and I have had a lot of fun with the few plants we’ve planted this year. Watching them grow from tiny seedlings into large plants has been really fun. (Fun? I don’t know what other word to choose.) We’ve been especially excited about our pepper plants.

Yellow pepper (look at Abe, the proud pappa of a 2.5 foot pepper plant. We don’t have time for a baby or pet so this is about all we can handle, okay!)

Red pepper

I was so pleased with the idea of planting functional and hopefully one day, pretty and colorful plants as decoration for our pergola. They really seemed to take off and were bearing a ton of peppers that were growing rather quickly. These pictures were a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, (did you see this coming?) a large storm hit IC this morning. Abe dropped me off at work a little after 5 am. It was very ominous and strange feeling (Very Wizard-of-Oz-zy or maybe just tornado-ey). He thought about the plants on the ride home (less than 2 min each way) but by the time he arrived home, he found this

and this

and this

 

 

I’m surprised how sad I was. I’m glad we don’t have a dog because Abe and I were both really down to see what had happened. We were so close to enjoying the vegetables of our labors and it was as Abe put it, “The one thing I had to look forward to at the end of the day.” Yep, I think we are working too hard if vegetables are our most exciting thing to think about but at this point it is probably true.

As for my other plantings, if you ever wondered if those topsy-turvey tomato planters work, they do! Luckily this thing is like a TREE so it survived the storm. But I”ve noticed some rot already on the tomatoes. Hopefully we can correct that with some plant food.

And speaking of trees, this little guy didn’t make it, either. Sigh. If you aren’t sure what I mean, that little evergreen is supposed to be everGREEN not red.

And the 97 flowers I planted a few months ago? I think I have about 40 left. We have a mole I can’t seem to get rid of that has unplanted almost very single flower as he digs beneath them. Enough have shriveled and died that it really doesn’t look very good.

I guess we’ll have to keep paying $2 per pepper at the grocery store.