when beans fly

i honestly never thought i would have a real, live garden and settled for an overly crowded studio with plants hanging from the walls, growing in old desk drawers and relying on energy saving light bulbs as supplemental sunshine.oddly enough, my safflower dye plants preferred it under my work table- they kicked it within a week of the move:( R.I.P little seedlings)

true, i did manage to grow potatoes in my living room, but i'm not convinced they were edible

(though that didn't stop me from keeping them in a bowl for 3 months as a trophy;)

but small successes aside my plants prefer their new outdoor life and after almost 5 months of an intensive dirt relocation program which has included:

• digging up beer bottles and glass shards


• hand picking tiny pieces plastic garden fencing (soooooooooo not biodegradable) and plastic mesh


• exhuming 1 kitty skeleton (we hope) which, despite my pleas, c. will not allow me to repatriate into a house pet:(


• unearthing and moving 3 dozen brick patio slabs


• moving and re-moving more dirt that i ever thought possible (not possible after the wheelbarrow tire goes flat)
  
• i will have to find some "before" pictures to post so i can brag more completely;) but the point is improvement! indoor hanging plants are happier in windows receiving actual sunshine

francis can now play in the back yard without broken glass as an obstacle course and she has some drought resistant grass of her very own to pee on and kill.

and i have a raised garden bed made from some of those dug-up brick slabs

after killing myself trying to level the ground enough to make the remaining slabs lay flat and patio-style i realized it was never going to happen without something, or someone, more hardcore than me, my shovel and my two stomping feet (which are surprisingly good levelers actually) - so started over and went for the "stagger" effect, hopefully my baby's tears will fill in nicely and obscure the crooked and slightly sloping end result.

so after many pulled muscles and much dirt relocation i am rewarded with flying lima beans babies!

First, a bobble headed baby literally erupts from the soil,

gets shy for a moment after it's very pushy entrance and tentatively checks out the situation..if all's well...

it turns into batman!


... and just lets it all hang out- i mean wow- they are like little alien creatures exploding out of their host mama bean. now i just have to convince some unidentified buggies to stop munching on their ginormous leaves and leave some for us (necessary pun- i won't apologize;)

the mixed greens i planted are less fascinating but very rewarding

less than a month after planting the seeds we've already had our first garden-picked salad and

it was crunchy and delicious.