waiting on the garden to do something, so i can do nothing about it.

So, apparently, it's summer.  It has been in the mid-nineties for the last couple of weeks, though the humidity hasn't come rolling in yet, so it hasn't felt too bad.  It's been nice being able to get the kids outside, and I've done a lot of half-bootied yardwork.

But it's throwing me for a loop.  I keep looking out the window at all the green-green-green growing in the garden and wondering what I'll bring in for dinner, and then I realize the only edible things out there at the moment are lettuce and green onions.  There is so much sprouting for sure - my potatoes are going crazy-go-nuts, I just put in five tomato plants and eight pepper plants, the beans just popped up yesterday, and my fall-planted onions seem to be hitting puberty.  My peas are still deliberating about whether they're going to stretch themselves up higher than about six inches, and I kind of doubt they will since it got so hot so quickly, but they're at least green and present.

The garden at our last house: lush but still groomed in June.

I am ready to harvest at least something from our garden.  It's still at the beginning of the season, when I'm all starry-eyed and optimistic about my gardening endeavors, and it sure would be nice to bite into something fresh while I still give a crap.  By the time August rolls around and the garden is in full Horn O' Plenty mode, I'm in 'sweaty slug' mode - I've lost all gumption, all giddyup, all gall.  By August, I've been cooking in the wet oven known as mid-Missouri for the last two months, and I have about as much energy as a strip of beef jerky.  Beef jerky does not harvest.  Beef jerky does not revel in the bounty.  Beef jerky sits in the house, bemoaning its shriveled up existence.

The garden at our last house: neglected and elephantine in August.

So this year, I'm hoping to keep the momentum up by stretching out my gardening projects into the summer.  I'm hoping to put in a third raised bed and fill it with things like sweet potatoes, popcorn, and maybe even a quick-growing melon or two.  I'm hoping to add a few perennials to the side of the house, like a strawberry patch, a rhubarb plant or two, and a little patch of asparagus. 

I'm determined to resist the urge to plant cucumbers, which is an active endeavor in itself, because the urge is always so strong - but then when the cucumbers actually grow, I remember how much I hate cucumbers and then I can't even bear to look at my garden where the cucumbers are.  My garden stands a better shot at sustained affection from me if there is nary a cucumber in the vicinity.

And maybe, just maybe, by the time all this is done, something will be edible in my currently-planted beds, and I can just snowball all the energy I'd placed elsewhere into gathering the harvest.  Hopefully.  Or maybe I'll just be in extra-slug mode from all the energy I committed to expend earlier in the Missouri summer.  It's a coin toss.