feudal gggarden update

we needed a name for our yardshare/fiefdom, so, since it’s located between good and gavin streets, it’s now “good and gavin garden,” or gggarden.

this week we erected a tipi trellis out of some scrap wood my dad gave me, strung with wire and yarn. at each corner we planted a different type of cucumber: lemon, jelly melon, boston pickling and sweet marketmore. the sides will be covered in climbing beans: two sides of rattlesnake pole peas and two sides of yardlong beans. we’re also going to plant lettuces underneath the tipi.

in front of the structure we planted bush beans: dragon tongue, dixie speckled butter pea (lima) and royal burgundy. at the foot of the bed we tossed in fennel seeds and a cayenne pepper plant.

i’m kicking myself because i forgot to photograph our boob bed. we formed some real sexy mounds to plant all our squash: black magic zucchini, yellow straightneck, butternut, hokkaido and acorn.

also, the week before last we put in two tomato plants: isis candy and black and red boar.

the root veggie bed is doing great. all the potatoes, beets, carrots and radishes are up, with the exception of lunar white carrots we planted a little over a week ago.

in the allium bed, garlic is still droopysad from being divided and transplanted. it might not recover but hey, we did the best we could, and it’s not like it would have produced anything at all if we left it the way it was. onions look good at least.

the lords’ salad bed is beautiful right now. i think these are osaka purple mustard greens. they also have some red russian kale, huge garlic, and collards that are blooming.

it’s mostly full of these mustard greens, though. curious thing to grow in such quantity, i reckon.

the yard is exploding with green lusciousness and flowers right now. lunaria (pictured), buttercups, lilacs and some others i can't identify are all in full bloom, plus there are hundreds of california poppy plants about to bud, and a small, overgrown field of another kind of poppy (maybe iceland?) with buds about to pop.

their grapes are coming to life. can’t wait to snack on these. also, supposedly there’s a bed of asparagus, but it seems pretty weedy so i’ll believe it when i see it.

this weird plant is in jason’s backyard, and i would love to know what it is. anyone have guesses? it doesn’t look like it belongs in idaho. the purple stalks are old growth and green is new. looks bamboo-ish but it’s not, and the stalks are hollow and soft if you squeeze them.

we’ve been having fantastic cookouts every week.

once the crops start producing it might become a nightly thing--i can’t wait for the day when we can pick our whole dinner fresh from the gggarden.

i’ve started bringing my old fisher-price portable turntable, which i’ve had since i was a wee li’l one. it’s so handy and still works perfectly--runs on batteries, plays 33s and 45s (with a built-in adapter), the speakers are surprisingly good, and the top snaps on to make a neat little case. it’s a treasure.

one week we listened to bobbie gentry, a 1950s recording of instrumental appalachian music, and phoebe snow (coincidentally, that night i was telling jason about how phoebe snow had been in a coma for over a year, and a couple days later she passed away. she should be so much better-known than she is.)

the next week i brought a whole stack of tom waits albums and “on the track” by leon redbone. i’m in love with leon redbone right now, thanks to my parents who played him during vinyl night when my cousin, aunt and uncle were visiting last summer.

last thursday i was supposed to hang out with andrea later in the day, but instead i invited her over to our cookout, and that set off a chain of events that ended with us having a bbq party with like seven people, cooking on this tiny, 1.5’ diameter grill. somehow there was more than enough food for everyone, even though we only planned for three people. andrea brought a tub of freshly-made guacamole that was out of this world. she also brought delicious salsa. i brought mushrooms, sweet onion, potatoes and bell peppers, jason had squash and we bought three ears of corn and a bag of bean tortilla chips. grilled corn is the best thing ever.

andrea and i have been friends since we were five years old, and i’ve been friends with jason since junior year of high school. somehow the two of them hadn’t seen each other in seven years. we reminisced about high school and old crushes, and how fucking cursed our graduating class is. the other day i got word that another of our classmates died in a freak accident--he either jumped, fell or was pushed out of a moving freight train in oregon.

while we were in school, one of our classmates was accidentally shot in the head and killed at a party. another died in a drunk driving accident that involved one of my best friends. on top of that, one of our classmates (who andrea and i had gone to school with since first grade) turned out to be a schizophrenic serial killer. he used to live across the street from me. andrea was on his hit list. he’s now serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole. it really seems like there’s something terribly wrong with timberline class of 2004.

this post just took a dark turn, so to end on an up note...here’s a 1983 my little pony tray table that i thrifted the other day for 99 cents. and here’s sammychong stretched out under some tall grasses, having words with me because i was spying on her: