The green beans were beginning to move out of the pods and root—there were these fine root strands that went on for at least two inches without soil—and the egg carton pods were beginning to decompose; there was only so much space everything had to grow, so we finally planted everything but the tomatoes in the ground Saturday around noon.

Eleven okra, six cucumbers, four green beans and two radishes were planted—pods-wise. There were at least 3-4 seeds per okra; 2-3 seeds per cucumber pod; and 2 seeds per green bean and radish pods. We didn’t separate them; there wasn’t much need to. One cucumber pod was planted in the rectangular planter with the green beans, because we kind of ran out of room in the yard; we’re working with limited space right now, because there are relatives’ boats and things were a produce garden was several years back.

The tomatoes, whilst not yet planted, are outside in their pods, where the sun can hopefully help keep away any mushrooms that may grow, because…ew? From what I gathered from some articles, they’re probably not poisonous to people, but I have allergies, and…eh…mushrooms growing defeats the whole purpose, I think, of trying to grow my own food. So, with a plastic fork, I gently pulled each one up, careful not to touch any as much as possible. Mushrooms tend to grow when there is too much moisture, which means the tomatoes, whilst watered the same amount as the other plants, were receiving too much water.

Anyways, whilst I had a bucket to sit on, I’m sore from it. ? I’m not sure whether I’m feeling pain from gardening or pain from recovering from my February fall specifically, but I’m going to assume it’s a combination of both. Because we were gardening on the grassy ground, which hadn’t really been dug up before, the ground was tougher and harder to dig up…I’d stand on the shovel—in my boots, with all my weight on one foot—and no ground would be dug much, in many places. There are rocks, and when those get in the way, you have to scoot over slightly to try again—just to run into more rocks.

I also ran into two skinny worms too many. I like worms when they’re in the ground and I cannot see them, which is weird, because when I was a kid, one of my most favorite pastimes was lifting up stepping stones and looking at all the bugs beneath it—earthworms, skinny worms, roly polies. On the old farm, I had to be careful because of snakes. Bugs were always so interesting to me as a child, but as I grew older, I became less interested and more disgusted. My mom’s husband moved my mom, siblings and I away from family and to San Antonio, then to Austin, because of his work—apparently changing schools every one or two years is not attractive to school personnel, who become concerned about it and assume you were a problem child and may have been kicked out of said schools. ?

Moving on, green beans grow weird—all curled up and spiral-like.

There are two here; I noticed the green beans, instead of creating roots in the seed as the core, begin sprouting directly inside the seed. It’s really odd, I think. I also think this is more entertaining to me than it should be due to the fact that I’ve only ever gardened flowers. We’ll do flowers eventually; it’s just a matter of where to put them, the weather working in our favor, and…I guess…soreness.

We put newspapers down to kill the grass, and rocks are on top of them to hold them down; when Grandmama was trying to hose everything, the newspapers kept blowing away. Since it rained, the newspapers have been dismembered from the garden, but the plants are doing somewhat OK nevertheless.

How was your weekend?