Bambi Doesn’t Disco

As I suspected, the Potato Bugs were only the first wave.  Now, it seems that the entirety of creation has decided to make our little garden the front line in some attempted conquest over humanity.  First, our Minnesota “summer” (and I use the term loosely), had a relapse, making the outside temp plunge to the mid fifties in the evening.  Then, the rains came.  We’ve had so much rain in the past week that I’m beginning to think that Rochester is developing a monsoon season.  When the deluge finally ended, we were able to get out to the garden and discover that the prolonged period of damp ground had bred mildew and fungus that began to threaten our plants.  New bugs had made their way in, nibbling the leaves of the potatoes, cucumbers, and watermelon.  Worst of all, we discovered deer tracks, and a small path of destruction through the garden.  It seems the potato bugs were only scouts.  Mother Nature came back with a full multi-pronged attack this time, and now we have to recover.

A typical Minnesota summer day

The drop in temperatures started a few weeks ago.  We had a week of 90+ temps.  Then, suddenly, the state realized that it might lose its reputation for being a frozen wasteland, and quickly compensated by forgetting that it was technically summer.  So, we get one week with Tatooine, then a week where it feels like Hoth (yeah that’s right, a Star Wars joke…  I’m a nerd, get over it).  This did a number on our warm weather plants like cucumbers and watermelons.  Two whole cucumber mounds never germinated at all, and the other 4 only had about 1-2 plants each (we planted 5 seeds in 6 mounds), and out of 20 watermelon seeds, only 5 sprouted.  Luckily, it was still early enough to replant a few seeds.  I was even able to pick up a few watermelon starter plants at Jim Whiting’s Nursery that are actually farther along than the originally seeds we planted.  So.. take that Mother Nature!

During the last week, it seems that the state of Minnesota has decided to cos-play… as the Atlantic Ocean.  It rained every day for six days.  I was beginning to fear that the global climate suddenly shifted, giving southeast Minnesota a monsoon season.  The rains washed away nearly all of the watermelon seeds that had just been planted, leaving only the existing sprouts and recently transplanted starter plants.  The rains also severely saturated the ground, dumping more water than our crops would ever be able to use.  Thus mold and mildew set in, hitting our peas hard.  Four whole pea plants have already been lost due to being washed away by the rain, and several more are in danger from the powdery mildew.

Deer track

When the ground had dried up just enough to support my weight without sucking me down to muddy oblivion, Angela and I resumed our daily potato bug patrols.  Our first morning out, we discovered that a few more pests had moved in to enjoy a free buffet.  Cucumber beetles had just started to nibble on the…  well, the cucumbers.  Worse still, was the discovery of the distinctive heart-shaped footprints of a hungry deer.  Following the footprints, led to evidence that the deer had nibbled on the peas, beans, walked through the cuke trellises, ate half a head of lettuce, then sauntered on to the next plot by himself.  To be honest, we were lucky.  It was only one curious deer.  Had we had 3-4 actually hungry deer, we probably wouldn’t have any beans left.  However, we did learn the the Bambi can get over his dislike of the disgusting marigolds if he’s curious enough.

After discovering all of this, we headed back to Jim Whiting’s Nursery for solutions.  I’m not one to gush, but the people there have been invaluable to us, as first time gardeners.  Whether you’re just looking for the right fertilizer or fighting off a horde of angry,rabid garden gnomes, chances are someone there has a solution that they have personally used.  Well, maybe not the garden gnome thing, but trust me.  If you are ever attacked by angry, rabid garden gnomes, I’m sure that the people over at Jim Whiting’s would be able to solve it for you.  After picking up a can of some sort of “dust” that’s supposed to repel cucumber beetles, we were told that the best solution to the deer is a fence.  Repellents exist, but, as evidenced by the marigolds, if a deer is hungry or curious enough, they will ignore it.  We were told that if we couldn’t get a fence up right away, we could tie a string over the possible entrances and hang something shiny, like old CDs.   Apparently, deer are deterred by flickering reflections.  So, go ahead and add discos to the list of things that Bambi hates, along with marigolds, being “twitterpated”, and guys in “real-tree” camo.

Long story short… the garden is covered in white dust and has old blank dvds and shredded plastic bags hanging in front.  Considering that we already have 10 Eiffel Tower replicas, and headshots of Mr Bean, a head of lettuce, and Billy Dee Williams plastered on giant signs, I can say the following with a great amount of confidence:  Our garden is certainly the weirdest looking garden I have ever seen.

Next: “What are Your Preconceptions About Farmers?”

weirdest. garden. ever.

Watermelon Sprouts

My son hiding in the corn

lettuce and onions

Potato blossoms

pea blossoms

Gardening with QR Codes… and Billy Dee Williams

This week’s constant rainfall conspired to keep me indoors for most of the week.  Lacking the ability to do any actual gardening, my obsessive geek brain quickly went into project mode, creating a project that is completely and utterly unnecessary, yet successfully tricks myself into thinking that I am actually doing something productive.  Thus, project “Epic Garden Signs” had begun.

I arbitrarily decided that what our garden was missing were signs identifying the plants growing in each row.  Simply sticking the empty seed packet on a stick wasn’t an option.  I needed a project.  I needed something decidedly more complicated, so I promptly got to work trying to figure out how to make a garden sign interesting.  Simply writing out the name of the plant in an interesting font wouldn’t have held my concentration, being that I have the attention span of a gnat.  Not to mention, such a project lacked the nerdy flair that these signs needed.

Sweet Korn

After getting bored with actually thinking, I settled on creating signs that used pictures from pop-culture to communicate the name of the plant, rather than words (because language is too mainstream).  At first, this was easy: Mr. Potato Head for the potatoes, “The Onion” logo for the onions.  However, this became decidedly more difficult with lettuce and watermelon.  It seems that there is no pop-culture equivalent that correctly communicates the identity of lettuce (try using that out of context, I dare you).  Therefore, I picked the most interesting picture that showed up in a Google search (“Watermelon Death Star“, and “Head of Lettuce“).

Lando effing Calrissian!

This process hits a snag when you search for “funny cucumber” images.  Therefore, I decided to use the phrase “cool as a cucumber” to justify using the head-shot of geek culture’s coolest smooth talker, Billy Dee Williams (a.k.a. Lando Calrissian from the original Star Wars trilogy).  Although, to be honest, no justification is necessary.  I mean it’s Lando effing Calrissian!  Besides, It just so happens that we plan to plant our cucumbers directly behind our watermelon, making for an absolutely awesome coincidental perspective shot of Lando making his run on the Death Star.

Marigolds are to deer what Fire Flowers are to Koopa Troopas

On each sign I placed a qr code, linking to the Wikipedia article about that particular vegetable, making it possible for to get answers to almost any question I have about the plant by simply waving my smart phone over the sign.  For the uninitiated, a “qr code” is essentially a 2-dimensional bar-code.  Where a bar-code can only store a short set of numbers (i.e. a serial number), a qr code can carry an entire web address.  Stores, such as Best buy, place them on their product displays, instantly linking shoppers with online reviews with a simple swipe of their smartphone.

Finally, I placed a progress bar on the bottom of each sign, because a progress bar always strangely makes watching a slow process more compelling.  In other words, staring at a rectangular plot dirt becomes more interesting when I look at it as my sprouts slowly leveling up.

I’ll leave you with a few more pics.  Next step: Planting: Check… and Broken Hoes.

Black Eyed Peas

Mr. Bean can't wait to plant the beans

Lando making his run on the Watermelon Death Star

The garden so far

Happy Geek Pride Day!

I didn’t even know this was a real thing until about five minutes ago, and since this is “The Geek’s Garden”, I figure I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge it in some way.  So, if you’re a geek (and if you’re reading this blog, then you probably are) then go out and celebrate our pasty, antisocial way of life.  This is the perfect excuse to play Halo all day, run a Raid marathon on WoW, start a new D&D campaign, or bury yourself in comics.  Run a Doctor Who marathon.  Go see “Pirates”… in costume.  Watch all three Lord of the Rings moves in a row.  Whatever you do to celebrate the day, make sure to associate with as many other “geeks” as possible.

Happy Geek Pride Day!  I raise my can of Mountain Dew to all of you.