Rogues
Tuesday June 30th 2015, 10:42 pm
Filed under: Family,Garden,Life,Wildlife

The next-door neighbors had a good-sized garden for years and who knows who all else is planting what.

And not just the humans.

It’s become a game: once a week, when I water the plants, I look closely around the mango tree in particular to see what the squirrels have growing next to it this week and every Tuesday I find something new. I think it’s the proximity to the compost pile that I know is somewhere on the other side of the fence and am guessing that that’s where by the occasional–

–side conversation: What do you call those pictures of an atom where the electron goes zipping around the center (motioning like a toddler trying to wind a niddy noddy). I mean the path it takes.

You mean the orbit?

THAT’s the word!

And then he goes into a detailed description of what electrons really do, not what their mug shot looks like. Okay, thanks, got my word there.

So, anyway, that kind of motion of bugs as seen from my side of the fence orbiting around that one area. The squirrels take it from there and then dig over here.

First it was strawberries, or at least, those couldn’t be any plant but strawberries that I know of but I’ll know for sure when they flower. (Hoping.)

Then it was a fig tree.

Then a week later another fig tree, with neither of those existing the week before. Not even a day’s overlap. The first I dug out oh so carefully and potted and it has thrived; the second I just yanked out, stuck it in a pot and told it sink or swim. It sank down into the dirt, then just at the moment I thought it beyond hope it rallied and now the darn thing is coming along fine. Which means I have to water it because I can’t kill it after rescuing it. Anyone local want a random-seedling fig tree?

Today, a little farther from the mango than those two were and far enough that I don’t have to pot it up this time to keep the roots far enough away, the volunteer of the week was a tomato plant. It wasn’t one of my tomato plants and it was not there last Tuesday at all (I’ve gotten to where I really look now), but it’s grown fast despite not having been watered for a week. The fact that it’s at the end of where I mulched and in the direction the water flowed to surely helped.

There was also what appears to be a new lettuce plant over by the cherry tree. Not that I’d eat it to see.

Nature seems clearly determined to make a real gardener out of me whether I want to or not.

 


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I was feeding my neighbor’s cats over the weekend, and I checked her garden, too. There may have been a rogue cherry tomato (or 2?) that landed in my tummy! I am not a gardener, not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, but I love my generous, gardening neighbors, and I love to read of your exploits! lol!

Comment by Pam 07.06.15 @ 1:35 pm



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