Adventures in Gardening

My garden so far this year has left me scratching my head.

First, there were the strange squash, one of which you can see on the left there alongside the zucchini in the photo above. I still don't know what they are. I ate one and it had little taste and was rather mealy. I probably won't eat another but I don't know what to do with them.

The next puzzle was the green beans. Last year I accidentally planted pole beans. Pole beans are fine (a) if you like pole beans, which I don't, and (b) you are prepared to grow pole beans. Pole beans have green bean vines that grow like kudzu in that they will take over and wrap themselves around anything near them if you don't have fence or a pole or something to train them along.

So when I purchased seeds I bought bush beans. I also switched brands, having had trouble with seeds last year that did not produce veggies.

My bush beans turned out to be pole beans. Many pole beans. Pole beans that wanted to reach the fence when they were planted in the middle of my little plot. Pole beans that crept into the tomatoes and into the zucchini and then tripped you up when you tried to to walk through the little garden. Pole beans that started bringing down the plastic netting that we used for fence. Pole beans from hell.

This morning, in a fit of pique, I ripped every green bean plant from the garden and tossed them away. What few bush beans were growing were so few in number as to be useless and the pole beans, if that is what they were, were doing nothing but growing vine. It took me an hour but I felt vindicated when they were all hauled to the compost pile.

See hole the pole beans were taking over the tomatoes?

What I am left with now are zucchini, strange squash, and tomatoes. The zucchini are doing well. The tomatoes are starting to ripen.

The zucchini are doing great!

However, one tomato plant has a visitor. Mockingbirds set up housekeeping in the farthest plant from the house.

The nest has at least five blue speckled eggs in it.

So this morning when I resolutely stomped out to rip out bean vines, I found myself being chirped at. And not only by mockingbirds. Not far from the garden a baby finch had either fallen from the nest or was failing its first flying lesson. Its parents were having a fit. When I looked later, though, I could not find the bird and the parents were gone. I hope it flew away.

Meanwhile, the mockingbird watched me from the nearby spruce tree, fluttering occasionally in consternation. I wasn't paying any attention and did not know until I had ripped out the pole beans that there was a nest in the tomato plant. This is because the pole beans were hiding that particular plant.

When I saw there was a nest I went inside and fetched my camera. When I came out I saw the mockingbird fly away.

As I moved toward the nest, momma bird grew a little noisy. When I tried to peer in to get a shot of the eggs, I heard a rustling of wings and the next thing I knew I was ducking, for she was headed straight for my head.

Needless to say, I quickly snapped a picture and moved away. I did not plan to hurt the little eggs; I only wanted to see. But of course momma bird did not know that.

Gardening this year is quite an adventure!