Jet Lag Garden

Matt and I are back from our trip and the jet lag is a fascinating experience. It’s funny, he had a harder time adjusting to the time change when we went out but has handled our return to Portland pretty easily while I was/am the exact opposite. Help. I feel like my head is in a bowl of water.

We were only gone for ten days but apparently that’s all it takes for your garden to exPLODE with growth and produce and flowers.

When we left, all the raspberries were pale green and the sugar snap peas only had a pod or two mature enough to eat.

Now I’m afraid I won’t be able to pick the berries fast enough before they over-ripe 😩 We’ve got a family coming over with little kids this weekend, so I’ll see if I can recruit them as child labor to clean out my raspberry bushes.

This is my first year growing broccoli and I was over the moon to eat my first home grown broccoli head on the day we got back.

You couldn’t even tell there were still aphids tucked in deep to the florets as you ate it. Hey, it’s extra protein, or something.

I hadn’t intended to plant the sugar snaps with the raspberries. Raspberries actively travel across the ground and this year they decided to shoot up in my peas and salad greens grow beds. What was I gunna do? Pull up delicious raspberry plants? Obviously not. Yes, they greatly reduced the growth on my veggies by blocking them from the sun, but I’m cool with it because delicious raspberries and I also love the aesthetic of this mix of unexpected plants all entwined together.

My potato plants hella exploded, too. They’re frickin’ mammoth now.

I abide by the “the potatoes are ready to dig up after the flowers die” rule of thumb, much to Matt’s annoyance, who thinks they are probably “good enough” now. One does not simply rush potatoes, dear.

I came home to lots of poppy blossoms too. I love poppies.

These ones were accidental casualties to the weedwhacker but it’s ok because now I get to look at them inside.

Before we left:

When we came home:

As ever, I do read and appreciate all the comments, I just haven’t responded to anything in a while. I’m sorry and I keep trying to make some kind of plan of action about it but obviously I haven’t made anything work yet. But I think a lot about what you guys write and your words and insights mean a lot, especially in reply to my last autobio comic post, I am turning 39 this month.

Ok, my battery is almost dead, better hit send before it dies completely.