Three Sisters Update

No, this slightly crooked picture has nothing to do with the garden.  I’ll show you those pictures in a moment.  I couldn’t decide if I wanted to put the most recent “Three Sisters” picture up first, or the one from the week prior.  So, since trying to decide would have taken forever, I put up this picture instead.  It’s part of the view from one corner of my kitchen after I’d rearranged those three pieces of furniture there – the pie safe (you can only see the back; the pegboard is the back of the pie safe), and two work table/island things.  Before, the pie safe would have been facing you (if you are the one looking through the lens in the image above).  The other day I rearranged them.

Why?

Because I wanted to move the microwave.

Nope, you can’t see the microwave in the picture.  It used to be on the counter to the left of the stove.  I decided I’d rather have the counter space than the microwave (and a big part of me wouldn’t mind doing away with the microwave all together but Bill won’t agree to it because “If I want to reheat my coffee, I want to reheat my coffee.”  Well then. 

So first I moved it to the work table that is in the foreground of the picture above.  Only at the time, that table faced the opposite direction.  We kept the toaster, the coffee pot, and everybody’s piles of stuff on it.  It was right near the door, so that part of the kitchen is a dumping ground for hats, coats, shoes, roller blades, baseball stuff, garden stuff, keys, wallets, toys, backpacks, and pretty much everything else we own.  The rest of our house is bare – all our stuff is in that one corner of the kitchen.  At least that’s how it seemed whenever I’d try to get to the toaster.

Anyway…I put the microwave there and moved the coffee pot to a different spot in the kitchen.  It’s small, so it can go pretty much anywhere.

But the microwave is big, and it really didn’t work on that narrow work table.  You need a bit of counter space in front of a microwave, I think, in case the plate or bowl or coffee mug you’re taking out is really hot and you need to set it down quickly.  If we left the microwave on that table, I imagine many too-hot plates and things would get set down with a crash onto the floor.  Or, rather, onto all the junk that resides on the floor.  In the way. 

So then I thought I should use the OTHER work table, the one that’s just wood, no stainless steel, for the microwave, because it’s wider.  Or deeper, I guess.  I hated to give up that table, but if it kept the coffee-reheating peace in our home, then I’d live with it.

But…

I didn’t want to.

So somewhere along the line, after staring all around the kitchen and rearranging things in my head, I decided to move furniture.

Moving big furniture is always a good plan because it feels really productive and you get some exercise out of it.  Even if you put everything back the way it was, you still get a bit of a workout.

Just remember to take all the fragile things off the tops of said furniture pieces, otherwise there’ll be swearing.

And no, I didn’t break anything.  I’m just giving advice.

So, moving furniture involved dusting and cleaning up debris, which was fine with me as I’m on a “put it away, recycle it, or get rid of it” kick right now. 

I moved things around (Bill helped) and ended up with the arrangement in the picture.  The toaster remained on that stainless steel table, and at first I wanted to make the microwave work there SOMEHOW as well, but I realized it was stupid and I was being stubborn.  So the microwave is now at the end of the counter next to the fridge.  So far it’s working out fine.  And the coffee pot is next to it. 

And the light!

Now that I’ve moved the pie safe over, the rest of the kitchen – and the “L” shaped work area is USABLE!  Partly because it’s all cleared off, but also because the pie safe isn’t blocking the light.

My kitchen seems more open now – bigger, even.

Yay!

And now, after that long digression, here’s the garden update.

I took this picture (below) on June 18th.  You can see the two 4x4 raised beds (surrounded by overgrown grass at the time) with squash, corn and beans planted and growing.

And here (below again) is how it looked one week later:

They’re getting HUGE!

I’m so excited.  Everything’s thriving, though, as usual, the squash plants are plotting to overthrow the rest of the yard.

  

There they go – off and running.

I love squash plants.  They’re so bold.

Oh!  And we also harvested our garlic recently.  A total of 56 heads. 

That’s most of them.

And that’s about all I have time for this morning.

How are your gardens growing?

Comments

[Liz]

My pumpkins are taking over my yard. I just keep mowing over the vines. Then I have to hop the fence and trim all of the vines that made it into the neighbors yards. I'm sure they love me and my pumpkins, er not.

[Robyn]

Ours has mostly been eaten by the slugs and the snails. In the past we have tried "softly softly" approaches to dealing with them - pick up, and throw as far away as possible. however, I suspect that they have been wandering back, bearing grudges. Following the discovery that all 5 of our courgette plants (You call them Zucchini don't you?) had been eaten to the ground overnight, we are now employing the "Swear at them and cover the little blighters with salt" approach. They're not enjoying that much, I can tell you. Hmmm.

[Pamela L.]

Have you considered having the squash vines go up a trellis?

[Jayne]

Funny you should say that, Pamela. One of our squashes has fled the raised bed and is climbing the picket fence now, in two places. My only concern with this one is that the squashes (or pumpkins, really) will be too heavy for the fence. Time will tell!