Year End Review, or, At Least the Fence is Still Standing

Don't get me wrong, it's still broken, the fence. But while it may be listing in spots, rotted in others and individual boards may have defected in the night like cowards, the fence is, by and large, still there.

And that, I'm sorry to say, counts among our notable achievements for Fencebroke's 2014 gardening season. Additional triumphs include: buying a wheelbarrow and eating tomatoes. Rather a lot of tomatoes, if I recall. The fact that a lot of tomatoes grew to be eaten at all was in itself a triumph, but here the credit must go more to an unusually favorable growing season than to our own efforts. These same ideal conditions led to a bumper crop of unappetizing, difficult to prepare but aesthetically appealing—in an alien spaceship sort of way—summer squashes. I don't know if that's an achievement or not.

In evaluating FPG's performance (which graded out at a solid C/C-, for those seeking a touch of arbitrary pedagogy in their garden bloggery), such factors were considered as: planted vs. successful crops (one wormy rutabaga doth not a stew make); percentage of beds/edging torn up in frustration; number of free plants successfully shoehorned into the planting scheme; is there a planting scheme?; number of zip-ties used; number of “mulligans” used; number of stumps removed; number of free plants removed from the planting scheme; stop taking home free plants from work; number of trips to the ER/urgent care; percentage of projects resulting in trips to the ER/urgent care; calm moments of grateful reflection vs. calm moments of grateful reflection interrupted telling Daisy not to eat dirt; tools lost; toys lost; plant-tags lost; patience lost; focus lost; look—a hummingbird!; number of laps run by screaming toddlers; remonstrations not to play in the bird bath; OK, fine, play in the bird bath; vines trellised; vines admonished; vines punished; toddlers trellised; toddlers admonished; footballs thrown vs. frisbees thrown; wading pools inflated; leaves crunched underfoot; stolen moments in the sun …

OK, this year wasn't so bad.

Don't Go in the Kitchen

It's December here at Fencebroke, and the grounds resemble nothing so much as a house-party the morning after. In the hour or so of rain-free daylight the Northwest typically portions out for the month, I can be found wandering around outside—the dazed and regretful host of said party— miffed that no one bothered to clean up after themselves.

A few storms must've crashed the party, at some point, like drunken frat boys, their blowdown scattered like broken furniture. And some jackass frost snuck in when I wasn't looking: just look at all those dead annuals. How hard is it to pull a few on your way out? Then there's—whoa! What happened out front? Who invited the deciduous gang? Jeez, OK, if everyone would just spend five minutes helping, we could have these leaves raked up in no time. No? No volunteers?

So I divide my precious window of time into equal parts cursing at missing plant tags (would guests really stoop to such petty theft?), tossing Christmas lights over everything to disguise the mess, and desultorily hacking at dormant perennials—once spirited members of the previous seasons' debauch, now rudely undressed and passed-out all over the yard.

And the veggie garden … ugh, I don't even know where to start. In the house-party scenario, it's like the kitchen. You all know what I mean. It was, like, party headquarters in there just a few short weeks ago. Now it's—oh god, the sink! Well, it just goes to say: you should always at least clean the kitchen before you stumble off to bed.

Don't anybody go in there until I say it's all clear.

Missing Garden!

Disappeared sometime last week. Responds to “Fencebroke”. The garden is youngish, something of a mutt, and can be identified by an excess of kale planted everywhere.

We have looked everywhere for it, but our search has been hindered by endless drifts of fallen maple leaves. As soon as we rake up a section hoping to spot our beloved garden hiding beneath, it is buried by another wave of leaves.

It cannot have gotten far, as it is a garden with limited mobility. We have not ruled out the possibility of a garden-napping, but to date have received no ransom demands. More likely, it has merely gotten lost somewhere out front or back. The leaves just keep falling; the poor thing must be so afraid!

Please help reunite us with our Fencebroke. If you have any information that can help, or if you happen to spot a scared-looking fruit tree or two beneath a pile of leaves, do not hesitate to call, day or night.

We can offer little money as reward, but rest assured you will be paid handsomely in kale.

...Pumpkins, I guess.

And that concludes this edition of “What's Going on in the Garden?”

Yeah, October is always a weak issue.

I don't know, I think I might have seen mums out there, somewhere (who am I kidding, I've been swimming in them for weeks now at work). But mums are basically a bad punchline to a long year of hard work. They're a consolation prize. Thanks for participating this year, please take a pot of mums on your way out.

Seriously, please take some mums, there are way too many here. If you don't take them, I'm handing out mums to trick-or-treaters, that's all there is to it.

Waste Not

It's the peak of the Summer harvest here at Fencebroke. This year, a conscious emphasis on edible plantings, together with a long, warm season have led to bumper crops across the board. This has been our best, most productive year so far!

Critics may sully this claim by pointing out that this has been our only year so far, but if I checked myself every time a garden critic lashed out in semantic ire, well then I'd never get anything done, would I? Those jerks are everywhere.

As it is, I'm far too busy harvesting, cleaning, preserving and stuffing the fruits of our labor into my face. At a certain point, however, when one's stomach is full and the cornucopiae are still bursting, one must get creative in putting the bounty to good use, lest it rot and succumb to painful, criminal waste.

We tolerate no such crime at FPG. For example, at first glance it may appear that I have planted too many tomatoes—not true! To begin with, our trusty assistant Daisy must “inspect” a good 70% of all low hanging fruit in order to meet our rigorous quality control standards. Her “bite and spit” inspection method may seem more destructive than edifying, but you can't argue with the results: to date we have not received a single citation for … bad … tomato growing. Uh, that is, no ... tomatoing violations. (Wait, gardening citations are a thing, right?) In any case, after her inspection, any tomatoes that survive our ceaseless barrage of caprese cravings are boxed up and taken to the local theater district, where they are sold to ill-tempered theater patrons as ammunition to hurl at less-than-nuanced performers. Hey, don't judge; the way I see it, our tomatoes play an important role in cultural critique.

Our other surpluses are put to equally important uses. Excess carrots are tied to strings and sold at farmer's markets as motivational tools for stubborn mules; any leftover quinoa is funneled into our homemade, frozen gluten-free waffle side business; peppers are dried and used to flavor a passable cool-ranch snack chip; collard greens, grown massive and too tough to eat, are lovingly sewn together and sold as organic bed sheets; patty-pan squashes are taken down to the University and pawned off as custom discs for rabid disc-golf enthusiasts; likewise Brussels sprouts to hacky-sackers; long oriental cucumbers can be chained together to make a convincing pair of nunchucks; and, perhaps my favorite, any extra beets we are left with are boiled, pureed, and given to Daisy as an easy way for her to express her dissatisfaction with the bland color choices of Fencebroke's interiors.

And there you have it! With a little creativity and good business sense, nothing from your garden need be wasted!

Now, can I interest anyone in a few pairs of cukechucks?

Scenic Gateway to Beans

Come in, your wildest Beans fantasy awaits!

Welcome to beautiful Beans!

We hope that you enjoy your visit to Beans, where opportunities for recreation and leisure abound. Observe ripening beans in colors of green, yellow and purple. Pass through the scenic Gateway to Beans and be playfully slapped in the face by dangling beans. Pass through the other direction and do it again! Try picking some beans. Try eating some beans! Look at the beans!!!

Yes, here at Beans we offer all manner of experiences specially tailored to meet the demands of a modern Beans lifestyle.

Watch the beanstalks grow!

Don't be fooled by upstart Beans copycats, like Corn, which claims to offer a complete vacation package but falls short in areas like scenic gateways and beans. There can be only one Beans.

Do you ever find yourself wondering: how can I make my life more beaningful? If so, look no further than Beans, which promises more beans per stay than that imposter, Corn.

Meet the Beankeepers themselves, signing beans and chatting with guests every Friday and Saturday night. Discuss the many merits of beans with like-minded beanfolk as evening fills Beans with lovely moonlight.

Sleep outside, beneath the gently swaying beans of Beans, and awake refreshed, invigorated by the close company of so many beans.

Enjoy a world class menu; here at Beans, we offer a wide range of authentic bean dishes (much imitated by those thieves over at Corn) such as: Warm Beanbread, Beanflakes, Bean Fritters, Bean-on-the-Cob, Creamed Beans and, everyone's favorite, Popped Beans around the campfire.

Wow, what an opportunity for fun and beans! We are now accepting reservations. Don't wait, stop by Beans today!

If you are satisfied with your visit, please recommend Beans to friends and family. We look forward to your stay!

Please come visit again!

Drought Barrel Addendum

The drought barrel now overlooking scenic Lake Foot-in-Mouth.

It would seem Mother Nature did not appreciate the tone of the previous post. A mere few days after my sarcastic tribute to western Washington's seasonal drought, we were hit with record rainfall. In the span of an hour or two, Fencebroke's previously derided "drought barrel" was overflowing with rainwater, creating a small lake in its footprint (I'll go ahead and christen this new water feature "Lake Foot-in-Mouth"). This has gone on for a couple days now. The plants and the gardener are happy, the writer thoroughly disgraced.