vejables!

Many, many weeks ago - possibly last spring - we built a couple of boxes with the intent of making a raised-bed garden in them. But because I am a deliberate sort of person who likes to think really hard about everything before I do it and because Raphael prefers not to be an enabler (by doing it for me), we have not actually used the boxes to their full potential until now. Mainly, their job for a year has been to hold down rectangular areas of dirt over by the palm tree.

However! Yesterday I was suddenly inspired!

"Do we really need those boxes to hold down those rectangular areas of dirt over by the palm tree?" I demanded of the Guatemalan.
"No," he said.
"Then I shall plant things in them!" I proclaimed, jabbing a finger up into the air and swirling my superhero-like cape jauntily around my shoulders.
"I'll believe it when I see it," he said.

So in order to show him, I went to the plant store and here's what I bought: two types of large tomatoes, two types of cherry tomatoes, red bell peppers, yellow bell peppers, zucchini, jalapenos, and guajillo chiles. And I planted them this morning and they were still alive when I last checked on them, seventeen minutes ago.















I also planted some herbs in pots. I planted: sage, rosemary, sweet Italian basil, Mexican oregano, cilantro, Italian parsley, mint, and strawberries which technically aren't herbs at all. Not that it matters, as I'm sure they'll be dead within three days. "Hi plants!" I'll say brightly on Thursday morning, and they'll gasp audibly and fall over. Just like that.

But my goal is to not kill all my plants by next weekend. My plan is, by August, to have a big, green, fluffy garden with tomatoes the size of my head, growing all over everything, that I will eat warm from the sun, sprinkled liberally with freshly-picked Mexican oregano and sweet Italian basil and drizzled with golden olive oil which I will personally squeeze from the palo verde.

It will be awesome. My other plants will watch and applaud and give me wolf whistles. There will be confetti and dancing. The strawberries will get all flirty, and the sage will offer to do my laundry. I can't wait.

I will wash all my fresh produce down with homemade lemonade from the Meyer Lemon tree I also brought home yesterday. Yes! Now we're the type of people who have citrus trees! We have a Meyer Lemon and an Arizona Sweet Orange, and similarly to the vegetables they are both still alive which is very exciting (and kind of intimidating) for me. In fact, not only are they alive, but there are the tiniest of tiny green lemons and oranges already on the trees. They're the cutest things ever. They're like adorable mini-limes for people who are only six inches tall and need to make teensy margaritas.