Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Tomatoes and mosquitoes

I finally got out in my garden this evening. My general rule about gardening is that I don't do any of it between 12 & 3. Just too stinking hot. And I didn't get out there this morning for one reason and another. But I wanted to go check on my seedlings after last night's storm. And it just now occurs to me that I did not do that. Because I was entranced by tomatoes and pummeled by mosquitoes.

I generally plant more tomatoes than anything else in my garden. I really really love fresh tomatoes. I mean REALLY love them. So does Friend Husband, although he's more partial to the little grape ones. So I plant between 20 & 30 plants a summer and also have "volunteers" come up. The volunteers are almost always the little grape ones. I don't know why I bother buying grape tomato plants because I could have my pick of volunteer grape tomatoes. Well, yes I do know. I don't want to take the chance that Friend Husband won't have the tomatoes he so loves. But we end up with half a million grape tomato plants which yield likewise many many grape tomatoes, so many that I don't get them all picked. Which lends itself to more volunteer tomatoes coming next year.

But I digress. As usual.

I was out there picking off the "suckers" (I call them "armpit hairs" because they grow between two branches and was amazed at how quickly everything is growing. I was just out there on Saturday, tying up plants and picking off the armpit hairs and here I was, needing to do it again. Oh, and I've got green beans and some peas out there to pick, which I forgot about. That's two things I should really do tonight, rats. I really don't want to go back out there. Because of the mosquitoes.

We have approximately 30 billion mosquitoes in our back yard right now. During the dry parts of the year, I collect rain water to water my gardens. We've been alternating dry and wet (seems to be really good for the tomatoes and beans!) and I've got mosquito egg-laden water sitting around. And all those mama mosquitoes are also hanging around. Boo! I would just dump out the infested water and forget about watering with rain water OR I would add bleach to the water to kill the mosquito larvae except for one thing. I think we also have frog larvae in there.

Or tadpoles. Or whatever. They look a lot bigger, fatter, and blacker than the "wigglers". I will confess to being very tickled. For one thing, a place is ecologically pretty safe if frogs are found there. Aside from that, it appeals to my geeky side to think that we've got a tadpole habitat right here, ready for study.

True confessions time: I'm so very tired of homeschooling my kids. It seems like such a chore. And no, I don't want to talk about it. It will continue, I'm just trying to find some joy in it. And this might just be the joy of the moment! Because I am already doing research and geeking out about doing a frog study with the twins, if these little guys turn out to be tadpoles.

My main concern at this point is that they are some sort of super-mutant mosquito larvae which will suck me dry as soon as they turn into adults.

1 comment:

streetmomof4 said...

Ooh, tomatoes and tadpoles and homeschool mom burnout all in one post! Fantastic! And thanks for posting on my blog. I am so with you on all of this post. My yard is covered in mosquitoes.