We had such high hopes for the garden. Such trenchings and roto-tillings that went on, and beans, peas, radishi, beets, tomatoes, potatoes and roquettes that went in! And fencings. Oh, the fencings. All for nought.
The sun has not risen high enough in the sky to throw its rays over the top of the clearing of trees to reach the garden. It gets nothing more than leaf-filtered light and that is not enough. We have huge, stringy radish tops, with wee stringy roots tinged red. No radishi. The tomato plants languish and threaten rot. The beans sprung up and raced to a foot high, where they have remained - apparently unchanged - for the last few weeks. The roquette has already bolted. The basil - well - the less said about that, the better. [it involves slime and slugs] We have a ton of red-toned beet leaves, but I suspect we'll end up with red-tinged roots instead of tubers. Even the chard, which apparently doesn't care for heat and direct sun, is lying about, limp.
Meanwhile, around the corner, on the side of the house closest to the woods which I thought would be rather dark and uninteresting, this is what I found the other morning.
Sun.
FULL sun. For several hours!
I don't get it.
The problem is that it's in the part of the yard* that the builder pretty much
ruined with compacting and what apparently passed for 'topsoil' - meaning rocks and clay, which (if it ever dried out) turns to concrete. The same problem exists in front of the studio, which is the
perfect spot, and which I'd always planned to use as the garden. The problem there is that that soil
does dry out, and a jackhammer will be needed to made a dent in whatever it was Tom-builder put there, in place of dirt. . . .
sheesh.
Here's the solution: raised beds.
Okay. Plan B.
******************************
*and okay, okay! Pretty much ALL of the yard has this noxious material on it. It's particularly bad, however, close to the house.
I was horrified to discover that these are my husband's favorite flowers for summer.
Nope. Not Luther. Luther had company. That's Lilli! Here they are together. 
You'll see the difference readily. Lilli's the blonde. . . .
I like to call him Enron. Too many business ethics case studies, I imagine. 
He's a perpetual motion machine. Oh - and a barker! He doesn't much like Luther. Not yet, anyway. He's leery of him, so he barks. Luther gives him his space, so you won't see any pictures of the two of them together. By the end of the day, they were [mostly] peaceably co-existing. In separate spheres of influence.
Enron's a cutie, isn't he? 
I'm thinking he'll eventually grow into his head [and feet] - right now it looks like a full-grown shepherd's head has been photoshopped onto a puppy body. 
Here's Lilli again. With her ball. 
And here again. . . . with her ball. 
And yet again! with the ball [far right]. . . . Enron [front & center] getting a lesson from daughter-in-law Susann. 
"Hah! Ya gotta catch me, first!"
And now, a bit of a repast. Slainte! 
It got bigger, and more threatening looking. 
The king took action. Chemical warfare. sigh. . . . It reminds me of the old science fiction movies: 
We killed Jack. 
I hope they're not angry.
