Artie chokes four for a dollar

That's the punchline of an old joke about a bandit named Arthur who, while robbing a grocery store, strangled four people, but only got away with one dollar. The clue that it's an old joke is the idea that you can actually get four artichokes for a buck.

These artichokes will bloom later in the summer.

Two of our artichoke plants continue to survive, putting out a handful of chokes each year. We don't harvest them because they're tough and not very big. They also attract aphids like crazy. I spray soapy water on them a few times a year to keep them under control. I also use the hose's hard spray to wash them off from time to time.

In other garden news, I got all the tomatoes planted on Thursday. The day was cool and overcast, a good combination for planting seedlings. We're expecting a relatively hot and dry few days now. I think the tomatoes will like that.

Trépieds

I'm trying something a little different in this year's vegetable garden. In past years, I planted the tomato stakes vertically, then watched them lean as the plants grew heavy. I'd have to pound wooden stakes into the ground and tie the leaning tomatoes to them to keep them upright. Lots of bother.

Twelve tomato stake tripods. Three plants per tripod. They're tied together at the top with twine, and spaced farther apart than they look.

The snow peas are the knee-high plants with white blossoms growing against the garden's back edge.

So, this year I decided to try tripods. I pushed the metal stakes into the ground at an angle and in groups of three, then tied the tops together to form tripods. So far, they seem pretty stable. But the proof of the pudding, as they say, will be in the eating. And that's still a few months away.

Another view. The two little plants in front are zucchini.

The next job is to put the tomatoes in the ground, one plant at each leg of each tripod. I will get started on that today. There are thirty-six "legs" which means thirty-six tomato plants. I will didn't have leftovers. By the way, the snow peas I planted back in March are blooming and making pods. I planted a row of flat green bean seeds yesterday, and two zucchini plants are in the ground. This year's garden is shaping up.

Going nowhere fast

I saw this snail snoozing on the dew-soaked top rail of the back gate a few days ago. Its head was tucked away inside the shell, and there was no sign of movement. Later I noticed that it had gone.

Un escargot.

I took Tasha to the vet on Tuesday for her annual vaccinations. She's gained a little weight since last year, but the doctor didn't think it was serious. Tasha is two years old now and her growing stage is over. The vet recommended we watch what Tasha eats. The Dentastix we give her for her teeth (recommended by another vet in the office) are apparently very caloric. As are the biscuits she gets after her daily walks. Otherwise, she gets less than a cup of kibble and a pouch of wet food each day. Not exactly a heavy diet.

Before they're completely gone

I've had this photo sitting around for a week already. It's a pivoine (peony) flower just about to open. Now I realize that the flowers have opened and that they're starting to fade, dropping petals all around the plant. And, of course, I have no photos of the flowers in their glory, at least not this year.

We have two red peony plants in the back garden. They come back every year.

It's time to plant the vegetable garden. Ken did the second pass with the rototiller on Monday and the ground is ready. I've been hardening the plants off by putting them outdoors during the day. Today I'll at least get the zucchini in, then I'll spend the next few days dealing with the tomatoes, not to mention the peppers and eggplant seedlings that our friend K. gave us.

Wild white

When we had the greenhouse installed in 2016, I ripped out some old rose bushes on that corner of the house. I didn't get all the roots, and they keep trying to come back. But another rose has shown up, too. It's a wild rose, I think, called églantine (sweet briar). They grow all over out on the margins of the vineyard and in abandoned parcels. Their flowers are most commonly pink. These, however, are white.

Our white wild rose being visited by an insect.

So, the question is: where did it come from? I read that the seeds of these plants are distributed by birds, so that's the most likely answer. Why is it white? I dunno. I did notice a few white-flowered églantines out among the pink ones during my walk this morning.

They're going to flower

This is the second year for this patch of sauge sclarée (clary sage) that we planted around the real fake well. The first year, the plants were relatively small and they didn't flower. This year, they've grown up higher than the walls of the well and are covered in flower buds.

A flower bud on one of our clary sage plants.

I'm hopeful that these won't die back after flowering. I read that the plant is normally biennial, but can live longer in milder climates. Whatever happens, they re-seed themselves relatively easily. In fact, our plants all sprouted from one parent plant. Ken dug them up and potted them before we transplanted them around the well.

Cuckoo spit

I kid you not. I read that the foam produced by what we commonly call "spittlebugs" in English is called le crachat du coucou in French. Cuckoo spit. Since cuckoos and spittlebug foam both appear in springtime in France, their coincidence may be the origin of the nickname.

Patooey!

Friday's predicted rain and thunderstorms didn't materialize. I ran some errands in the morning, including taking the recycling to the collection point, getting some wine at a winery in the next town over, exchanging empty butane tanks for full ones (for the kitchen stove and bbq grill), and picking up some surplus vegetable seedlings from a nearby friend. That friend also gave us some more rhubarb from her garden, and Ken will get some strawberries from the market in town this morning, so I'm already thinking of making a pie.