Do You See What I See?

Hooray!!  My lettuce is growing!  I've planted two varieties and only one has shown itself so far.

 

I'm glad because my tomatoes failed completely.  I've moved them into the house because I think it's getting too cold at night for the seeds to germinate.  Our weather is still frustratingly cloudy and cool, even though the forecast was that it would be sunny and warm today.  The garden tomatoes are plentiful, but almost all green.  Since I really wanted to make spaghetti sauce this year, I'm afraid I'm going to be disappointed.  Mike wants to dig them up and bring them into the greenhouse.  Myself, I find this endeavor to be a waste of time.  The plants are heavy with fruit.  I don't see how we can dig them up without completely destroying them.  But if he's game, I say, "Go ahead."

On a brighter note (no pun intended), do you agree with me when I say there is nothing yummier in the garden than a dahlia?  I've been trying to grow them for three years.  The first year, my son bought me bulbs for Mother's Day.  We have problems with deer, and since I didn't know if the deer would eat them, I decided to plant them with the vegetables that are safely fenced off.  Then the digging critters, gophers, moles, and the like, feasted on the bulbs until, when I went to dig them up in the fall, they were all gone!

The second year, I planted them on our deck (the deer won't cross it) in whiskey barrels along with tulips.  When the tulips were finished (and deer LOVE tulips), I hoped the dahlias would come up.  (BTW, my son replaced the original bulbs with the bulbs for year two.)  They did come up, but they didn't do particularly well.  And when I went to dig them up, they were gone again!  They had all rotted because there was no drainage out of the whiskey barrels (Duh.). 

So, year three (I didn't have the heart to tell my son that the second year's bulbs had all disappeared too), we drilled holes in the whiskey barrels . . . and my neighbor gave me quite a few and so I kind of planted them all around.  The deer haven't bothered them.  Here's what I'm seeing now:

The bumble bees love them.  They seem mesmerized by them, and will sit motionless for the longest time. 

So, I've been at the computer quite a while this morning already.  Time to move along with my day.