Beth Skwarecki

Do you remember my screenhouse?

It's where I'm keeping the seedlings that are too young and tender to brave the outdoors. I've got a couple dozen each of tomatoes, winter squashes, zucchini, etc. And in the last week or so, I've found a new species.

First it was small:


Then it got bigger:


And this is what it looks like tonight:


I have no idea what they are or where they came from. Probably they're fungus of some sort.

Here's another little time lapse, a happier kind. I planted some lettuce seeds in my garden. I'm always doubtful about whether seeds will actually ever come up.

A few rainy days after planting, this is what I saw:


If I'm lucky, I thought, some of those are lettuce. Here's what it looked like a little bit later:


I've got my eye on the little round ones there. I described them to a friend and she said they sounded like they could be lettuce. I waited a few more rains, and then they looked like this:


Yay! definitely lettuce. If you're not seeing it, click on the photo.

OK, one last time-lapse and then head over to flickr for more garden pix. Sadly, my fenceless garden was not to last. The deer found my lettuce, and took great big bites out of it. I vowed to put up a deer fence ASAP; it took about a week to find the time, get the supplies, and wait for the rain to stop. We put it up today. Stupid deer.

Here is one of my innocent pre-deer lettuces:


And here it is, post-deer:


Stupid deer! Fortunately, the deer were too stupid to come back for seconds. Within a week, the lettuce looked like this:


Beautiful, isn't it? I may have salad after all.