Attack of the baby green bean monsters.

On Tuesday morning, I had no green beans. This is what I saw in my garden this morning, just two days later:

They came out of the ground so fast, I'm pretty sure I could actually see them growing right before my eyes. They are now by far the biggest plants in my garden, despite the fact that they're the most recent ones to emerge.

When they first came up, I thought they looked like the sarlacc monster from Star Wars, the one Jabba the Hutt tries to feed Han Solo and Luke to. (Alex and I just watched all the old Star Wars movies...) Unfortunately, because my little beans are growing so quickly, I missed getting a picture of them in full sarlacc stage, but you can still kind of see the resemblance:

Behold the mighty Sarlacc! Obviously this picture does not belong to me.

See what I mean? That's why I'm calling them my little green bean monsters.

The rest of my plant babies are doing great, too. My early birds, the cosmos, zinnias, and marigolds, are just starting to put out their first set of true leaves. The anise hyssop just came up yesterday, as did one of my three nasturtiums. The only ones I'm still waiting on are the sage, thyme, mint, bell peppers, and the Amish Paste tomato. I'm not too worried about the herbs, since their seed packets say that they can take a long time to germinate, but I'm starting to get impatient for the peppers and tomato. The Red Pearl tomatoes just came up yesterday, but there's still no sign of the Amish Paste. Hmmm...

I don't know about you, but I think tiny plants are really cute, so here's the current batch of baby pictures:

Cosmos

Borage

Anise Hyssop (these ones are so tiny, I almost missed them!)

Marigold

Zinnia

Red Pearl Tomato (YARR!)

Nasturtium

Lemon Basil (so cute!)

I'm pretty sure this one is a weed, but it looks interesting. I wonder what it is?

 There are still a few things destined for life in terracotta pots that I have yet to plant, namely the arugula, sweet basil, and cilantro. And the morning glories. All right, all right, I'll admit: I did buy one of those pretty seed packets with the big colorful pictures that they sell at the hardware store, the ones that I coveted over the plain white Johnny's ones when I was little. They're just too pretty! And I really did want something that would climb on the porch railing and roof supports. I've always loved morning glories, so when I was at the hardware store last time and saw those brightly colored packets sitting in their neat display, I snagged one.

I remembered that when my Mom and I grew these when I was little, we nicked the seeds with a knife and soaked them in water over night to help them germinate. In my memory, this was a simple process, but in retrospect, that may have been because I was too little to be the one wielding the knife. Yesterday morning I spent several minutes nearly cutting off my fingers and sending seeds flying all over the kitchen, succeeding only in nicking one seed and cutting several more nearly in half. Either these seeds are much smaller than the ones in my memory, or they have harder shells, or my Mom is even more of a super hero than I already knew. In frustration, I turned to the internet, and discovered a useful tip. Some people recommended that instead of nicking the seeds, you just shave off a bit of the hard outer shell with a file. After raiding Alex's toolbox, I discovered that this is indeed a much easier way to go about it. Now, after soaking over night, the seeds are starting to sprout and ready to be planted!

You can see the one I nearly cut in half...

I love having a garden. I love watching it grow, and taking care of it, and anticipating what it will look like in a few days or weeks or months. I wonder how long it will be before I cut my first bouquet, or eat my first green bean? I check the weather obsessively, worrying about if it will get too cold, or rain too hard. Plants are hard because you can't just pick them up and bring them inside when the weather gets bad. But it's worth it, to be able to see up close how amazing everything is. And I guess this is good practice, for when I have an even bigger garden some day, one that can last for more than just one year. Yes, I'm still daydreaming. Of course I am! That's half the fun, isn't it?