Green Monday: grow it yourself?

So we planted a garden. I use "we" only in the loosest sense; Larry did pretty much everything. This is not due to my usual laziness, however. It's because my husband, in spite of being a dyed-in-the-wool city boy, is also a garden control freak. Once our friends tilled up a chunk of ground for our use, Larry took over. He picked the seeds, he decided where the rows would be, he did the planting.

I got to pay for the seeds.

Asking to assist with simple tasks was pointless. If I even suggested something that I wanted to do, he jumped in and did it straightaway. I'm not complaining, really. I just sort of expected that this would be our little bit of outdoor togetherness. Fortune has smiled elsewhere, however.

The tomatoes look like they're in shock, the corn was carried off by creatures before it had a chance to sprout, and the potatoes are apparently on strike. Droughts are hard on everybody, what can I say? Having polar-opposite schedules doesn't help much when it comes to maintenance duties, either.

There was one area in which I had free rein and no small amount of success: the radishes. In our little clan of three, I am the only one who enjoys radishes. I therefore insisted on having a row of them planted in our garden. Said row was apparently once a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

The radishes are mutants.

I chose French Breakfast radishes, because they're small and flavorful without a lot of fire. These puppies are flavorful, all right, but small went out the window after last weeks' stormfest. Four inches of rain has led to a crop of HUGE radishes. They average roughly the length of my hand in size and look like something that should be on the end of a string in the Thanksgiving Day parade.

I'm almost afraid to go back into the garden after the mud dries up. The radishes might be working out a sequel to "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes".