Garden Blogger's Death Day -- August Edition

Kate and Crew over at Gardening Without Skills has deemed the last day of each month as a way to air our dirty gardening secrets to expose what really goes on behind all of our beautiful harvest photographs...ok, so it's Granny's harvest photographs, but who's keeping score.

Death this month for us came in stages. Some of the death was by a nefarious fiend who yet remains unnamed, others forceably inflicted, and still other deaths were by ignorance or behalf of the gardener.

You can see the damage to the collards in the posts below. It seems like there's a trifecta of trouble causing entities in the yard. My broccoli from a few days ago was obviously nibbled on by the dog. Later that week, some cauliflower stalks were reaped and left there whole which makes me think cut worm. Then this weekend the collards in both the other corner yard and the side yard were all eaten entirely. You can see those pictures in the previous post. It's very odd that whatever went after the collards was very particular and ONLY got the collards and not the other plants as well.

This carnage was from earlier this month. When it came time to get the fall crops in, the poorly performing peppers and the moderately successful okra had to go. I went ahead and pulled out the bush beans in the other corner yard because they were irritating me with how small and thin they were. No more bush beans for me, my friends.

Lastly, a death by gardener ignorance. Venus fly traps are not supposed to be allowed to flower. Flowering = death, I now understand. The flowers were so beautiful that who could have known the trauma that was to ensue.
Good night, Wolverine. Sweet fly catching dreams.

Got Collards?

I don't.
All 9 of my collard plants in the other corner yard and this side yard have been shorn off at the stem.

The dog has been exonerated. This last crime was perpetrated in the side yard...outside of the fence. It's odd...why single out the collards? I'm not complaining; I'd rather only sacrifice a few things to the vegetable gods and not the entire fall planting.

Oh well. More room for other stuff, I suppose.

Progress and Potatoes

You all were right! I replanted all of the kohlrabi and sure enough it sprouted perfectly. I suppose it was just too hot that first go around. The first round of radishes are bulbing up and the lettuce is getting larger and larger and will most likely get transplanted this weekend. The only problem is that even though I had a system at first, now I don't remember which of the three types of lettuce I planted where. It will be an adventure for sure, I just hope the ones I pick as the romaine go behind all of the others. ;)

I don't think I planted the rutabaga and beets deep enough because they're getting rather leggy. I'm going to try to hill some extra soil around them to see if it will help since I'm thinking they won't bulb up as leggy as they are.

The cucumbers have begun climbing which is nice, and the beans in the side yard are starting to show little beans. The zipper peas/cream crowder peas are flowering more and more each day which is just exciting. The pods are sticking out to the side like alien arms. I don't know why I thought they'd hang like beans or peas, but they're not.

I think I may have mentioned this issue with the sweet potatoes a long, long time ago. There's one plant that seems to have been mottled from the start. Ignore the holes in most of the leaves and notice the leaf in the center. All of the leaves on that one vine are mottled with lighter green skin and darker purple veins. Earlier in the season, I thought it was a disease, but it's never transferred to other plants, so I left the vine alone. Here's another leaf also in the center:

It looks also as if all of the new growth from that one vine is also of that same coloration. Anyone experience this before?

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Harvest Monday - Of a Sorts

Not so much a harvest Monday so much as a Monday of harvests to come. I did pick three tomatoes today, and I had to shepherd more little assassin bugs off to other green ones in order to pick them. The toms were small, but just enough for a salad. I keep threatening to put in three times the number of tomato plants I have, but these two give us just enough for what we use. Yes, I could use the excess for canning.....Maybe I'll plant a round in May and then another round in June to extend the harvest as much as I can.

Hopefully fall harvests will pick up soon. Here are the lettuce starts I put in little peat pots. I planted some in the ground, but it's just too hot out there to germinate. These were started inside and then moved to partial shade.
The first round of radishes look like they're bulbing up nicely.

The cucumbers are growing daily. Still no runners nor flowers, but those will hopefully come in time. Now, if I could only convince the pollinators to come back, we'd be okay.

That's how things are shaping up around here. It's just a whole lot of waiting. I replanted the kohlrabi, don't know if I mentioned that, and put in some collards. The beets didn't germinate well at all, and the rutabaga is hit or miss. I'll let those get some height and then replant the empty spaces either with either red or more black radishes. I don't much like the black ones, but they sure are big!

The morning comes early; sweet gardening dreams.

Zipper Peas/Cream Crowder Peas Part III

The zipper peas are starting to flower! At every joint there are a cluster of flowers.
The flower itself never really opens like a green pea or a bean flower. These are a beautiful, creamy, yellow mustard colored flower that stays closed until it falls from the stem.
Here's what we've been waiting for, sports fans. The very first start to what will hopefully be zipper pea heaven. Of course, I don't have many plants in the ground, so there will never be a 'bountiful' harvest, but I'm hoping for a couple of handfuls.

Maybe I should send some to Granny to grow for me and ship back. She'd get over 100 pounds easy just by standing there giving them stink-eye. ;) We all saw what she did to that pepper, didn't we?

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

The Return of the Stone Cold Killer

He lurks in the shadows. He strikes without notice and leaves nary a trace except for the occasional footprint, so light you pay it no mind until you spy a leaf with insect damage. The realization stops you dead in your tracks. The leaf on the left is severed. The leaf on the right is chewn off, the smallest shred still clinging to the stem. He has returned.



The cauliflower in the other corner yard has been visited by the same fiend. The stone cold killer knows no bounds. He attacks with abandon any small, succulent transplant left helpless by an absent gardener. This garden's terror is particular in his hunt. He chooses to concentrate his efforts and prey on solely tomatoes and brassicas. Their scrumptious stalks satisfy him initially, but he'll hunt again.



He always does.

It's been several months since he's struck with such virulent force. The tomatoes fended him off all summer, loosing only a stem or two, but he's conquered the cabbage and cauliflower once again.

And he knows he's done wrong.

At least I have two more transplants I can set out tomorrow. ;)

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Cabbage Crazy, but Who's Got the Beets?

Do all beets have such a low germination rate? I tried to grow beets this spring to no avail and I've planted them again now. They're sprouting about one per 10 seeds planted, but at least the ones that are sprouting are growing well. I didn't know if this was common with beets or just with the seed packet I bought at the end of the season last year. They've been stored well, but they are last year's seeds. I wonder if that's got a lot to do with it as well. The kohlrabi isn't germinating either. I planted a 2x3 space of them earlier this month, but only two have germinated.

Not that I've ever tried beets or kohlrabi; Granny just makes the beets look and sound so good and Dan mentioned he liked kohlrabi so it was worth a shot. If they don't pan out soon, I can plant something else there that will mature quick enough to avoid the frosts.

The square from the liberated cabbage seedling was replanted along with an additional four squares that the okra was removed from. This will be my third season trying to grow cabbage. I haven't been successful yet, but now I've got cabbage in each of the three gardens so something is bound to produce. It's just a matter of finding the right conditions, I'm thinking.

The Alaska peas are flowering nicely and a few pods are thickening up. I replanted some lettuce in cell packs that never germinated and thinned some radish seedlings today. The yellow pear tomato was chopped back yesterday. Sadly, most of it had to go for once I started removing the fallen branches, others came crashing down as well, but it does allow there to be more light on the beans, so it's not such a bad thing. I'm also getting 1-2 tomatoes a day off of the celebrity and heatwave plants. It seems like the tomatoes planted in July are producing so much more than the ones I planted in late April (and already removed). It's such a shame that the pests are greater now as well. Maybe I should look into planting the toms in May/June instead and riding the fence of production and bugs. Sounds like a plan to me!!

The tomatoes are nice, don't get me wrong, but I'm really looking forward to getting food from the garden again. I forgot how nice it was for meals to be dictated by the harvest!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

The Tomatoes are Falling! The Tomatoes are Falling!

So the tomatoes do a poor rendition of Chicken Little, but the dog's got his impersonation spot on.

We had a storm blow through here yesterday afternoon. It was a real toad floater, but I honestly didn't think the wind was that bad. I got home too late yesterday to check the garden, but when I finally got out there this afternoon, I saw this:

My yellow pear that once stood to the top of the railing has broken its main stems and is fallen over. The now dwarfed tomato cage is still holding some of it up and I'm almost certain some of the tomatoes on the bent branches will ripen. I already assaulted it this weekend and cut off any limbs without tomatoes in an effort to corral the bugger, and it looks like more will be coming off tomorrow as well if the damage is more severe than I now think. I just love yellow pear tomatoes, but I've never in my life had a plant that produced such large ones, nor grew so tall. It's certainly the difference in having it in a SFG and in a pot.

The celebrity and heatwave plants are also giving up the goods now. There are no new blossoms to speak of and the plants are riddled with aphids and white flies that I can't get rid of to save my life, but they're doing fine for me now regardless. I'll let them play out and then plant a fall crop in their stead.
Someone saw fit to relieve the garden of two cabbage seedlings in the last three days. I can still either start new ones or direct sew them, but I'll indulge in some grumping anyway.

I'm hoping to have a larger update with pictures this weekend. Things are really all in a holding pattern until the fall crops kick up. Those sweet potatoes, however, have really decided to join the party. I keep having to wind the vines around each other. It seems to grow faster than Kudzu at this point.

The morning comes early, and the under-eye concealer is getting thicker by the day.
Sweet gardening dreams.

Who's Been Eating My Blueberry Bushes?!

Found these little buggers today. There's four of them that have munched this leaf into oblivion. Any idea what in the world they could be?

They're pretty ugly, I'll tell you that much.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Trying to Reconstruct Ribbit's World... :)

Well, the advice I was counting on came through, and EG brought my world crumbling down.

;)

Putting pole beans in both squares in the side yard isn't going to work like I want it to since I can't reach them from the back end. I knew it, but it took EG to bring me down to earth. I've got it that way right now, so if it works, I may try it again, but I know good and well it's going to be a struggle that's not worth it. So we all know what that means:

I get to plan again! I actually think drawing out and planning the garden is half the fun of actually growing the stinkin' veggies to begin with.

That side yard's such a good place for things that need a ton of sun, and I'd love to put some melons there, but anything vining is out because it keeps you from being able to mow precisely there and it gets messy looking. I may put some more zipper peas there. It's going to take a TON of those suckers to get as much as I really want. Know of anything else that can take a small space in front to grow for the summer? Tomatoes are too big and peppers too tall.

Today I pulled out the peppers which never produced well. They grew beautifully tall and green, just never put out the fruit. They were replanted with broccoli seedlings, but I'm wondering if the seedlings are going to take. They didn't come out nicely from the cell pack I started them in, so I'm wondering if the tiny roots were damaged too much. I also took out the bush beans in the other corner yard. They frustrated me with the teeininesy beans and wasted space. I put beets and radishes there instead. The okra had played itself out as well and in its place I put cabbage seedlings. Two of those seedlings also went in the side yard. Cauliflower seedlings went in the other corner yard with the sweet potatoes and one butternut squash that's growing since all of the pollinators seem to have vacated the premises once the zucchini was removed. It makes me concerned for the new cucumbers that were planted. I'll have to be good about pollinating by hand which will be rough to do in the dark before I leave for work.

The fall garden is taking shape! It's very cool.

I'm Still Croakin'

Now that I've gone back to work and the garden's slowed down a bit, postings may be a few days apart, I'm afraid. I just can't keep up. It's just the first week of school, but so far this year I have 163 students. Hopefully they'll hire more teachers after Labor Day, but I'm not so sure. The amount of kids in the classroom really isn't a problem. I've got one class of 36 where I have two at a front table and one at my desk, but they're all so good natured about it. It's the grading that's going to be the end of me. So far this week we've done two daily assignments (12 and 15 questions respectively) a 15 question quiz and then a 50 question test of which only the quiz and half of the test were matching/multiple choice. Everything else is essay or short answer. Multiply it all out by 163 kids and that's some major grading time that's not worked into your work day schedule.

I went out and shot this pitiful film of some of the garden today. I'm really looking for advice on how to run a trellis next year on the side box for the POLE beans. I know the film says 'bush' beans, but I was concentrating so hard on not saying 'bush,' that I did it anyway.

I won't be able to get around to the back end and I'm worried I'll cut off my access to the back row of squares. Wondering if any of y'all had any other ideas.

Enjoy the film.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

You may really want to hit play and just walk away. Just walk away while this beast buffers. I didn't mean for it to get so huge.

Better Late Than Never - Harvest Monday!

I didn't think I'd have a harvest Monday for today, but then I went outside to help train the beans up the rest of the string and found this!

Well, the tomatoes, that is. Woohoo! It's only 1.8 lbs of tomatoes, but it's good for me. My harvest basket has been doubling as a back to school materials receptacle since we haven't been harvesting much these days.

Here's the good part. Look at THIS!

You know what those are!? Zipper peas!!!

No, they're not from my garden. *drat!* My neighbor offered me more of hers and I held her kid for ransom until she complied. She cooked these for me, but if you cook zipper peas for about 40 minutes with either a beef bullion cube or ham hock and tons of pepper, it makes for good eating. Leave some snaps, however. Snaps are good. I can't wait until I have some of my own to cook up. Those plants are getting larger each day, but there's no way I have enough for a meal let alone to save.

I had to share these, because it's my blog and I can if I want to. ;)

The girl got a princess costume as a gift. Since she's so much of a runt, it swallows her whole. Here she is posing for her prom picture:

The boy figured she needed saving. She disagreed:

She did let him 'save' her and busted a gut lauging (the reason the picture of her is quite unflattering), but that boy takes his job as a savior very seriously.

He had his first day of kindergarten today. I freaked slap out when he didn't get off the bus with the rest of the kids. He had fallen asleep on the bus.

Poor, sleepy kid.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Bush Vs. Pole Beans: Are Bush Beans Worth It?

If pole beans provide beans all season which are longer, meatier, and better tasting, why bother with the bush beans? What can bush beans provide better except for a slightly earlier harvest?

I'll have12-18 sqft of trellisable space for beans next year. I'm just weighing if I should even plant the bush beans or fill the space with other yummy goodness.

Opinions?

On a side note, right now I've got two types of pole beans planted: Fortex and Kentucky Wonder. Neither are flowering yet, but the Fortex is vining like it is fulfilling a mission, but the KW is very lackadaisical about it. If you coax it to climb, stand on one leg, stick your finger in your nose and hold your mouth right, it may catch on. Is KW always a bear to train to run?

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

It's Been a Long Time

Sights like this are unusual as of late, so I'm giddy.

Woohoo!!! Hopefully it will mature before the frosts.
Woohoo! Woohoo!!! Second round of bush beans. I harvested them last time when they were about this big. Do I need to let them get bigger?

Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo!!! These are the Alaska peas. I can't believe they're flowering in this 90 and above heat.

Haven't seen much of this in the corner yard recently, so it's something to be excited about. I can also already see little radish and cucumber seedlings popping up and the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings are getting their true leaves. There are two tomatoes that will come out tomorrow or Saturday. They're the largest I've gotten so far. Are you getting your fall crops in?

The morning comes early, but not before I finish watching the best movie ever made.

Raising Arizona.

HA! I love that crazy film.

Zipper Peas/Creme Crowder Peas Part II

After I decided to grow some zipper creme crowder peas, I tried to do my research on them and found there's just not much out there on them. Most of what I found gave conflicting information and only served to confuse me more.

Since I posted about them a few weeks ago, I've noticed that between 6 and 10 people a day google zipper creme crowder peas and wind up on this blog. Who would have figured there was so much interest in them? I figured I'd keep the zipper pea progress updated to help out anyone who stopped by.

Here are the way the peas look now.

Despite the terrible picture, you can certainly see these are NOT vining plants. This was part of the conflicting information I came across. Some sites said they were vining and some not. I'm wondering if other "crowder" peas are vining and zipper peas just got lumped in there, but that's just a guess.

As they grow, they're forking off and sprouting new leaves from this fork. I don't have any flowers yet, but I'm hopeful since they seem to be growing strong.

They're a fantastic, way too often overlooked pea.

Fun stuff on the way tomorrow. It's been a while since I've been able to share FLOWERING vegetables with you!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

The Fall Garden Goes In - Garden Planning

Much of the fall garden went in today! I'm a little bit hesitant about putting in the cold weather crops this early in August, which can be pretty brutal around here, but I'm hopeful they'll do well since the garden only gets 5 hours of sun during August. Once the leaves fall when it cools off, things will get about two to three hours more sun which will be nice.

Most of you have probably moved on to planning your gardens on computer programs like Autocad or the Google Sketch-up. I've even seen ones done in Exel or Powerpoint. Honestly, I look at those programs and hyperventilate. I still rely on paper and pencil. I've always worked with graph paper, but that meant paper all over the place. This year I found a spiral, graph paper notebook. I have three 'gardens' and they all can't fit on one page. Now I can have a page for each and just flip between them. What's better, is that I can color coordinate the grids with the season and have them ALL in the same place so when I planted the late summer beans that will still be producing when the fall garden goes in, I went ahead and marked them on the fall chart as well so I won't plan on putting anything there.

My fall grids are red. This picture is only of the grid for the corner yard. The other two gardens are on the pages after this one. Today I planted all of the lettuce (romaine, black seeded simpson and iceberg), red and black radishes, rutabaga, beets, and carrots. I went ahead and splurged on the pelleted carrots. I'm a spoiled, happy girl that I did. The circles say 'Done' and the date things were planted.

I love it because I can take it with me to the park when the kids are playing or just in front of the television at night. It's perfect in pencil because I can change it at will.

I've got places in the bottom box that are Xed out. That's where the sweet potatoes are. They'll stay there for some time still. The okra in the top box is there for a while longer as well. There are two that aren't producing anymore that I'll most likely cut out this weekend, but the rest will stay a while longer. The broccoli and cabbage is another story. I wanted to put them one per square, but I honestly think staggering them is going to be better for them. The peppers will have to come out of the broccoli's space ready or not, but they've got several weeks before the transplants are ready.

Mornings are back to normal at the Ribbit house. We're off of our furlough tomorrow which means that we're up at 5:00 AM. I did go to school and organized my classroom, fetched 160 books (I'll have more kids than that, but 160 is good for a start), and hung things back on the wall and cleaned up glass from where my pictures fell off of the wall over the summer. We start back full force tomorrow. I suppose it will keep my mind off of waiting for the kohlrabi to germinate. 15-21 days!!! Seriously? That's ridiculous.

Sweet gardening dreams.

Bumblebees For Sue and Empty Pots

Before we left on vacation, Sue asked to see the boy's gardening tools that I had commandeered. She said she loved bees and asked for a picture. It's a long time in coming, I know, but here's the picture, Sue. It's a little scratched on the paint and rusted, but it works great for the small spaces of Square Foot Gardening.
On the garden front today, I emptied out the two potted tomato plants in the front yard. They were looking sad and not really producing anything worthwhile. I also emptied three soybean pots that had long since died. I pulled the boy's corn as well. He got one ear that was marginally edible. He was crazy excited, actually, more so than I would have thought. I've saved it, but I'm almost worried he'll ask to eat it. I'm half thinking that when he does, I'll crack open a can of corn or replace it with one from the store. He was just too amazed for me to flip it over and show him that half of the kernels didn't fill out properly.

The radishes, beets, cucumbers and SSpeas are sprouting nicely, but I think it's just too hot for the lettuce and carrots. I'm not concerned about the carrots, but I may try to sprout some of the lettuce inside the house and transplant it. I'm not sure direct seeding in this heat will work.

I pulled three ripe tomatoes off of the celebrity plant today. They were tasty. We even threw some of them and some okra into a fried rice dish for tonight.

School starts tomorrow for both me and the boy. He's very excited and determined to do well. I'm proud of him. As for me, I'm looking forward to getting back to kicking ignorance in the face, one day at a time.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Lush Green Growth? - Harvest Monday!

It's no wonder gardeners love the color green.

But for some reason, this green isn't the type of green most gardeners dream of.

The rains of the past two weeks have given everything a nice layer of color. Most of it will die off once the sun hits it again, but it sure is everywhere.

I didn't participate in Harvest Mondays for some time now since I've pulled most of everything productive from the garden. As a matter of fact, when I started writing this last night, this was the harvest I had pictured from the last two weeks:
Try to hold your applause.

Then, today I ventured out to the garden and picked this:
Thank goodness for peppers! They're the only thing producing in this heat. I do have a few bush beans growing and they're filling out, but they're really small. This is the stage I picked them on the first patch of bush beans I planted, so I'm going to let them go a bit longer and see if they grow any more or if they'll just go to seed.

Today I'm working on getting the fall garden in full swing. I've amended the beds with more compost and tonight I'll restring them. Tomorrow I'll plant some seeds and away we'll go. Hopefully. I'm wondering if it's still too hot for lettuce, radishes and carrots since August can still be rather brutal, but I'm going to try my hand at another round of cucumbers. Hey, I've got the trellis space now. :)

How to Double Your Trellis Space

So, you don't have enough trellis space.

You would naturally like more trellis space.

Here's how you can double your trellis space in 8 easy steps.

1) Build a four foot wide bed (farthest right). Note-your box does not HAVE to be 4 ft wide. Mine was. Reference step 2.
2) Erect a trellis using pipe, rebar, U-shaped brackets and trellising mesh. Make sure to connect the trellis to the back of the four foot box making it utterly impossible to reach the third square from either side once the trellis is covered with vines.

3. Spend the entire summer cursing yourself.

4. Have a friend like EG who's example you should have followed the first time.

4. When the summer season is over, move your trellis by first unscrewing the U-shaped brackets and nearly giving yourself a hernia trying to pull the pipe off of the rebar it's become fused to.

5. Move the rebar up one foot on both sides and pound it into the ground.

6) Slide the trellis over the rebar and use the U-shaped brackets to tweak the alignment and secure the trellis to the box.

7) Curse yourself yet again for not doing this the first time because now you can reach the third row from the back side AND plant on BOTH sides of the trellis, doubling your trellising sqft.

8) Thank the man for helping you since your Bert and Ernie arms wouldn't have gotten that trellis off of that rebar no way, no how. Thanks, Man.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

After a month and a half with no rain at all, it's rained here each afternoon since July 23. It's more than welcomed.



The garden needs it, but the plants themselves are looking like they'd rather have a break for a few days. There's some funk spreading through the bush beans now that all of their leaves are wet and the pole beans seem to be yellowing. The yellow pear tomato plant is putting out some of the largest tomatoes (for its variety) I've ever seen, but they're all cracking. I don't know if it's because of the rain or not, but it wouldn't mind a day or two of sun. All of the tomatoes are getting so much water they're trying to root themselves along the exposed stems. The boy thinks the bugs have deposited aliens who are trying to bust themselves out.

The broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings I set out surprisingly don't seem to mind the soaking. Most of them have sprouted, but I'll replant those that did not next week just to give them a chance.

They're on the deck now in partial shade. The location gets about as much sun as the garden does, so I'm hopeful that they won't need much hardening off. They should do well just getting plopped right in the garden.

I am going back and forth with the idea of staggering the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage like I did this spring. Although I never got any cauliflower or cabbage, both scummed to root maggots, the broccoli did very well checker boarded in the squares and not planted one per square. Last year, I had one per square and they didn't do very well, but I think that was because of a lack of sunlight and the shallower beds. this year, there's about an hour more sun and the beds are 12 inches deep instead of 8.

What do you think? One per square or staggered?

Hmmmm....maybe I could do a little of both and see what the results are. That would help me plan for the spring.

Posting this in the morning instead of at night. Last night we went to a very small, intimate, Russian wedding. It was held at a friend's house and the man's side business was running the sound for the couple. Upon arrival, the boy was commissioned carry the pillow with the rings which made his week. I, on the other hand, ran to borrow some make-up to cover the claw marks on his face, courtesy of his sister.

First, the boy is amazed by weddings. He always wants to know who he's going to marry, why he hasn't met her yet, and when he's going to get married. He wants to marry his sister, but she keeps saying no, and we tell him there are laws that suggest against it. He got to sit down with both bride and groom and ask them when they met and how they knew they would marry each other. Then, he got to stand up there with the couple and see the ceremony up close. Nothing could get the grin off of his face.

Then, he was one of two unmarried 'men.' The other man caught the garter, but gave it to the boy. He was so proud of it, but I was hoping he'd have a few more years under him before I had to explain what a garter belt was. We left him there to spend the night with his friend, and when I last checked in on him, he had that garter clutched to his chest.

Hope you had sweet gardening dreams....or garter belt dreams. Your choice. :)