Garden update (or, "Sunflowers: Take 3")

Back in May, I wrote about my newly planted garden. A month-and-a-half of photosynthesis has gone by, and I'm now ready for a horticultural update!

First of all, most of the plants are looking pretty good. The peas have gone all adolescent-growth-spurt and are dominating the garden plot, as evident in these pictures:

Before:



After:





The carrots, bell peppers, and tomatoes we put in around the peas and cabbage are all healthy-looking. I also put in some yellow wax beans since I last wrote about the garden, but only three out of a dozen or so have come up. Same deal with the six pickling cucumbers I planted: only one of those survived...

Here you can see some healthy red cabbage and rhubarb, and one poor, lonely cucumber. Sad.


I also planted some mini Indian corn (forgot to take a photo) and sunflowers. Unfortunately, squirrels apparently eat more sunflowers than John Peterson. So I constructed little quonset huts of chicken-wire to discourage them from trying again. No luck. So I tried another approach.
This one is sure to succeed:



Here's one of the adorable, persecuted seedlings I'm trying to save:



And in my smugness, I left a note for the scavenging flea-bags:







Currently listening to: dredg - Down to the Cellar

the pariah, the parrot, and Salman Rushdie....

Dah!

I've been looking forward to the new dredg release for quite awhile, but I've been so preoccupied lately that I completely missed the release of their new album.

I just remembered it today, and was powerless to avoid going to Target to pick it up.
I've already listened to it three times today. Awesome. Seriously. Check it out.



Currently listening to: dredg - Gathering Pebbles

ps... R.I.P. Michael Jackson. Weirdness and scandals aside, you were a genius. Shine on you crazy dancing queen. If I hadn't just bought my new album, I'd still be listening to "Billie Jean" just as I had been all morning long. In my secret heart of hearts, I always hoped you'd turn around and show us all we should still take you seriously. C'est la vie.

pps... And I don't even like pop/dance music.

The next seven weeks...

Woohoo!
Top Gear is back for season 13!



That preview probably won't be up for long, so check it out. If I'm honest, though, it looks like it needs more cocking about.

Betty White would call me a thief...

Wow. I listened to Minnesota Public Radio all through work yesterday, and they had a collection of really great pieces. You should give them a listen if you have a chance (click the links; embedding them apparently doesn't work on Blogger)

I was originally just going to write about Midmorning, which had a story on cancer research. For anyone who is interested in what I do, this had some useful info. They talked mostly about cancer vaccines, which isn't exactly what I study (although I did do research on them before joining my current lab), but there was some discussion about immunology, leukemia and lymphoma, and cancer research in general.

Midmorning then switched gears and talked with a pretty witty etymologist. Although impressively smart, I was a bit dismayed that he didn't know the origin of "moxie" (as any good New Englander does) and he got the explanation of "sympathy" versus "empathy" wrong. That's pretty weak...


On Midday, Gary Eichten spoke with Rep. Keith Ellison. I was fairly ambivilant towards the man before, but I'm a big fan now. I was impressed.

Ellison was followed by a speech given by Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dillema" and ""In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto." Really interesting topic.

And finally, to round it all off, the broadcast switched to Tim Pawlenty's press conference in which he announced he would not seek reelection as MN's governor. What a great day!