Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

T R E 4 5 O N

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

The revolution will be supervised.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / My Seedlings are Producing

My Seedlings are Producing

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I think I am going to grow from seedlings from now on- the process was so much more fun and intimate (not hat kind of intimate you perverts). This is only 1/3 of the harvest of tomatoes which have started to turn colors. I think I am going to seriously get a couple hundred tomatoes out of three raised beds. And I have at east fifty green tomatoes that are going to come from the seedlings I decided were going to die and threw in the compost pile and they decided to grow out of it. A good haul.

Of course I immediately turned them into dinner:

The only thing I don’t like about this house is I just feel like several people could be living here and taking advantage of it. Maybe when I win the powerball and move to the middle of nowhere in the new Balloon Juice compound (like Branch Davidians, but without all that creepy child rape and Jesus shit) I will be able to find a nice young couple who will love it and really get the most out of it, because this house has a lot to give.

What’s shaking my people?

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  3. 3.

    Yarrow

    When everything goes to hell in the Great Russian Orange War you know Juicers are going to show up on your doorstep needing shelter.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    in the new Balloon Juice compound

    Dibs on the bungalow furthest from the willow!

    :)

  7. 7.

    RoonieRoo

    We have a new kitten! Adopted her last Sunday. She’s got the normal shelter problems of upper respiratory infection and tapeworms so getting her all healed up before she meets the rest of the crew. They said she was 3 months old but our vet says she is more likely 2 months old. It’s been 12 years since my last kitten and I’ve never adopted this young before. Handful would be an understatement. We’ve named her Artemis AKA Missy.

  8. 8.

    Josie

    I could easily grow to hate you, John Cole. It’s so damn hot here I can barely keep my tomato plants alive by watering twice a day, much less talk them into producing anything. All I can hope for is that, if they live to see October, they will give me some tomatoes before winter sets in (January). I obviously have a lot to learn about gardening in this climate.

  10. 10.

    MelissaM

    We had tacos al pastor, using the Serious Eats recipe, and it was quite tasty. I omitted the pineapple, and whipped up a corn salad from two ears cooked yesterday but not eaten (with tomatoes, avocado, lime juice and salt.) https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/05/tacos-al-pastor-recipe.html

    I’ve given up on tomatoes this year, pretty much. The squirrels have taken just about every one from the one grafted plant I bought, and the two I’m trying to grow in my straw bale gardening attempt are not going very well. Plus they will be marauded by squirrels. I do have cukes out the ears, though, so that’s a plus. And self-seeded sunflowers, which will serve to make me happy.

  11. 11.

    A Ghost To Most

    Enjoying some much needed rain here. The folks down in Manitou Springs, not so much (flash flooding).

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    Preventive pre-trip mowing accomplished. By the looks of things, just in time. Dark gray clouds slowly moving in and the humidity is hovering somewhere around 1600%.

  13. 13.

    debit

    Weren’t you pondering fostering a child or two, John?

    @RoonieRoo: Congrats!! Kittens are so much fun and so adorable even when they’re being little monsters.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Win a large enough Powerball and you won’t have to move at all. Will be able to buy Bethany.

    ;)

  15. 15.

    Mary G

    I have one green bean find that volunteered from 2014. It’s not blooming yet, but the leaves are huge.

    I have to say that when I went from one to two to three to practically four housemates in my two-bedroom house I was worried, but I am enjoying it immensely. Of course the two parents work 70-hour weeks and the two teenagers only emerge from the den of videogames for food.

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    Maybe when I win the powerball and move to the middle of nowhere

    You have already achieved the dream, Grasshopper.

  17. 17.

    Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)

    @RoonieRoo: Congrats on new baby Missy! Kittens go from cute to annoying as hell in zero-point-five seconds, but then they zoom right back to cute before you can get mad at them. Wishing you many years of snuggles and purrs.

    In the meantime, is anyone in Georgia interested in offering a dog a foster home for approximately six to eight weeks? A friend’s daughter needs to foster her good-natured lab-mixed-with-something-or-other-probably-another-breed-of-dog-but-really-who-can-tell for a little while. She’s in Athens, Georgia but willing to travel.

  20. 20.

    MagdaInBlack

    A friend and I always started our tomatoes in January, then it was a contest to see who had the 1st ripe tomato. I contend he cheated by using Wall-O-Water…..which I highly recommend….both the cheating and the solar water thingy for tomatoes

  21. 21.

    SG

    My dear Cole, the house is lovely but it’s just a house. It is you that makes it a home because you are the one with so much to give — and you do. To your family, your bffs, to anyone lucky enough to become your friend, and totally to your animal companions. Even us jackals.

  22. 22.

    MomSense

    It was so humid again today. It has finally cooled off and we had a nice dinner on the back deck. Kids are home so we all cooked together. We had fresh basil from the garden on our pizza tonight.

    Now we are sipping bourbon and they are playing a silly video game.

    I’m going to go back to binge watching Berlin Station.

  23. 23.

    debit

    In other news! When I adopted Walter I shared his pictures and his story with everyone I knew, including one of my payroll clients. She lost her cat to old age this winter, had been idly looking at pets on the Humane Society website and noticed a senior dog that had been there a while. She kept looking, and kept thinking about Walter, and after a few weeks, said, “Fuck it, I’m taking this dog home.” She adores her dog who adores her in return. And I cried at work when she came in to tell me.

    John, your act of kindness continues to ripple outward. Just thought you might like to know.

  24. 24.

    dr. bloor

    “Getting the most out of a house” is not a function of the number of (bipedal) residents.

    Just sayin’.

  27. 27.

    Shell

    I will be able to find a nice young couple who will love it and really get the most out of it

    Before I reread the part about you moving, my first thought was ‘And they’ll be your kindly caretakers in your old age.’

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @debit: When my kitties were little it was amazing how much noise they could make at night as they ran around after I was in bed. I called them my crazy kids.

  29. 29.

    HinTN

    I prefer feta to mozzarella, but that’s a quibble compared to the transformation of the mud flat into the verdant space. Did you paint or photoshop it?

  30. 30.

    debit

    @WaterGirl: I have a motion sensitive light strip under my bed so I can see when I inevitably have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. When Dani was younger, she’d zip in and out of my room a couple dozen times every night and set it off. It was annoying, yet oddly adorable.

  32. 32.

    RoonieRoo

    @debit: Grumpy has described her as “Part tortie, part tabby, part badger”. Definitely an amount of badger in there.

  35. 35.

    Yarrow

    @RoonieRoo: I know it’s not the same badger, but has Betty Cracker posted here at Balloon Juice this totally adorable video of her Badger and the mop? His hopping and barking just slays me. He is going to GET that mop!

  36. 36.

    The Dangerman

    This compound is going to have an area for people that stay up late, right? And good coffee in the morning?

    And pastries! No pastries, I’m outta there.

  37. 37.

    stinger

    What’s shaking my people?

    You’re not John Cole! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM???

  41. 41.

    p.a.

    @RedDirtGirl: It’s boring, but, as you would expect for canids, a group of jackals is a pack. Although I saw an internet thread where someone proposed ‘jumble’. That would fit for commenters here I think. Cole’s jackal jumble. Maybe too touchy-feely…

  44. 44.

    magurakurin

    @MomSense: humid…I got your humid right here in Western Japan. Our dew point hasn’t dropped below 73 for nearly two weeks now. Yesterday it was still 73 when we hit our high of 99 around midday. And cool off at night, forget about it. At 4am yesterday we hit our low of 80 and the dew point was 77. Air meet Knife. No relief in sight for the next week. Other places around the country were much worse. Saitama set the all time Japanese record with a temp of 41.1C, nearly 106…and it weren’t a dry heat, let me tell you. No such thing in these islands. This Chinese hoax is kicking our asses right now.

  45. 45.

    Schlemazel

    @debit:
    Good story! It is easy to miss the positive ripples from a single act of kindness.

    Sorry I never got to met Walter

  47. 47.

    jl

    Congrats to Cole! Growing food is fun. I’ve never accused Cole of ‘hat intimacy’ type perviness, though.

    But, I thought they might be pawpaws at first.

  48. 48.

    Yarrow

    @debit: That’s such a great story. Walter is one of the great Balloon Juice success stories. Glad to hear he’s inspiring and helping other animals in need.

  53. 53.

    chris

    @MomSense:

    It was so humid again today.

    Southwestern Nova Scotia this afternoon at three PM. I hung a basket of laundry on the line and soaked through my shirt. For old times sake I pushed the F button on the weathernetwork.com, drumroll, 86 F-ing degrees, 92% humidity, feels like 106 F-ing degrees. Bert and I ambled the half mile down to the river where I sat in the water and threw his ball until my arm fell off. Soaked through my shirt walking home to the ibuprophen.

    Right now? 72F, 96% humidity, feels like hell, 88F. The Chinese hoax seems to be working as advertised.

  55. 55.

    debit

    @Schlemazel: I am too! He loved people and was so happy whenever I had someone over and could demonstrate his patented heavy lean into a leg.

  58. 58.

    trollhattan

    @Raven:
    Unhumid in Georgia? Check outside, are cats n dogs living together?

    Houston should fix that, right quick.

    We’re a hundredwhatever but humidity is probably three or something. You can go through a lot of water in weather like this.

    “Remember to stay hydrated.”

  60. 60.

    Schlemazel

    Had a Hmong friend introduced me to tvix saiv foraging yesterday. It is the seed of the Chinese boxwood tree. The leaves are edible also I guess but have to be cooked. The seeds are out of this world! They taste like tangerine/lime/orange and leave a very pleasant tingle on my tongue. I have had them in a condiment that I plan on making myself soon. You mash 6-8 thai chiles with a couple cloves of garlic a little onion & some cilantro (optional for those who think it tastes like soap). As a paste it goes with any meat or fish. The seeds can also be tossed into soup & they really liven up the results.

  61. 61.

    MoxieM

    @MomSense: Love Berlin Station, but I find it pretty funny that the two lead American spooks are British and Welsh, respectively. The ensemble cast is great.

    I’d love to share my house with other people, but it can’t be this specific house. Looking to move anyway, so I don’t end up in a cardboard box in my really old, old age (and hoping I have some control over that). And, wanting a bigger back yard so I can rescue more Newfies.

  62. 62.

    magurakurin

    @Raven: out of the sauna and into the pressure cooker!!

    ETA I missed the unhumid part. Wow, really? I bet you guys are enjoying it. Too bad you have to go to Houston

  64. 64.

    MomSense

    @MoxieM:

    I’ve been looking at farms up in Patten, Maine (near the Katahdin Woods and Waters Monument). You can buy a lot of nice land cheap. You’d have to grow your own food because it’s so far from everything. Would be a perfect place for a balloon juice compound.

  65. 65.

    Mike in NC

    @chris: Visited Nova Scotia almost 20 years ago for genealogy research. So amazing. Wife is from Virginia and wouldn’t be able to handle winters but I could. In Halifax we rode on one of those amphibious trucks that recently sank in Missouri.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    Grown from seed plants seem tougher to me. They start out slower than the seedlings I buy – they just sit there for close to a month not doing much of anything- but they handle dry spells better and eventually outpace the purchased plants.

    It could be I’m growing better varieties from seed but I don’t think so since I basically pick them based on a photograph in the catalog and I;ve tried tens of different types and they always seem to be sturdier (over the whole season). They just always win out over the purchased seedlings by midseason, even given the slower start.

    I wonder if it’s because they don’t get perfect greenhouse conditions in my mudroom so they toughen up :)

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    @Raven

    I fly to Houston in the morning!

    And boy, will your arms be tired!

    ba-DUM-bum

    @MomSense

    Winters is Maine? No, no and thrice no. Think of the children geezers!

    ;)

  74. 74.

    MoxieM

    @MomSense: Def a great place for a compound, if the mosquitoes didn’t carry you away. In my youth I associated with a feller from Ashland, and we used to spend time at his brother’s camp outside Bangor, and all the way up north at his dad’s place. Beautiful countryside, but I don’t have the stamina for it anymore. My back is a crumpled, mangled mess, and I’m just to damned old and incapacitated.

    My family ties from way back are in the Kittery-Eliot area, but that’s crazy expensive now. oh well. Who pays $500K to live in a tiny house in Eliot ME (rhetorical question). Nice town, but that’s a lot of money and you’re not even on the water.

  75. 75.

    chris

    @Mike in NC: The Harbour Hopper is still going. You’re a braver man than I am, I drove a bus for a while and have been on a lot of boats and don’t think the two should mix ;-)

    I’ve experienced winter in both Fort MacMurray and Victoria and i have to say, Victoria was the best. That said, winter here is usually not too bad but it’s always interesting. “Usually” is doing a lot of work there, In the time I’ve been here there have been two winters with no snow and, of course, White Juan and the blizzards of 2015. But on balance they’re not too bad but I say that as one who has lived and worked in -40 or more so take it with a grain of salt.

  76. 76.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MomSense: you still awake? Had enough of bargaining in Orlando in the summer. What resort in Maine has a conference room for 6-8 people and no humidity/thunderstorms/alligators?

    Steve totally not at a wine bar in the 407

  83. 83.

    Davebo

    @Josie: I feel ya. I got maybe 35 cherry tomatoes from two plants I got in early and threw the plants away this weekend.

  88. 88.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Duane: nah, I’m white.

    But yeah this place scares me more than Texas. Where I’ll be in a couple of weeks.

  89. 89.

    MomSense

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Samoset in Rockport. Harraseeket in Freeport. Brunswick Inn and Tavern – short walk from the Amtrak stop. 250 Main Hotel in Rockland. It’s in a cool downtown, on the water, and very modern.

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    @Steve in the ATL
    FYI, from just a handful of days ago (emphasis mine).

    SAG-AFTRA members overwhelmingly granted the union’s board of directors the ability to call a TV animation strike, voting 98.27 percent in favor of the authorization, according to a letter to members from union president Gabrielle Carteris that appeared on the SAG-AFTRA website Wednesday after voting closed. Source

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Yarrow: I watched that video, and he is so *not* going to get that mop! He’s all barking like a badass but then he zooms out of reach when the mop actually gets close to him! Ha!

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