Yesterday after church, I went to yet another garden center in search of Swiss chard. You know, Swiss chard, that colorful leafy plant with tender leaves that are delicious to eat, if you are one to eat greens. I am a first-class greens eater.

The thing is, I have gone to four or five different greenhouses, and there was not a Swiss chard plant to be found, or any other green for that matter. I was afraid I was going to have to make do with the one chard plant that I planted last year, which came up again this year. I guess greens tend to do that.

But this time I was met with success. In fact, there was every kind of lettuce you could imagine, kale varieties galore, mustard greens, collard greens, spinach. While I intended to only buy one plant (after all, Bill doesn’t eat his spinach or any other green), but chard is so  beautiful that I bought two. I will enjoy the leaves all summer long and into the fall. The more you cut, the more you get…..
Colorado is looking at much cooler temperatures this next week. In fact, one woman I encountered while at the garden center sadly said, “I don’t know why all these people are here. It’s supposed to snow on Tuesday.”

I hadn’t heard, but that didn’t stop me from planting my chard. It did, however, stop me from planting the tomato I picked up the other day, bringing my total tomato plant count to three.

I love to go to garden stores this time of year. The people wandering around the stores have the look of addicts awaiting their fix. I’m certain that I’m not the only one who goes to the store for a single jalapeno pepper plant and leaves $200 later with everything ranging from zucchini to lilies. The only thing that saved me yesterday was the fact that there were so many cars at the garden store that I had to park in the street a block-and-a-half away. That didn’t deter me from getting two plants instead of one.

Saturday I took Cole and Mylee to see the Detective Pikachu movie. As an aside, I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the two of them in their Pikachu outfits. They were adorable. As a consolation prize, here is a photo of Detective Pikachu himself…..

Anyway, following the movie, we went back to our house, where Bill was busily working in the yard. He suggested that perhaps I needed to plant the $80 worth of petunias I purchase a week ago.

I brought out my little spade, and both Mylee and Cole were on it like flies on flypaper. Mylee, in particular, planted petunias like her life depended on it…..

Not only that, but when we finished our planting, she took her spade and began working on weeds. She outperformed the yard man I overpaid to do the same thing. Next year I will hire her at a much more affordable rate, even considering the cost of all the Oreos she can eat.