They Got Little Cars That Go Beep, Beep, Beep

Recently The Idiot Gardener wrote about how he was laughed at in the pub for mentioning that he had been sowing vegetable seed so late in the season.

Usually, I'm not above pointing and laughing at the silly things my friends do. Especially when we're out having a pint.

But...

I usually plant sunflowers every year. This year, I had decided not to.

Wayyyyy back, when I started this blog in January, I wrote a post called A Vegetable Garden's Lament. It chronicled the destruction of our former veggie garden. A garden that was crap, really.

We were planning a new one! We were thinking big!

Sadly, I had delusions of grandeur. Much like a schizophrenic. Maybe next time I'll wear a foil hat...




The above vision did not come to fruition (I hate the word fruition, why would I use it?)

I thought, what's the point of planting sunflowers this year? The former garden had all grown over into lawn (and I use that term loosely, our lawn is just a tightly grown clusterfuck of weeds). I would have to get out the shovel and break ground once again to make even the smallest of gardens.

April passed. May passed. June...

SUNFLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They sprang to mind, and they haunted my dreams.

"Whhhyy didn't yoooou plaaant meeeee?"



I woke up in a cold sweat. Had I missed my window for planting?

I raced down to the garden center. Found a packet of seeds. Looked at the planting times for my area of the United States.

"March-June"

Yes! I wasn't too late!

I spent all afternoon digging a small sunflower garden in the second week of June. In the HOTTEST part of the summer. Like an idiot. Or should I say, like an Idiot?

They bloomed last week!


Aren't they....!


Short?





I mean *cough* I MEANT them to be this way! You've heard of Russian Mammoth sunflowers? These are....um....Canadian Pygmy sunflowers!!

Yeah.

Ok, fine. You got me. I admit it. I planted my Mammoths way to late and I got these stubby little excuses for sunflowers.

But aren't they kind of pretty if I photograph them the right way?



That's better.

They kind of make me think of that song "Short People" by Randy Newman, which is what the post title is from...



Short sunflowers ain't got no reason to live....


...but I like 'em.