You're Doing It Wrong

I have let my dahlia crop wane. I’m trying to use more native plants so haven’t bought new bulbs in quite some time. But honestly, the earwigs have ruined my enjoyment of the flowers. Most of them are fringed and raggedy because of earwig activity.

I haven’t done an intensive earwig eradication program because (1) not enough time and energy and (2) the instructions are like: put out some rolled newspaper overnight and in the morning shake it out in a bucket with soapy water. Or put out a low dish with oil in it. Or diatomaceous earth. Or get rid of mulch or loose leaves where they like to hide.

I have a giant yard, how many rolled up newspapers or dishes of oil should I put out there? I’m not convinced diatomaceous earth does anything. I’ve never seen evidence when I’ve used it. Get rid of mulch? Are these people serious?

But my original point was that I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the dahlias and was thrilled to see this giant pink dinner plate looking fabulous out there.

I have been enjoying the birds all weekend long. They have been brawling around the feeder. I can’t tell what they like. It seems like they pick all the little yellow seeds out and throw them on the ground. I scoop those up and sprinkle them around and them other birds eat them off the ground. At one point it seemed like all they liked was sunflower chips. I haven’t bought them in awhile because the squirrels hogged them up but then I bought those and for a while no one seemed interested.

Then they were out again, brawling. They’re so funny.

They line up on the wire like this and then one will come down and then all of them. An hour later there will be no birds anywhere. Then another hour later and the crowds have returned. I wish they would eat earwigs.

They may not look like much but I haven’t had a decent home-grown tomato crop in years. I’ve been planting the cherry tomatoes in the hopes of at least getting something to add to our salads.

I haven’t had a big tomato since I don’t know when.

This is from August 23, 2026 and doesn’t include a big orange one that I am currently eating.

I wasn’t even going to plant tomatoes this year but I was gifted a bunch of plants (thank you Michael and partner who I have never met!) and they are doing amazing. I have two of them extra-staked up because they are so heavy with big tomatoes.

One thing I did different was put the soaker hose on them so they get slow watered a couple of times a week. But otherwise, not sure why this year was better for us but I am pleased.

I like to keep some emergency drinking water in the house. I’ve never gotten carried away but usually kept about 10 gallons for two people. I just bought regular bottled water jugs from the grocery store and kept rotating them.

During the ongoing enshittification of everything, the plastic used for these bottles became crapified meaning if you looked at it for too long, it would crack and leak.

One day I walked into my laundry room and sloshed through a giant puddle. Panic ensued.

It was kind-of a relief to see the problem was just from the emergency water.

This all happened a while ago. I asked my AI expert, what to do about emergency water and it told me that the consumer plastic jugs were not reliable enough. It suggested a water storage product that is often used for camping and I found a place close by where I could pick some up.

Except that the store was across the river in a shopping area that has traffic patterns so terrible I think they should raze the whole thing and start over. So I never want to go over there and put it off for months and months.

Finally, I had a day off and made myself go over there and of course they didn’t have any in stock and suggested I could go to a store across town about 30 miles away.

“I didn’t even want to come to this store,” I told them.

When I got home I asked my new AI expert for ideas (I fired my first AI expert) and it said the other product was very popular but, actually, if you looked at the reviews they had a lot of unhappy customers. It suggested a different product.

I found myself at a prepper store site buying the 4-jugs-that-hold-5-gallons kit and I kept my cart open for another month or so before I got around to pressing the purchase button.

As an aside, I will say that I have lot more sympathy for people who don’t have their shit together because during the more intensive Dad-care times we did not have our shit together.

I goofed off for another couple weeks after they arrived and this weekend I finally got my emergency water system all set up. A full container is pretty heavy for me so they aren’t completely filled. I need to add daily water lifts to get stronger. They fit nicely in this little nook and fingers-crossed they don’t leak and we never need them for an emergency.

In case you can’t tell, I am still learning my new photo app. I had a set workflow before and now I’m doing something different every time. I’m trying to make the files smaller but clearly this is too small so next time I’ll move the slider up.

I had this great idea that I wanted to grow garlic. I’m not sure what my thought process was because while we are a garlic loving family, we don’t go through a crazy high volume. Maybe I thought once you grew it, it would keep forever? Maybe I imagined sharing with all my friends? Maybe I just didn’t understand how much I was buying?

Territorial Seed strikes again.

I bought one quantity of hard neck and one quantity of soft neck so I could see which I liked better.

It was a very large quantity of garlic. I felt a vague sense of unease as I started planting it.

Also: a friend had told me again and again about how amazing garlic scapes are. You can make pesto or just saute. So delicious. So many ways to eat them.

I did not find them delicious. I found the scapes to be woody and like eating lawn clippings. I made pesto and it didn’t grind up and was just oily chunks of lawn clippings.

The garlic itself was high maintenance, too. You had to very gently ease it out of the garden and shake all the dirt off and then tie it into bundles and hang in a cool, dark place so it can cure.

What a bunch of babies. And of course all this was happening when I was distracted with Dad stuff so I was running out there and performing this long list of procedures in a super half-assed way.

In one of the YouTube clips I watched, they hung the garlic outside so I put it in my shop which is not outside but not in the house. Also: it is only dark at night and only cool in winter.

Eventually I remembered it was out there and decided it was time to bring it in and there were about a million heads of garlic. Some were very tiny.

I wasn’t sure what to do with all this.

I have given some away. I have set some aside to plant because we can’t possibly eat all this and why not torture myself with the same problem next year? The rest is in a brown paper bag on the kitchen counter and we’re using it. I roasted a bunch with some potatoes and it was delicious.