Mutants in my garden.

I was giving my garden a good inspection and pollinating my tomato plants by hand about an hour ago. I've been doing that every couple of days because I want the maximum tomatoes I can possibly get. A friend told me of this little trick. You just take a Q-Tip and gently touch each flower with it. So far it's working and here is proof that my garden is still alive and thriving.


As I was doing my thorough look-see, I discovered something a little odd about two of my smaller sunflower plants. They are mutants. I don't know how this happened. As far as I know, each stem is only suppose to have one flower on it. This one here has four. That's right. Four flower buds. I'm not sure if the plant will be able to handle the extra weight as each flower should grow to at least 5 inches in diameter. I may have to tie it up to help it along. The sunflower's in the back row are still growing their leaves and nowhere near ready to develop buds yet. Those are the one's I'm most excited about.


And would you just lookie here. Tomatoes! I've got actual tomatoes! I can't believe I am growing and keeping a vegetable, (or is it a fruit) alive. I've counted 11 so far and there are plenty of tiny yellow flowers sprouting up everyday.


Then, as I was getting ready to take a front-on picture of the garden, this mother-fucking horsefly came at me and impaled the underside of my upper arm with it's gnarly-assed teeth or stinger or whatever the hell it bites you with.

Edited for photo credit: (horsefly photo courtesy of extension.missouri.edu)

If I didn't have my camera in my hand let me just tell you... I would have punched this miserable little cocksucker squarely between is buggy, bulging eyes while simultaneously delivering a good swift kick to it's crotch. And then after stunning it, I would have squashed it into the ground with my shoe protected foot, but like I said...I had my camera in my hand.