Also… why did you just come along when I won’t be needing you for very long?

I admit it, tonight I ate at McDonald’s.  I know I just moaned the other day about my weight but I did say that it might not be today that I sort my shit out.

One thing I have to say, when you don’t eat McDonald’s very often, it tastes pretty damn good.

Anyway that’s not why I’m writing this.  When I walked in I saw these things…

Wtf?? How long have they been there?  I know I didn’t eat McDonald’s for almost a year but jeez… it’s the coolest thing ever!  Xander and I went to this little console and put our bank card in.  We then used the touch screen to place our order and paid for it.

This is no lie… by the time we turned around and walked the five steps to the counter, the order was on a tray and waiting for us!

OMG!!!  No more waiting in line!  At dinner rush hour we had our food within approximately three minutes of walking through the door.

Of course, it’s probably the last time I will have McDonalds for a very, very, very long time, so I won’t be able to make the best of it, but I did get to experience it this once.  Xander and I (being the geeks that we are) were in wholehearted agreement that it is, indeed, the best thing since sliced bread. 

So, I’m curious… is the Netherlands ahead or behind the times with this thing?  Are these consoles already old news back in North America or are we actually ahead of the game on this one?

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This stuff is making me batshit crazy, and hungry!  It’s like PMS all month long.  Seriously, it’s absolute insanity!

For months I followed a very strict diet which excluded most carbs, all sugar and processed foods.  Once I got past the detox stage it was a breeze.  I made it through three weeks in Canada, I made it through Christmas… but once the hormone injections started, it was game over.  I haven’t been able to make it through this.

I’ve been trying, I really have, but as each month goes by it’s getting more and more difficult.   I am a stress eater, an emotional eater and any woman knows that our appetites increase during that time of the month.  With the hormones, it’s always like that time of the month.  I’m also usually stressed and emotional, which makes it like a constant cycle of fighting myself in regards to food.

On the one hand, I want to be really good. I want to continue losing in spite of all that is going on because I want to be rid of all this weight once and for all.  On the other hand, fighting the hormones and my own brain with trying to stay on my diet and not gain weight is stressing me out even further, which I’m sure isn’t helping in the baby department.

So I go back and forth… constantly.

There are certain times where I am ok.  Not good, just OK.  Where I can keep something that appears to be a bit of self control.  Other times, I’m like a shark in a feeding frenzy and I can’t seem to make it stop.  I am hungry all day and no amount of self pep-talking helps.

It gets really confusing, being an emotional eater that is having this therapy, because it’s really hard to tell what is really the cause of my indulgences.  Is it my brain, that loves to make me want to eat anyway using the drugs as a convenient excuse to let loose?  OR, are the drugs mainly to blame?

Last month I had had enough, and in the short period of time I had between the injections I once again did the detox portion of the diet.  I did really really well and my fifth and final day of the detox was on a Sunday, then on Monday I had the one final whopper of an injection. By Wednesday I would have eaten the dogs if I could have caught them!  There was no stopping me, nothing was safe.

Am I weak or am I just suffering an unfortunate side effect that comes along with the medications?

Of course, my insecurities alone are enough to convince me that I’m weak and this is just me giving up on the weight loss thing, but the doctors tell me it’s normal. They should know, right?

Perhaps it’s a bit of both… maybe the drugs really are causing my appetite to go out of control, and the stress of everything is making it more difficult for me to stay strong.  I don’t think I can blame the drugs 100% because I’d like to think to some degree that it’s mind over matter, but sometimes I wake up with the absolute best of intentions and then it all goes to shit.

Take this past Monday, for example.  The Friday before I had started seeing signs that our latest IUI was unsuccessful (girls, you know what I’m talking about, it starts with an S and rhymes with uhh, dotting).  I was SO bummed out, like… incredibly.  I got up on Saturday morning, put on a happy face and went out with my girlfriends.  I had a choice… try to be as good as possible and maybe find myself still frustrated and unhappy at the end of the day, possibly bringing my friends down with me, or say fuck it and go have a good time without stressing about what I eat.

I said fuck it and I had a great time.  I’d start being good on Sunday.

Sunday rolled around and well, let’s just say there was absolutely no doubt about the lack of success of our IUI.  Hell week had officially begun.  Dammit.  So I spent most of that day avoiding the world and trying to do things on my own that didn’t make me think about the month ahead too much. I failed miserably and when we went out for groceries I got some Oreos to take my misery out on.

I drowned those bastards. Then I ate them.

Then I felt guilty.

Monday.  MONDAY was going to be the day!  The day I got my act together and went back into diet mode!

Monday morning I phoned the hospital to find out what our plan of attack was going to be for this coming month.  They phoned us back to tell us that they were changing my medication to something much stronger, and that it could no longer be done as it had been done the previous month… it was time for me to learn to do proper injections.

You see, with the medication I’d been taking previously I could use a needle like a diabetic’s pen.  I still had to go to the hospital to learn how to use it but it was pretty simple.  Stick the thing in the thing, turn the knob, poke it in and press the button.  Nothing too scary, no having to worry about air bubbles or mixing meds.

The new medication was different.  It would require me to mix it, use a proper syringe and watch for air bubbles and look all nurse like.  This made me pretty nervous but I figured if I dealt with the other injections I’d make it through this ok.

Only one problem. They don’t use this particular medication very often so they didn’t have it at the hospital.  Our local pharmacy didn’t have it, nor did any of the pharmacies connected to it, so the lady at the hospital asked if we could call around looking for it as it would be faster than her trying to do it with all the interruptions there.  The medication could have waited a day but they strongly suggested we try really hard to find it as it’d be better for me to start as soon as possible.

I was starting to wig out and thankfully my husband was home and didn’t mind calling around.  After calling multiple pharmacies and finally getting one to call the distribution center to see where they’ve dropped it off lately, we found ONE pharmacy in the ENTIRE city that had it.  That was only because someone had forgotten to pick theirs up.

I did get a momentary distraction wondering who forgets to pick up fertility medication.

So we got the hospital to fax them the prescription, went to pick it up, then straight to the hospital for my needle lesson.  Mix this, poke this there, tap that, press this, insert the thing in the other thing etc.  I think I got it!

While I was there the lady was sure to tell me to contact them if I had any side effects that seemed  out of the ordinary, so I took that opportunity to ask about the eating.  I asked her if it was normal to want to eat everything in sight.

She said yes, and that they hear that very very often.  That it’s just a part of the whole fertility treatment thing and it’s not just me.

So there, an honest to goodness medical professional just told me that the hormones alone are enough to cause me to want to chew my own leg off, yet I still feel guilty and weak. Argh!

While I did think I had a handle on the needle thing, I was still on hell week, still had PMS charging through me like a freight train and the uncertainty of what was coming up this month with even stronger medications, bigger needles and everything else had my anxiety levels through the roof.

So I took it out on some more Oreos.

Then I felt guilty.

Monday was a total wash.

Tuesday wasn’t a lot better.

Wednesday, WEDNESDAY (today) was going to be the day!!  I was sure of it.  When I went to bed last night I thought ok, I can do this!

This morning I woke up hours later than usual, as I did yesterday, feeling nauseated and with a really annoying headache (like yesterday).  When I got up my husband started talking to me and it took all of about five minutes for the tears to start.  Completely out of my control, frustrating as heck, but there they were.

This day was not starting out quite as I expected.

Then the doorbell rang.  Oh blessed delivery man, look what he brought…

Can you hear the angels sing?  Omg…

A friend and I have an agreement where he kindly sends me stuff I miss from back home, and I send his family Stroopwafels and other yummy stuff from Holland. I knew it was coming, I know I should have stopped it but I was weak.  If I was going to go to hell, I may as well ride there on a peanut butter cup.

A part of me thought I should just put them away, not let the hormones get to me, I’m strong!!

Yeah, not so much.  That thought lasted for about as long as it took me to get a wrapper open.  Oh sweet baby Jesus, so delicious.

People keep telling me that I’m too hard on myself, that I need to relax and not think about the diet so much because it’s just giving me added stress.  The problem with that is I feel like these treatments rely on me keeping the weight off, so does having the healthiest pregnancy possible.

I know it’s not like I’m gaining all the weight back, in the last 3-4 months I’ve only gained about 3kg of the 39kg I had lost, but it still feels like too much.   The doctors said I can expect a few kilos of bloating alone, but … argh!

I wish I was losing, but with everything that is going on I am barely managing to maintain.  I know these treatments won’t go on for ever, so if it ends and I’m not pregnant I will be able to concentrate fully on the weight loss.  Will I really be able to do that though?  Knowing that any hope I had of having a child is gone for sure?

What if I do get pregnant, there will definitely be gaining then.  Not loads necessarily but I know that any will feel like shit.

It’s a difficult balance, the medications and trying to keep a handle on my weight.  I’m not sure how much longer I will be able to do it.  Each month I feel myself slipping more and more.  Is it because each month the drugs are getting more intense or because I’m getting worn down?

I’m not sure I’ll ever know, I just hope when all is said and done and I look in the mirror that I don’t see that same fat face looking back at me that I saw two years ago.  I miss feeling proud and excited about my weight loss, I really want to feel that way again.

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Today we finally got together for lunch so I could see what all the hype was about.

Tai Wu was pretty much what you expect a Chinese restaurant to look like.  Red, dragony things, gold, chopsticks etc.  One thing I hadn’t noticed until Barb pointed it out was that we were they only crackers in the place!  You know a Chinese restaurant is good when most of the people eating there are Chinese.  I mean, they should know their shit when it comes to Chinese food, right?  It’s like Canadians and donuts.

.

Anyhow, we ordered a few different dishes… and I wish I’d remembered to get my camera out to take photos of each and every one, but I was too busy stuffing my face.  Sorry, no photos of that either this time.  I did manage to get this one after Barbara inquired if I wanted to get a photo of the food before it’s all gone.

She totally had my back, because I’d have had to order all over again if I didn’t get ANY photos. Although I probably could have gone to someone else’s table and taken photos of their food but that might be a bit creepy.

Don’t even ask me what the stuff is called, because all the writing on the menu is in Chinese.  There are photos and in the corner there’s a little photo of a cow, a pig, a shrimp or a chicken.  Beyond that you just try to take what looks good.

This thing in the bottom of the photo was supposed to be pork, but it totally had shrimp in it.  Good thing we weren’t allergic!

To drink we had Chinese tea.  Which, if I’m honest, tasted like normal tea.  Don’t go by what I say though because unless it’s something fruity, all tea tastes the same to me.  A lot of my friends go bananas over all these different kinds of tea.  I don’t get it.  I’m the last person you ever want on your team for a tea tasting contest.  Thankfully none of my friends ever have those.

So, what did I think of my first Dim Sum experience?  The company was awesome, as usual.  The restaurant itself has a nice atmosphere, friendly staff and the food was really good.  The most surprising part is that it wasn’t even that expensive.  I was expecting it to come out more than it was, so it was a very pleasant surprise!

I’ll definitely try it again, and drag my husband with me.  He loves that kind of thing!  I think if he wasn’t sick and completely nauseated at the thought of food today, he’d be quite jealous that I went without him!

If you have a hankering for Chinese food, you should check this place out.  It’s about a block from the Pathe in the city center, a very short walk from central station, so even handy if you have friends coming from out of town.  Judging by the amount of people there at 2pm on a Friday afternoon… I’d make a reservation if you plan on going in the evening.  I get the feeling they get REALLY busy.

P.s. My favorite were the steamed dumplings with sweet pork inside thingies.  Pretty sure that’s what they were called.  So damn good.

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I could live without the rainy, dreary winter weather here in the Netherlands.

Sammi and Ronnie from Jersey Shore. I will admit to watching it when I’ve run out of other shows, and I cannot stand these two.  I don’t know how the rest haven’t drowned them in the hot tub yet.

My period. Seriously, I’ve had almost 300 of them already, enough is enough.

Justin Bieber.  I’m SO over this kid, even if he IS Canadian.

People who are passive aggressive, give thinly veiled insults on Facebook but face to face act so sweet that sugar wouldn’t melt in their mouth… and are stupid enough to think I can’t see through it.  Yes I know this is somewhat passive aggressive too, I’m just trying to speak their language!

Screw you, I’m not looking for photos of those.  The sooner people stop showing them, the better.

This bad boy.  If you don’t know what it is already, you don’t want to… and I’m not going to tell you.

Housework, I could definitely live without housework.  In fact, I hate it so much I’d almost even consider polygamy, just so I can be first wife and make second wife do all the housework.

This ignorant douchebag.

There are so many things that irritate me about this show, even more than I listed on that post way back when. Even Sue Sylvester wasn’t able to save it for me.

The Kardashians.  Where the hell did they come from and why should I give a shit about them?  Go away and stop taking up space where I want to read about REAL celebrities, thx.

Pickles.  Not a fan.

Cold sores. Haven’t had one in ages (knock wood) but I know when I do ever get one again, it will be at the worst time possible. Zovirax is my friend.

Unexpectedly scary videos.  I could definitely live without those.  You know the ones.  Someone sends you a link telling you to read along with something or to watch something closely and then WHAMMO!!!!! something scary and screeching pops onto the screen suddenly, scaring the shit out of you.  I enjoy scary movies and thrillers, when I KNOW they are scary.  When people trick me into being startled is when they take their lives in their hands.  Assholes.

Oh man this list could go on for days, so I’m going to stop here.  Let’s just say, there are a lot of people and things I’d gladly wipe from the universe if given the choice!

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First I used my processor to shred the cauliflower and mozarella cheese.  Here is where I think I made my first mistake.  I cooked the cauliflower first and tried to squeeze the moisture out of it so it wouldn’t be too wet, but it still was a little.  I’ve heard from a number of people that using raw, shredded cauliflower works better so I will be doing that next time to see if it’s any better.

Then, as the directions said, I mixed in one beaten egg.  So far so good…

That left me with this, a wettish sort of dough blob.  It held it’s consistency pretty well but was also quite easy to pull apart. It certainly wasn’t like actual dough but it still appeared to be good enough for what I needed.

This is where the big mistakes started.  I didn’t have a cookie sheet or a pizza pan so I used baking paper to spread it out on.  I also spread it too thin.  I was worried that if I didn’t that it would stay too mushy in the middle and hoped it would become more crisp if it was thinner.

That really wasn’t the case at all.  It was terribly floppy and somewhat stuck to the paper so I had to pry it off with a spatula.  I then moved it to a sheet of tinfoil figuring that was closer to a pizza dish than paper was.  Maybe that would help.  So I went ahead and piled on the toppings.

I was told by a friend that what she does at this point is flip it over and put the other side under the grill to make it a little more crispy. I will be trying that next time as I think it would help a lot. I’ll also make it slightly thicker so that I’m able to actually flip it without it bending and breaking apart.

I put tomato puree, artichoke heart, mozarella, feta and a small amount of salami.  This is what I’d usually have on the pizza’s I’d buy frozen, so I wanted to compare. By this time I was starving and about a minute away from eating it raw. True story.

This is perhaps where I made my next mistake. I chose to just put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes rather than putting it under the grill just until the cheese melted.  It was still totally floppy and I think the base became even more moist than it was before I put the toppings on.  Damn it looked delicious though!  I moved it onto a cutting board and cut it into pieces which were far too floppy to eat by hand, but it made it look more pizza like as I ate it with my knife and fork.

It tasted really good, which is the most important part!  The edges were delicious and I just wish the entire base had come out like that.  I mean it LOOKED like pizza, it TASTED like pizza… it just didn’t FEEL like pizza.  That’s the bit that I have to try to correct somehow.

I know it will probably never be exactly like the pizza I used to have, because it’s not. Still though, I want to get this whole thing down so that it’s something I can easily repeat.  I looove pizza and if I can make my own low carb friendly version, I will – a lot!

I’m going to buy a proper pizza pan this week and give it another go, I’ll keep you posted!

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Day 4 – Now that the holidays are over I’m back to my usual diet, and I’m so glad. I love all that forbidden food but it really makes me feel like crap.  I have to admit I did overdo it a bit, and ended up gaining about two kilos. Not bad in the grand scheme of things, especially since I know most of it is just bloating.  I am intolerant to wheat and if I eat it I end up like the Michelin Man, so the few pieces of cake and cookies I ate over the last two weeks have taken their toll.  I’ve already lost 1 kilo of it in the last few days so I’m not really worried.  Soon I will be back to my early December weight and heading steadily towards my next goal!

Part of my routine is oatmeal and since I don’t eat sugar, I dress my oatmeal up with fruit to make it less like tasteless snot and more like a delicious breakfast treat!

Day 5 – For the past few hours my husband and I have been glued to the TV, keeping a close eye on the news regarding a huge fire taking place just south of Rotterdam.  A chemical storage company caught fire and exploded causing a large amount of damage and smoke.  The smoke has been heading north and there has been a lot of concern about the chemicals in the air.  We were on high alert for a while, waiting to hear the city sirens going off to tell us to stay indoors, but from what I’m hearing we are in the clear and there is nothing in the air that is harmful to humans.  I think we’ll be staying indoors tonight anyway. just to be sure!

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This is my husband. Do you see the smile on his face?  Well, I can’t take credit for that one.  Jenny made a leg of lamb and he went into total Neanderthal mode.  He picked that piece of meat up and gnawed on it like his life depended on it.

It gave me hope that this might mean that one day he’d stop eating ribs and wings with a knife and fork.   I was so proud…

Wait a minute….

See that look?  That look says, Why don’t you ever make leg of lamb, Tammy?!  This shit is delicious!

Man, I really need to step up my game.  Either that or just never let him go back to France again, but then that means I can’t go either… and I’ll be damned if I don’t love her cooking too.

I guess I have no choice, I’ve put it off as long as I could… it’s time for me to become the domestic goddess my man deserves!

Um, except for the kitty litter, he can still do that.  Oh, and taking out the garbage.  He may as well vacuum too, since he is the one who keeps wearing his shoes in the house.  I have sensitive skin so he should probably also wash the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher.

What??  I said he’d get the leg of lamb.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.

No related posts.

Ok maybe I do, sorta.  Still, it wasn’t nice of you to just assume it was about me.  Just sayin’.

This is The Fat Lady:

No, seriously, the fish is actually called The Fat Lady!  Check the link if you don’t believe me.

Anyway, you know what a fish means!  That’s right, I am the Less Fat Lady!  Another weight loss milestone has come and gone.  This mother of a fish weighs a whopping 60 lbs, which is just 2 lbs less than what I have lost to date!  I’ve lost 62 lbs!  The milestone was 60 of course but I’m still a lazyass and am just getting around to writing about it now.

You know what else weighs 60 lbs?  This Rice Crispy Treat!

Crap, now I’d really like a rice crispy treat. Let’s move on…

I never thought I’d get here because if you remember I hit a monster of a plateau back in April after finally reaching my 50 lbs lost mark and it didn’t go away. I teeter tottered between 50-55 lbs lost between March and July and was really beginning to reach the end of my rope.  No matter how hard I tried, my plan just was not working, Weight Watchers was no longer working.  I didn’t know why, but even though I was biking, exercising and watching what I ate the weight just was not coming off.

This summer while we were visiting my in-laws, they were telling me about how they have been eating a low carb diet.  I was like, you guys are nuts!  Ok I didn’t say that but I admit in the beginning I did think it, sorry guys!  I thought what a lot of other people think when they hear low carb… Omg these people don’t eat bread or potatoes, they eat bacon for breakfast every day and are going to die of a heart attack! (Not true, by the way).

After listening to them talk about how good they feel, what is in a lot of the food we eat and especially after eating what they were cooking for a week, I was starting to think they weren’t out of their minds afterall.

They weren’t pushy, just informative and answered any questions I had.  They also gave me some books to read about food, nutrition, weight loss, cravings and so on.  A lot of things suddenly started making sense to me.  Especially why my weight loss stopped in the first place!!

For the past 1.5 weeks I have been following their diet (The Harcombe Diet) and I’ve been eating WELL.  I eat great meats, about 10x more vegetables than I’ve probably eaten in the rest of my life and best of all I’m learning to cook properly.  Not just ‘add water and chicken’ type of cooking but REAL cooking with REAL food.  It’s a lot more satisfying and feels like more of an accomplishment than anything I’ve done in the past.

The diet’s principles are basically low carb (not to be mistaken with NO carb), no processed foods, white flour, refined sugars (so none other than what is found in fruit), and not eating carbs and fats together in the same meal.  It’s strict, much more strict than what I was doing on Weight Watchers, but it’s working.  I’ve lost 12 lbs in less than two weeks and I feel better physically.  Some of the things I’ve been moaning about physically are actually starting to show improvement.  I think my friends (*CoughPauleKimmyAaronCough*) who have been trying to nudge me to eat a more low carb / real food type of diet were on to something all along.  Sorry guys, I should have listened sooner!

The diet has three phases, one for starting off and ridding your body of all the crap you’ve been eating (eating mostly meat and veg), the second is for losing weight, which is a little less strict allowing for dairy, wheat and other good carbs depending on what you may or may not have intolerances to  (yes I CAN eat potatoes and other things you imagine to be considered the devil in a low carb diet!), and the third is a more relaxed healthy diet with ‘cheats’ that give you more freedom while maintaining your healthy new weight.

I am in phase 2 and as I said, it’s much more difficult than what I was doing with Weight Watchers but I have a lot of weight to lose and I’m really tired of messing around.  I want to lose weight, be healthy and feel good about myself.  If this is the diet that gets me there, I’ll be happy.  Regardless, I am happy for a lot of valuable lessons I’ve learned from this one in regards to food and nutrition.

So, now my weight is moving down steadily again, I’m eating healthier than I ever have in my entire life.  I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes me.  I don’t have any delusions, I know my body may adapt at some point and I’ll hit another plateau but, I’ll deal with that when the time comes just like I did this time.  I won’t give up.

In the meantime, I’ll keep working on getting to 70!  That’s going to be one hell of a fish!

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3. Confessions of a Fat Girl: The Last Resort

BEANS! Actual … beans!!  I don’t believe it!  I grew a real and honest to goodness vegetable!  I am the queen of gardening!

Seriously, if you could have seen the little dance I did around the balcony when I saw these babies.  It went a little something like…  I have beans, baby beans, Go Tammy…shake yer booty, beans baby beans, UH UH, BAM, oh yeah I got beans!!

It’s so weird, one day they weren’t there, the next they were.. just POW, bean city!

Now the only problem is that I have no idea when they are done.  Like, when do I pick them?  How do I know when the bean is ready to come off the plant and into MAH BELLEH?!  I tried to Google it but even with all the info I still don’t know what to do.  I’m not sure how big they get or how long to wait.  I’m so excited and confused!

My other veggies are coming along nicely too!

I have loads of these yellow flowers on my cucumber plants.  Judging by the plants that were on my bean plants before the beans arrived, I can only assume that the cucumbers are not very far off now.  I am watching them like a hawk.  They also growing  very quickly, and even though I only replanted them a week ago I think I may have to replant them again in even bigger pots just to be on the safe side.

My “little gem” lettuce has gone from green to purple and is starting to look a little stronger.  Not sure if this is going to go very well but I’m hoping.  I will replant them again soon anyway, then I just have to wait and see.

All of the plants now have stokjes (the sticks) in them to help keep them upright.  Some of my cucumber plants have weird little squiggly bits growing and reaching out all over the place trying to grab onto something.  I get the feeling they are going to grow pretty high.  I really must get out the packages and see what I am in for…

So here’s my current dilemma.  We are leaving to go on holiday on Thursday and I have to leave my veggie plants behind.  Just the thought of it has me breathing into a paper bag.

The neighbour will be coming in to water them and keep an eye on the cat and turtles, but… I’m not going to be able to excitedly run out to the balcony every morning to see what has changed!   The separation anxiety has already begun!  I might miss something!  I mean, what if the cucumbers start to grow and I miss it?

I considered calling off our holiday so I can stay home and watch my veggies grow, but I didn’t think my in-laws would appreciate it. Although, it was my stepmom-in-law (Jenny) who introduced me to gardening in the first place, so I could attempt to blame her.  I mean, this is all her fault after all!  I also plan on blaming her when I break the news to Xander that we have to move so I can have a bigger balcony for my plants next summer.

Anyway, perhaps I could pack them in the car and take them with me.  I’m sure they’d fit in the car, I could stop at rest stops to water them and they could sleep next to us in our hotel.   Then Jenny could see my plants firsthand and be there to tell me when it’s time to pick the beans!

… or maybe my neighbour would agree to take daily photos and email them to me.

Oh, I know!  I can get Xander to make a waterproof robot that sits on the balcony, takes photos each morning and then emails it to me.  Finally I can put his robotics skills to good household use!

Too much?

Maybe I’ll just call for daily veggie updates, and bake something delicious to leave behind.

I am not above bribery.

Related posts:

1. The Veggie Files – Signs of Life!
2. The Veggie Files – We Have Lettuce!
3. The Veggie Files – The Grand Replant

You can see in this photo that my bean plants (left) have grown big and bushy and my cucumber plants (right) are getting nice and thick and strong.  If you look in amongst the cucumber plants you can see the small sprigs that are my lettuce plants.  They aren’t growing very quickly and don’t seem entirely strong, so I’m still a little worried.

I’ve replanted them in another pot on their own together to see if they thrive a bit more.  If they start to grow into something a bit more substantial I will replant them again in their own bigger pots.

My favorite part at the moment is seeing all these white flowers starting to grow on my bean plants.  I think this means that the veggies aren’t very far off!  They are also getting very tall, I think those sticks may be in order soon to help them stand up.

I didn’t get any photos during the replanting process because my hands were far too filthy to go near my precious camera.  Just imagine me with a mess all over the balcony and enough dirt to start a second garden under my nails and you pretty much get the picture.

I got all of the plants replanted and made a veggie corner on my back balcony which gets the afternoon sun.  For now I have two bean plants in each pot, but if it gets too out of control I’ll try to separate them.  With so many of the plants I’m hoping that I can keep them together, we’ll see.  I really wish my balcony was bigger though, as this does take up a bit of seating area.  If it gets to be too much of a pain I will move it out to the front balcony where we get the morning sun and we don’t really sit out much.  The cat litter is out there so it’s not really somewhere I want to sit and have breakfast or anything.

Oh, and if you were worried about all those pesky animals of mine eating the veggies?  You can relax…

I’ve got a guard duck.

Related posts:

1. The Veggie Files – Signs of Life!
2. The Veggie Files – I have Veggies!
3. The Veggie Files – We Have Lettuce!