The Bully

When we returned from St. John, I found that my cucumbers had gotten an attitude. They aren't supposed to be outside of their enclosure. Even the normally prolific Chinese longbeans are cowering on their edge of the trellis, tentatively reaching their tendrils away from the cuke. I found one climbing on the sprinkler nozzle. This photo was taken after I had chopped some cuke limbs from the mint and basil, who were trapped in their pots with no escape. One leg seems to be inching its way toward my neighbor's yard.

Here's the tomato plant striving to evade the grasp of the monster cuke, with nowhere to go but up. It's about as tall as I am now. I've used no fertilizer this year. Notice no tomatoes are on this plant. I think it needs all its strength to fight off the bully.

I reaped a harvest of one tiny tomato, three Chinese longbeans and seven very large cucumbers. Many more blossoms portend pickling, Greek salads and juice in my future.

Thank goodness I'm a juicer. This one bully-cuke, along with a tiny orange and an even tinier knob of ginger, yielded nearly 30 ounces this morning.

(That's not my pancake in the background)

I feel bad for the bullied veggies, but enjoy juicing organic cukes I don't have to peel first!