First things first

Life with small children (okay, less small than they used to be, but old habits die hard) can often feel as though it's all reactive. You try to anticipate, but really kids are just bags of immediate wants and needs. I'm pretty spontaneous myself, but I do like some planful time. It helps center me for the onslaught of my days. If possible, I like to get up before anyone else, the time I used to run, and now I read the paper. Then I take a walk in the garden. Sometimes I hope that it's going to be a quick overview, but often I end up harvesting, doing stuff, getting happily side tracked. Today was a seriously sidetracky sort of day. The best!

I'm tickled at the bursting bounty of my bell pepper plants. I know that they need fertilization to keep going at their peak, and I have a low-tech idea for that which I'll blog about if it works, but still, just think of all the yumminess coming up:


The potato harvest seems like such a high return on investment. Somewhere the weights of the planting potatoes have to be written down. Even though I don't mean to, a visit to the potato bed seems to sneak in at least once a day. I'm not going to repeat the red and purple regular sized potato plantings -- the red ones are only good for boiling, really, and it's not my favorite preparation, and the purple ones are very . . . well, purple. Not for me.

But the fingerlings? They're called "Red Fingerling" and "French Fingerling" at the store where the original ones came from, and the French are buttery and fantastic. Maybe tonight we'll taste the red ones:


Can you see the "European Bell" pepper under that Early Girl tomato? Neither can I. Note to self, tomatoes are space pigs. Give 'em their own bed.


A quick tie up of a big branch and some judicious pruning freed the pepper to have at least a little light and some hope of fruiting.

The volunteer squash is doing fine -- I'm going to have to start walking over it soon. Of course, depending on what it is, I might end up tearing it out. It will be compost, at worst.


Today is the tomatillos last. The municipal green bin is being emptied today, and since I won't compost anything with this much powdery mildew, I was waiting for room for the plants. Any tomatillos worth saving will go into another batch of enchilada sauce, and then we'll just call it a day. I'm not up to coaxing them along. Maybe some year I'll fight powdery mildew, but not this one.


The Cherokee Purples are like little happy surprises peeking among the foilage.


Yesterday I managed to mostly turn under the cover crop. Now I have to find out what was supposed to follow the buckwheat, soybeans, and clover. I'm sold -- now I just have to make certain that I've scheduled cover cropping in between rotations, and find a source for modestly-priced bulk seed.


Flowers mean that beans can't be far behind, if the beetles don't eat them all. Little pests.


The other bean bed is happier with some iron slug bait. I was finding too many babies half chewed. We replanted in the empty spots, but I bet there's going to be enough for the whole year anyhow.


When I was ready to go in the house, the basket was much heavier.


Ten minutes after going inside, a freshly beaten egg and enough butter to make me feel a little guilty made a breakfast to seriously savor. That's the kind of fast food I can get behind!


Squash blossoms, Cherokee Purple tomato, and some of the volunteer tat soi from a path. Now I get to think of lunch.