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.

Supporting Cast

I was inspired by Dan's recent post about his move to compostable supports for his plants to get out and photograph my supports for this year's garden. As with most gardeners, everything is a work in progress, but I make refinements as I go along. For pole beans, the problem is getting them tall enough. This year, 8' long redwood 1x1s seemed to be the answer. They're tall, even after stuffing them in the garden bed, and a quick screw or two to the back fence helped make them even more sturdy. Quite possibly as sturdy as this fence! The corners might have a screw in place (thank goodness for an electric drill) but I think I also might have just tied some in place. This one has both. A few turns around and a square knot, and it's the horizontal upper piece in place.


Along the bottom, above the soil level, I tied a long piece of the compostable twine. At intervals, it's held down by pins made from wire hangers, so it's relatively stable, just at the beginning. Over the horizontal bar, I just tossed the ball of twine so there are V-shaped loops hanging down.


One of the Scarlet Runner beans is as tall as me if I'm on the ground, so it's got to be up about 4-5' from its start. Too bad I transplanted a whack of bush beans along one section of trellis!

The beans aren't the only plants with partially-compostable supports. Tomato cages give me fits. If they're the stacking round ones, they're generally not sturdy enough for big, indeterminate varieites, and the sturdy round cages I make myself are a storage nightmare. If I had a barn or something, I'd just do that but on a small, urban lot, storage is a key consideration.

This year, I tried an idea I've been percolating for some time. The 6" square concrete reinforcing wire that comes in big sheets makes a nice "alley" put up with sections of rebar.

The tomatoes go staggered in there, and as they start flopping around, sticks get inserted at strategic points to restrain them. Wayward branches moving out the sides get tucked back in or up, however they can be fit.


I figure, at the end of the season, I'll pull out the sticks, and hang the still-flat wire along a fence. Worth a try, at least.

The hot weather has had the bees out in force, drinking from the new "fountain," (really an old refrigerator drawer with water and bits of wood for landing platforms in it) a lot. It gets near constant traffic. Click for a closeup of her tongue.


Unfortunately, the friendly, useful bees aren't the only visitors to the garden. Does anyone know a good purpose for yellow jackets?