'Maters 'n Mowin'

Did you see what I did in the title with the apostrophes? (or as my stupid undergrad students would have written: apostrophe's')

Anywho, I HAVE TOMATOES...see photo














That's my finger for size. Remember, I have giant man hands so it's pretty big. There are actually three tiny tomatoes on this potted one and one more on another.

Well, after the previous update, I went and checked the garden and it seems I boiled the tomato and pepper starts I'd planted by forgetting to vent the plastic cover on a 70 degree day. The OTHER plants/seeds loved it but the tomatoes and peppers looked bedraggled. And then they looked dead. So, I got more because I'd already planted the other starts in pots.

After pulling out countless squash starts from the vermicompost (last year I was just putting in the squash guts, seeds and all, now I sort out the seeds and toast them for snacks and Hammy treats and salad toppings. very nice) I realized that since that is what WANTS to grow in the garden perhaps I should stop fighting it. I've let one go. I don't know what kind of squash. Could be butternut, kobocha, delicata, acorn, or any one of the inadvertent hybrids they were selling cheap at the co-op. We'll see if it works out. What the hell.

I replanted peas and they've come up. The starts croaked either from the heat or because they don't like to be transplanted.

Of course once I got all the tomatoes and peppers in pots and things, it got cold. There has been a caravan of plants coming in and out of my trailer for the past week. Last few nights I've left them out and they are doing fine. When Jeanne and Elizabeth visited (HI!) they got to help. And we planted some flower pots just for fun. Jeanne even picked up some raspberry starts at our local plant hut in Plummer.

I added 2 buckets of potatoes. I'd like to plant two or three more potatoes but I'm short on buckets. I may have to sacrifice a rubber tub but since I'm not going to buy any more rubber tubs I'm leery of cutting holes in the ones I own. I'm working on acquiring no new plastic. It's a slow process but a rubber tub is a pretty big obvious and easy thing not to get. Also in pots are onions. We'll see. I had extra sets so I'm giving it a shot. More will go into pots tomorrow. The strawberries and mint in pots looks pretty good. The mint is a "chocolate mint" plant and smells most excellent.

That's about it for the garden update.

As for the "mowin'" portion of the title. It's been RAINING and RAINING and DRIZZLING. Since I have a reel mower like your great great grand father had, I can't mow wet grass unless I want to have a solid block of rust rather than a mower. AND I don't want to hire the lawn done. It's spendy and there is a system to me letting some grass get tall. I'm leaving a ring of tall grass between me and the roadways on three sides (two streets and an alley) and on the fence row with the neighbors. I want the seeds to blow around the yard and cover up some bare spots AND I want a bit of a filter to any run off coming my way. It can't hurt. It's already catching quite a bit of blowing detritus from the street. Not as many plastic bags in the lawn as usual, though there was a Mike's Hard Lemonade bottle on the street side, I don't think that blew in. Probably a walker from Bobbie's bar chucked it. I threw it out in the street. Oh well.

AND each time I see the lawn I mowed myself I think "There's 50$ still in the bank" and you know how I like to save money.

Anyway, ALSO 2 sets of plum pits I buried last fall are coming up quite nicely. I should probably thin them as there appear to be about 12 stems in each bunch. Very cool though. I don't expect to get much crop this year, but someday someone will have a lovely plum patch in that yard.

Other than that...the hummingbird battles are going full force around the feeder AND I'm seeing actual bees flying around this year. Very happy to have the pollinators back.