The noodly one certainly decided to introduce us to the summer with a slap to the face. It was perfect weather for sipping fermented beverages and slapping mosquitoes, and I surely took advantage of that. I also got to see a parade as the indigent boarders insisted. They were under the impression that all parades involve people throwing candy at them. Unfortunately they didn’t get that wish. Best of all, I got to work in the garden a lot and managed to tuck in my tomatoes.
Each of the determinants gets a metal cage (I made these over ten years ago and they’ve survived two moves). I also ran a soaker hose beside each plant and mulched the whole thing. After the nice downpour Saturday morning they’re all still feeling pretty comfy. By the by, this is the bed that had grown rye over the winter–I turned it under in early May and it rotted down nicely.
I also planted black turtle beans in the experimental sheet mulched bed. The soil looks fantastic, most of the horse poop clumps are gone and no weeds yet. That makes me a little nervous.
I’m also starting to see the, well, the fruit of my labor. Potatoes:
In less than a month and a half we’ll be grubbing around for new potatoes. For now I spend many evenings shuffling along in the dirt with a flashlight on my head. I find when I look up from underneath I can see the bugs. These days I’m seeing a lot of colorado potato beetles (wiki here). I haven’t seen any larvae yet, which is good because they are the most vomit-inducing bug I’ve even seen. Little pink boogery looking things that carry their poop around on their backs. Ugh. Both adults and larvae will skeletonize a plant. The adults look a lot like the striped cucumber beetle, but they’re actually not very closely related. I’m sure I’ll write about those little bastards later. They both lay eggs on the under sides of leaves and I spend a lot of my time hunting them out. Too bad they’re not good to eat.
Speaking of eggs that are good to eat, I built a miniature chicken tractor for my chicks:
They love it. I probably should have taken a picture of them in it for perspective, but it’s about 8 foot square, so they have plenty of space.
My favorite thing has got to be the little flowers I discovered on my pea plants.
Flowers means that snow peas are on the way — actually sugar snaps too. Peas remind me of Mendel, but I guess that’s going to have to be a discussion for another day.
