Design

Bare branches, open landscapes and remnants of snow greeted us in the mountains. The air was clear and the mountains visible, without the humid haze of summer. With more normal winter temperatures, it's not frigid, thankfully. But happily it's time to be thinking about spring and summer vegetables. I just have an order or two to still put in; I've already received the tomato, pepper, eggplant, and tomatillo seeds for growing for transplants (most will be donated to produce transplants for Garden Fest, an event to promote vegetable gardening in home gardens at the botanical garden where I work). The rest are for vegetables that benefit from direct seeding -- also many will be offered at Garden Fest. It's so encouraging to see the interest in growing vegetables and other edibles expand. It's part of a sustainable garden, for sure.

In spite of the dry summer so far, the main vegetable garden looks lush and the satellite garden looks like a jungle. Yes, I do water, but I try to be judicious and soak deeply (and am thankful that the winter and spring rains have filled the lakes that provide much of our local water supply). Compared to the crushing drought conditions of the last few years, it's basically unbelievable to have so many productive tomato, pepper, and squash plants. (The beans will recover from their slump, and I'll be planting a last round of French filet bush beans tomorrow, thanks to my friend CEN's extra seeds). Her garden was lovely, neat and tidy, when I visited it last week. I couldn't help but think about the contrast as I watered this evening! It's a good thing that a 7 ct chest freezer is being delivered tomorrow, to go in the basement. I feel obligated to do something with all these vegetables, whether it's preserving the harvest or giving them away!

I know they're coming. The summer vegetables, that is. I'm waiting for squash, tomatoes, and beans, in particular, having just about eaten my fill of greens and lettuce. My gardening companion (a good vegetable eater) commented this evening that he needs to eat lettuce at every meal, after putting away yet more freshly-washed and spun leaves. (These were actually harvested as one of the props for a couple of 1st grade plant classes, illustrating plant diversity -- they were impressed by the deer tongue, purple-tingled, and speckled lettuces, I think!) My gardening friends (hrrmph, they know who they are) that were early planters are already seeing zucchini flowers, at the same time mine barely have 4 or 5 leaves (I was late in planting). This may be a challenging squash vine borer year; the C. moschata squash (winter squash and tromboncino) will sail through probably, but I guess I can hope that the colder than usual winter had a detrimental effect on overwintering larva...