summering

i might like tomatoes now! we cut into one from the garden and it was slick and juicy and really deep red, not at all grainy. there was none of the white, mealy, spongey middle part that i hate so much, and only a tiny bit of that seed-slime. i ate a whole plain tomato sandwich and it was great!

no squash yet, but there are tons of flowers. and i havent picked any bell peppers yet, but there are 6 growing on one plant.

here's kyle working on his half of the lashing for the bamboo bench we built.

most of it was held together with the twine, but we did use some screws.

(i even let kyle use my drill...)

and while we built, keller got a haircut.

born in a summer storm

it has threatened to storm every day since we got back from vacation, and there for a few days it was coming through with a shower every 6 hours or so. some rains were so heavy that our ceiling leaked again, some came with low thunder that lasted all night, and some that were so unexpected but welcome in the heat that we kept our game of catch going and got soaked.

not only has the rain been great to cool things down in the afternoons (we still havent turned our air on, and we're nearing a breaking point), its also making the garden go crazy. yesterday i brought in our first baby handful of grape tomatoes, and there's one roma that should be ready tomorrow. i was even more excited, though, to find cucumbers growing! they aren't even an inch long yet, but i found a 3 or 4 already. then, even MORE exciting: i went to look at the corn and found 2 tiny ears growing!

cows

oh wait, i do have a couple of pictures

we were gone for 13 days. among other things, we got to watch momma and baby cows find each other in a cow crowd by mooing, we got to canoe down the Potomac and watch bald eagles fly around dive-bombing each other, we walked around Cary Street in Richmond and bought some really fun stuff, and in Chapel Hill we discovered how great the new super mario brother for wii is. it was all pretty great, even if i did forget i had my camera and never took any pictures... we fit a lot in, and it was all a lot of fun, but thats about as long as i ever want to be away from home.

the whole time i kept thinking about the garden and wondering if things were okay, wanting to go look and watch and check and pamper everything. i felt like a mother cat who compulsively and methodically noses each of her wriggly kittens to make sure they're all accounted for.

when we left the little lima sprouts were just breaking through the dry, crumbly dirt, and the peas hadn't begun to break the surface yet. we came home to plants 6 and 8 inches tall. and the tomato plants grew about 16 inches while we were gone!

april 30

today



peeeeeeeeas!

tempo di vacanza

vacation preparation today. more mulch, more twine, more water.

cowpeas

it was sunday, only 4 days ago, that we planted the pink eye purple hull peas. i went out to nose around today, and noticed the dry ground cracking apart in the space where we planted them. i was going to get the watering can, and i noticed that the cracks were forming in 5 neat little rows.. it was all the little pea heads trying to break through already!

go adventurous little plant!

garden pictures

scarlett and i put out a few bags of mulch.

we dug up zinnas to make room to plant the pink eye purple hull peas next to the cucumbers.

the corn and the tomatoes are each about 30 inches tall.