Woohoo!

The grape tomatoes from my sister are total cuteness today.

And these must be jalapenos (?), but I don't remember planting jalapenos at all. They will be eaten, that is for sure.

Lookin' good, peas, lookin' good. I flopped the plant to and fro in order to get this photo. What do people traditionally give their peas to cling to? Mine cling to quackgrass and weeds.

Accentuate the Positive

My sister does great work with vegetable seeds. She had a wonderful leftover grape tomato plant and gave it to us (thanks!). My assistant and I took the dramatic step of planting this thing.

 And it seems happy where we planted it.

Good night grape tomato!

Across from the tomato, I have this:

And I have these:

I hope they're green beans. Otherwise they're a terrible mistake. They seem to think they're important, punching through the dirt that way. Here I am! Hello, world. Look at me!

Nearby, I have a large rock. I have plans for the future of this rock.

My plans require rain.

And, up by the house, it's another baby lettuce. That's crazy.

Audience, please get plenty of rest tonight. Tomorrow is the July 1 Solar Eclipse of  2011. Generally I hate eclipses. I am hoping that this one makes me rich. If you're traveling, please travel safely.

Susan Miller told me to avoid traveling. I'll follow her advice. Being too busy and low on funds helps with this a great deal! Susan Miller is a tough love astrologer. That's sort of the opposite of me. When I'm being an astrologer.

Accentuate the positive, I say.

Good night, audience!

Spreading the Good News

We have early girl tomatoes! Beautiful early girl tomatoes.

We have deer visitors who didn't destroy much yesterday or today.

We have lettuce!

That's lettuce, right? I'm shell-shocked from the recent lettuce incident. Until this instant, when I googled the definition of the phrase shell-shocked, I thought it referred to shy, Disney-esque shellfish characters. I like my way better.

And we have another lettuce, even smaller than the first.

Someone made a deadly mistake when they put me in charge of lettuce. Baby lettuces are more difficult to care for and keep safe than baby humans are.

Moving on: we have lots of little Cayenne peppers.

I am pleased, excited, and I predict a prolific year for the peppers.

We have more surprise potentilla arenaria wildflowers. These are by our play structure.

My temptation (that I'm resisting) is to mark them with those flags for electrical lines so we don't mow them down.

The best part of having an acre and a half that we can almost basically let go and let grow ("neglect," one might say) is all of the wonderful surprises that randomly grow on their own. I've seen wildflowers, trees, shrubs, and possibly even an occasional fruit or vegetable randomly appear and grow on our property.

The worst part about having a feral acre and a half is the terrible surprises such as poison ivy. I just spent half an hour tracking down and poisoning young poison ivy. I feel like I need a holster to carry my Round Up Poison Ivy Killer.

Coach: this is a business opportunity for you.

Gardening with sibs

We spent the day socializing, swimming, grilling (baby back ribs), weeding, and planting with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. We planted a ton of seeds, and they also gave me a bunch to bring home and plant. I can't wait to see what grows there, and I'm especially excited to see if their pumpkins are successful. I don't know how they built their vegetable garden, but it's huge and very nice-looking.

I pulled a few weeds from the adorable lakeside garden while I worked on my tan:

My brother uses many of the same techniques that my farmer parents used. I've really gone off in my own dorky, unprofessional direction (my friends would charitably call me a naturalist wannabe), so it was so strange to see that stuff (very straight rows, planters) again.

CSA! Hooray!

We received our first CSA share (half-share, actually). In it was leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, two pounds of  asparagus, one dozen awesome eggs. I didn't know that eggs could be so delicious. I am a big fan of Rich Carpenter and Carpenter's Organic Produce so far, and I look forward to my weekly "Christmas presents."

Other checked-off items from my checklist today include:

• cultivated garden 2.
• planted zucchini.
• planted in garden 3: Royal Prince tomato; cherokee purple tomato; two early girl tomatoes; four cayenne red peppers. "Early Girl tomatoes aren't early and aren't good," said my sister. If they're in fact early, then I'll find out soon if I agree with her. I haven't had very many tomatoes that I didn't like.