5th week of July 2007
Last Friday we woke up to a beautiful rain that lasted most of the morning, just what we needed. My piddly attempt at watering plants can never compare to a good rain. The sounds outside are those of mid-summer with the beginning of locust humming and the pleasant twittering of the gold finches visiting sunflower heads. 
I am still sneaking in a few more beds of fall carrots, beets and turnips - all things our family enjoys and that will do well in a root cellar. Also on the list to be planted are lettuces and greens for fall salad and to go in the cold frame. I finally got the majority of my 100 tomato plants staked up though it should have been completed several weeks ago. After my dozen or so cages were used up I attempted to rig up a system alternating T posts and fiberglass posts with several levels of baler twine strung between everything. Not exactly beautiful but hopefully effective as many of the plants are loaded with green tomatoes that will hopefully soon turn into a kaleidoscope of colors.
While I was working on the tomatoes our 8 year old daughter was picking things from her garden plot and later called everyone in for lunch. 
She cooked up fresh harvested yellow beans and beets from her garden and decorated a salad with special violas she had planted. How delicious to eat things that fresh (and to have someone else do the cooking!). Some new discoveries in my part of the garden this week included finding an artichoke in bloom and nibbling on a leaf from my "toothache plant" or spilanthes. After a few seconds of chewing my mouth began to feel tingly and then almost numb with a novocaine feel. My herbalist friend was quite excited about the possibilities of a plant that naturally caused numbing and I had fun having several friends give it a nibble.
[Return to Garden Journal Page]