Its hot

So here in Northern California its hot today, summer hot. It's kind of inspiring. I have been out this morning clearing the garden patch. I have been haunting our local nurseries for the last month.

I have had a vegetable garden since a child. As a kid both neighbors had gardens. We had one. Even in college I had a tomato plant in a pot. The current garden is about 5’ wide (varying widely from 3’ to 6’), and nearly 60’ long. I have been tilling it since we bought the house over 20 years ago. I tend to abandon the garden sometime in December. The weeds grow too tall, and by spring it’s a major job to get it back in shape. I started to clear it this week. This is late. Usually by now I have plants starting to sprout, tomatoes a foot tall…

I bought a machete. While for now it is for the garden, eventually it will join the “pioneering tools” in the Escape. A folding shovel, a come along, some blocking… all the stuff you need if you are really off road.

The artichoke patch is doing well, and nearby I found that my carrots from last year had done well over the winter. There are still some semi wild potatoes to be dug. A couple of years ago I created a meal based on the leaks and potatoes that I found during the spring weeding.

This year its different when I visit the home centers and nurseries… Everyone is here, buying and planting a vegi garden… I am not sure if it’s the economy, or the green movement or just a step backward (in a good way). I seem to be riding a wave of gardening …

So this year I am thinking I may not plant corn… I can get really good fresh corn at the farm. This year I have dove poo… the greatest fertilizer ever… so hot it can kill weeds if applied too heavily. The doves have built a nest our to the carrot tops I gave them to eat… More doves are apparently on the way. I dug in a bit in the tomato patch…

I am thinking tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, row crops including carrots, beets, radishes, some onions, of course the artichokes and strawberries. A bit of squash… yellow crookneck and pati-pan mostly, but of course one zucchini.

On other issues, I am trying to arrange repairs on a car 800 miles away… It’s the old Saturn, loaned to our son. It died one day… I am trying to figure out who I can trust 800 miles away without eye to eye contact. Steph and I will fly up in a week or so to bring it south, so she can use it, including driving cross country to Maryland where she will be helping out as a family nanny with her cousin’s family.

Camps, museums, cross country trips… it’s a full summer… and of course, I am rebuilding a wooden narrow gauge caboose…