Ending and Beginning

Dug up the bed that had daffodils in it now that their foliage has died down. Got most of the weeds out and dug in 5 gallons of leaf compost.

Collected all the daffodil bulbs in a bucket and put them in the basement, will get them planted this Fall somewhere outside the vegetable garden. I don’t like mixing annuals and perennials.

Plan to plant more kale, maybe more chard and carrots. We have about 60 days left before frost.

After I had cut some puslane for my dinner and was washing it, I noticed a bunch of tiny black specks in the wash water and in the salad spinner. I thought, “oh jeez, what is this, some new tiny mite eating my garden?” But it turned out to be purslane seeds! I find that a very happy thought for some reason — it means I’ll have purslane next year!

Was thinking about buying or renting a rototiller as I was digging. I’m trying to do everything as fossil-fuel-free as possible, but it sure would save time and do a better job if I had one of those. So even if I’m planning on eventually gardening without any fossil fuel inputs, if with a roto-tiller I’m able to improve my soil more than I could without it, couldn’t I make a case for using one now?

Also thinking about where to put some hazelnut bushes. A local source of protein would be good.

First tomato from the garden today. I split it with the boys. Small but good flavor.

Harvested and used in salad yet more purslane and kale today. I made a big salad, put on some Italian dressing, then put a big hamburger with a slice of cheddar on top. Divine! We’ll definitely be planting more kale.

Tomorrow I want to have some collards and swiss chard cooked. And probably purslane too.

I ask myself, what if our garden was all we had? And I’m apalled by the thought. We’re miles and miles from any kind of self-sufficiency. Could we even come anywhere near on our little bit of land? It hardly seems possible.

The boys and I dug the first potatoes today, some of the red ones. Most were about egg-size or a little bigger. I boiled them and we ate them with butter and a little salt. Yum! We also pulled a couple of onions to have with the potatoes, but there wasn’t much there yet.

M and I have been eating a lot of really good salads lately. I’ve been collecting a combination of greens: purslane, amaranth thinnings, kale, collards, even a little lettuce. The purslane is really what makes the salads so good. It’s crunchy without being tough, and very mild flavored. We have the onions in a raised bed, and that happens to be where a lot of purslane self-seeded, so I let it grow. Being a weed, it grew very vigorously, which is fine since it’s my favorite vegetable from the garden so far this year.

The last week has been really hot, and the tomatoes, corn, and peppers are loving it. I got a little carried away with the fish emulsion on the tomatoes, and they have a lot of huge, green leaves. I think the tomatoes will come, but probably would have come sooner without quite so much fertilizer.