toMAYto

yesterday i picked my first two homegrown tomatoes of the year! so very sweet and tangy. a few more are blushing:

after that it’s going to be weeks before more ripen.

in the meantime, salad:

on 5/21 i picked a quarter pound of greens (spinach, parsley and six types of lettuce) and two radishes.

three more radishes on monday. these are french breakfast. i thought they would be longer and skinnier--in photos i’ve seen online they remind me of used tampons. (sorry.) i still think they’re cool looking either way.

look at all the beautiful colors! from left to right it’s yugoslavian red, flame, buttercrunch bibb, red oak leaf, bloomsdale long-standing spinach, and a mix of sorrel and mȃche. i grazed on these for breakfast this morning.

sorrel and mȃche are growing very slowly, especially the latter. if it doesn’t taste amazing i probably won’t grow it again.

ripe strawberry #8. gradually making up for last year.

one of my eggplants and three or four peppers started blooming this week. i don’t think this happened until late july last year.

i got an extremely satisfying amount of planting accomplished last saturday: six peppers, two eggplants, two tomatillos, two ground cherries, one cape gooseberry, and i direct-seeded about 60 beans, black cumin, regular cumin, calendula and nasturtiums.

yesterday and today i worked on containers: potted another tomato, some basil, a purple bell pepper surrounded by purple petunias, a hanging basket with fuchsias and petunias, a mix of herbs, and direct-seeded two squash and a large container of dwarf corn.

i’ve been having trouble hardening off my plants because of all the strong winds the last few weeks. it was stressing me out, i couldn’t put anything outside because it would all blow over and get damaged. so my plants were suffering, until i thought of this:

it’s an old bottle crate i found at an antique store. the openings are just the right size for my planting cups to fit snugly and not tip over while still giving the plants enough space to stretch their limbs. it came in handy today while i was at work and there were 40mph wind gusts. i got home and everything was fine.

there’s only one good thing about the super chilly (highs in the 50s) forecast for the next four days:

my favas just started blooming. i read that fava plants will only legumify if the temperature is below 80 degrees. that shouldn’t be a problem.