Summer                                                              Most Heat Moon

As the Most Heat Moon gives way to the Lughnasa Moon, gardening takes more time. Today I picked gooseberries, a thorny fruit, willing to rip and tear any who venture near. Got enough for a full basket and didn’t end up wounded.

This was also a spray morning. One goes on the plants throwing out seeds in various fleshy carriers like tomatoes, egg plants, cucumbers, beans, peppers, as well as those concentrating on root growth like onions, garlic, carrots and beets. The other is for those plants spreading their leaves like chard and collard greens, various herbs.

Today was also a drench day, a concentrated solution that goes on the soil, not on the plant, and raises the level of molecular interactions in the soil that create plant growth. Drenching is a bit messy since I’m using an old Miraclegro feeder that has seen far better days. It leaks and sprays, soaking my shoes and pants. Time for a new one.

Kate has the pressure cooker out, shades of the 1950’s, having discovered that low acid vegetables like beets and carrots require the higher 240 degrees a pressure cooker can reach.

Forgot to mention that my energy level has returned to normal, perhaps normal plus a bit, after the long two weeks with guests, then Kate gone, then more guests. I’m glad because it restored my sense that I can care for a garden, a vegetable garden, about the size of ours, especially if that’s the primary outdoor work I have to do. That and the bees.

Summer                                                      Most Heat Moon

Spent the morning first spraying, then in the garden weeding the vegetable beds and harvesting beets and carrots. After the first beet crop was out of the ground, I planted the third. The second is already growing in another bed and between open spaces created by earlier harvests.

The beets and the carrots all go into the hod, a metal mesh with two wooden ends and a curved wooden handle for carrying. The wire mesh is useful with roots crops because it allows the hose to get all sides, including the underside of just picked vegetables.

Inside I prepped the beets, boiled them, skinned them and they now await some other action, one I’ve not chosen. Or, perhaps more than one.

A few of the carrots and a handful of green beans, picked this morning, too, got heated up and eaten with the remaining lamb from the rack of lamb we had the last night Ruth and Jon were here. These were from last November when I got a good deal on a Byerly’s order, brought to me since I had no vehicle. I had rack of lamb for Thanksgiving while Kate had Thanksgivukkah with the Denver Olsons.