Things are coming along right nicely in my garden this year. Well, by things I mean that I have all my spring and summer crops in, the drip irrigation installed, and as of this morning I have hilled the potatoes for the second and final time. Woo!
And I have to say, this year's potato crop is killing it! I so love me some giant spuds, especially German Butterballs. Most of my crop is of the long term storage Yukon Gold variety, as my garden is of the agrarian subsistence variety, but there are a couple of fun cultivars to be found as well.
All that's left to do in potato-land is to hit the spud plants with a bit of fish and kelp emulsion right before they bloom. I have found over the years that a blast of the sea's bounty gives my taters a bit of a size boost. You know, cause as I said earlier, I love a potato the size of an elephant's foot. My dream potatoes are so big that just one of them will fill a cast iron skillet for fried potatoes. Sigh...
Anyway, the other items in my garden are sprawling along too. My zucchinis are all up and exploding, which means in about t-minus 20-30 days or so I am going to be in full planter's remorse about planting four hills of them. (I'm just kidding, I am never sad about an abundance of zucchini, it'll just be salsa canning time:).
My next chore will be weeding the red onion patch, as I have neglected it a touch while trying to get everything seeded, weeded, hilled, and irrigated. There's only fifty of them or so, so it won't take me too long to square that mess away.
And the second the onions are tidied, it's time to stake tomatoes. I have six super amazing rebar tomato cages a friend welded me, but as I have fifty plants in, that means I am about 44 short. Usually I implement a Florida Weave trellising scenario to support the tomatoes, using stakes and my end of winter surplus of baling twine. I'll probably do that again, but who knows with me...
This past winter I had the pleasure of eating at Lolo's Chicken and Waffles and during that visit of culinary delights I ate a bowl of collard greens that the thought of still makes me drool slightly. So great was that collards experience that I planted some to grow in order to try to replicate the tangy, spicy, savory dish of amazingness. Let's just say there are some tasty greens in my future, and I will so report on my attempt to get it right!
The peas are doing their windy vine thing, but as last year was peas on steroids year, this year they seem to be a bit meh. It probably has to do with our wacked out weather. We have been in this pattern where it's ninety degrees one day and thirty the next. Apparently the potatoes like the extremes, but the peas not so much.
And as we are in the middle of a building heat wave this week, I made sure to pluck a bunch of perfectly ready lettuce this morning. We are supposed to break into triple digit territory this weekend, so I wanted to actually enjoy my lettuce instead of shedding tears over it being in a bolted state. That particular batch of lettuce is currently chilling in a bath of ice cold water. I need to go rinse it and let it dry because I feel like there is a salad in my lunch future.
The lettuce is a mix of all types of lettuce, oakleaf, butter, romaine, etc. I love all the different shapes and textures! That said, I need to get my currently sprawled in my office chair shape into gear and get ready for work. There's a library and story time to run!
