I’ve been working in my plot a few hours today. It’s very hot, but tomorrow nice rains are predicted so I’m planting fall seedlings and seeding a winter cover crop. I also dug my second of three rows of potatoes – the seedlings went in on top of this freshly dug soil. Escarole, radicchio, lettuce, arugula, broccoli, kailan (Chinese kale), and spinach. I pulled spent cucumber vines from my three tepees and planted pea seedlings around them. Oregon giant – a snow pea I love. I try planting fall peas…

Charley and I took a quick walk to see how my community garden plot was doing this afternoon. The winter rye cover crop looks good. The salt marsh hay covers my garlic beds. I like the thick branches of my pear trees in the foreground, espaliered along the fence. I’m working on planning what will go into these beds next year.  

The low sun is making a prism of light across my camera lens. In the foreground my pear tree branches are budded and braving the cold. Winter rye is growing in a few beds, green manure to turn under in the spring. The garlic bed is covered with salt march hay and I’m imagining healthy garlic root systems. I see some arugula that is still green. My compost bin was full to the brim in the fall. I ended up with a big pile of debris that wouldn’t fit in.…

I returned to a bone dry community garden that I hardly recognized as it had grown so much! And so many weeds. I had weeded before I left and did not expect to see so many pigweed, lambsquarters, crabgrass, chickweed, plantain, etc, etc. My escarole frisee was so pretty when I left and I thought a week would make it perfect. Here’s the pretty photo: When I got back – one week later – it had bolted to 4 feet high! If I had the space to spare, I would…

Its been a very cool spring. And now, very wet. Don’t remember when I’ve waited so long to set out tomatoes. Anyway, yesterday my sister and I planted tomato seedlings in my community plot. These are a set of six different varieties of late blight resistant tomatoes: Defiant, Ferline, Mountain Magic, Old Brookes, Prudens Purple and Plum Regal. We had 500 of these seedlings, that are reported to have different degrees of late blight resistance, grown for our community garden by a local grower. We are looking forward to seeing…

I haven’t even opened the gate in a couple months now. Everything is frozen and drab. I’m glad I was able to put a good layer of hay down as this winter has been brutal for the overwintering plants. We’ve had wide swing in temperatures and very little snow cover. Somewhere under the hay is 100 garlic shoots, a 4 year old bed of asparagus, a clump of Egyptian walking onions, a big crown of rhubarb, a few strawberry and raspberry plants, roots from my two espaliered pear trees, and…