May planting

For four days rain and hail pelted Torrey. Then the wind blew. Then it rained a bit more. Once the sun came out, the muddy garden soil took two days to dry enough to support Bob. I didn't trust it for another full day. Bob says I was just being lazy and avoiding all the planting. He may have a point, but don't tell him I said so.

Bob's fabulous irrigation system makes planting so easy. My theory is if anything dies I can blame his lousy irrigation system.


We have 20 tomato plants to put in. The nicest ones are from Will, who gave us heirloom varieties. I immediately lost the nice tags he put in each plant so I don't know what varieties I have. (Will, I'm testing your blog-slogging tenacity here. Are you reading this?) I'm addicted to Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, so I planted those next. I call 'em "breakfast tomatoes". Here I am beating a tomato cage into submission.



Bob created a little paradise for his asparagus plants. The mail ordered plants resemble little bunches of dead ropey roots. It will be a miracle if they grow.




I'm getting the next pile of weeds ready for a big fire. Linda, bring your blowtorch on the next dry, windy day. Torrey needs some excitement.





Today's garden upgrades included: walking onions, parsnips, radishes, strawberries, and a few things I've already forgotten. Since we don't keep notes or mark our rows we can be surprised when things pop out of the ground. We plan to eat everything that grows,except the hemlock.

Lettuce and carrots and parsnips

Lettuce isn't typically a blogworthy topic. Neither does gardening normally make the evening new or the headlines. But this year is different. A friend who normally considers a bag of Doritos dinner just confessed he's eking out a plot of dirt in his yard to plant -- vegetables.
"What are you going to do with them?" I innocently asked, wondering how Doritos and vegetables could possibly co-exist in his kitchen.
"I don't know, you'll tell me, right?"
The current austerity and self-sufficiency kick won't last, but even if only two percent of these converts stick to gardening and fresh vegetable eating, our culture of crappy food consumption will shift ever so slightly. And maybe my health insurance premiums will go down when Americans stop suffering from Doritos-besity and grease burger-heart disease.


Which leads to this exciting update on -- lettuce. The first tasting last week (from when I thinned the plants) resulted in an underwhelming consensus: bland. Granted, the plants were much too tiny to have developed much flavor, and my comments about infanticide may have negatively skewed the judging. But as the lettuce grows, I can smell the promise of subtle lettuce flavor. I know, Romaine is pretty much flavor-free, but that's beside the point. THIS Romaine will be the most amazing of all, because when your food has that personal connection, it just tastes better.

The carrots are growing especially well (in the center of the container).
Check out how delayed the parsnips are (on the left end of the container). I know the chances of getting actual parsnips are slim, but this is, after all, an experiment. And even if I get only ONE damn parsnip, its taste will be blogworthy.