So remiss!

Ugh. I guess for now the epoch of daily posting is in remission. Part of that is because I have new tales to tell and want to give them justice.

I took photos of my garden to post, but it looks like they're not wanting to upload, dammit. Oh, wait, at least one of them did. Rock on. Patience, Stew, patience. (Blogger is apparently playing hard to get.)

Shortly I'll be leaving for the Queen City for the weekend, where I'm going for an almost-family reunion. My friend-since-10th-grade jj, her parents, her sister(s?), aunts, uncles, cousins, and me. Oh, and NOT least, jj's two children (of which I've only met one), her husband, her sister's new babe, and her sister's husband (neither of whom I've met either).

I'll be taking them some gardenous bounty in the form of a couple of tomatoes, cukes, plums (from the community garden), plum jam (same, but I processed it last week), and peppers. As you can see below, the eggplant is not yet ready, but isn't it looking nice? The beans are behind, because I planted them way late. That's fine, though, because there's still plenty of time for them.

Now for the pix, which did eventually upload. As you can see, however, some of my edits didn't take for some reason. Bizarre that they didn't save as rotated.

Anyhoo:

One of my eggplant plants.

Corn! And maybe zucchini. Something in that family, anyway.

Tomatoes. One of many varieties. The first to ripen were the sungolds, as I mentioned before. The second is the Cherokee Purple. This is either Better Boy or perhaps Pink Beefsteak.

Hydrangea. I got this plant about 6 years ago, and it was a baby in a 6 inch pot. (Note the fig tree behind it.)

One of the zinnias. Gorgeous color, isn't it? Cosmos and swiss chard beside it.

Misleading photo of a summer squash. It's only about 6 inches long. Perspective. I'm guessing it will be good to eat in a few days when I return.

My tomato/pepper/cuke/eggplant/marigold bed.

I wish my camera took better close-ups. It's from about 2000, though, so whatevs.

Me

Interesting wordcloud of the front page of this blog. I can't make it bigger without losing the resolution, but the larger, clear size is here.

Crossing fingers...

I put an ad up in Craigslist on Friday, knowing that Roommate is moving to the city where I work, now that he too has a job there. Got a couple of bites. The first one was moving into town to go to Local Private University for grad school. She brought her parents, and the whole thing was very annoying. I told her to let me know, and I expect she thought it wasn't a great match as well.

A couple more canceled, having found their dream home, and I had another potential roomie come by this morning.

She has a dog. A cute as hell, slightly stupid, yellow lab rescue with no psychological issues. The girl herself was fantastic, too. Closer to my age, settled in the area, no drugs, no red flags. I believe strictly in being upfront about any potential conflicts, and as such, for example, didn't clean the house or even my room, so that she'd see the worst case scenario. We clicked immediately, and as she left today she said she'd let me know tomorrow for sure, but that she was pretty sure the answer would be yes.

I believe I have faith in humanity again after Former Roommate from Hell.

Update: She said YES! She said YES! I'm gonna have a DOG!

Yes, I know.

This has to be tedious for anyone other than me. You know, the daily garden update? Well, not quite daily, I suppose, but still.

Here's the thing. I find myself newly in awe of the garden every time I look at it recently. Something has always changed. A new sucker to rip off, the first zinnia bud, a radish seed pod.

A ripe fig.

I considered waiting to get a picture of it before I shoved it into my mouth, but well, impulse control issues and all that.

This is my first real year with the fig tree, and I was sad that only one fig developed when the tree first leafed out this spring. I thought that was going to be all I got. Then slowly but surely itty figgies began developing at the base of most of the leaves. I don't know why, but I thought all of the figs would ripen at the same time, more or less, even that first one. I noticed that it was looking kind of peaked today. It wasn't shiny anymore, and though big, it just looked like something was wrong with it. Then I touched it. And it was soft. I picked it off, and split the skin with my thumbs. Inside was a rosy purple. So sweet.

Also, I discovered a peach tree across the street from my office's parking lot. It looks like it's nobody's tree, and I will eat from it.

YAY!!!!!!!!

In my zeal, I didn't actually let them get ripe enough, but DAMN it's nice to have tomatoes again.

I just got back from about 2 hours of preparing my new bed at the community garden. Two more wheelbarrow loads of compost filled it in. I amended the soil with some blood meal and bone meal. Then I made two walkways, dividing the bed into three main rows. I lay down some garden fabric, weighed it down with a few bricks, and put some scrap wood in the trough to use as stepping stones.

In the northernmost row I put two watermelon mounds. In the middle, one cantaloupe mound, several cuke plants, and a ton of beans. The southernmost row is all cantaloupes. I need me some fruit.

I met both of the coordinators for the teen program and some of the youth themselves, and it looks like I'll be volunteering regularly on Friday afternoon/evenings. One of the teens suggested I bring the teens from my program over to visit. I think it's a wonderful idea! I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing with them, but lifeskills workshops were mentioned.

Another major bonus of this community garden is its numerous and varied fruit trees. According to the garden outreach coordinator, they don't get sold at the market, but rather are for "casual consumption." Hell yeah. Plums, peaches, figs, apples, mulberries, and probably more.

Exciting. New. Happenings.

Like all my other friends who either have had or will have had children recently, I too have a new baby.

A PROJECT GARDEN BABY!

I went over to SEEDS this afternoon and signed up for weekly volunteering. AND I rented a plot in the community garden. It's about 10'x10', and recently cured* of a fire ant infestation. The other choice (why do they have empty beds at all??) had better sun, but was much smaller-- 4'X4" or so. I'd have taken that one if it were the only option, though.

The Southside Garden encompasses the community plots, greenhouses, fruit trees (peach, persimmon, plum, mulberry, fig and probably more), outdoor classroom, cob pizza oven, composting areas and some of their youth-program plots. It's a gorgeous space. SEEDS has tools, compost, leaf mulch, some seeds, and water from rain barrels for its gardeners to use during business hours, and you can come garden at any time. Friday hours are until 8 p.m., so I think I know how I'll be spending my evenings!

After paying a ridiculously low rental price (The sliding scale fee starts at $1 per plot. I actually paid double of the full price, marking the balance as a donation.), I hauled a wheelbarrow load of compost over to my somewhat underfilled plot, but then I was done for the day. I'm thinking I'll need to amend the stressed soil. They use straight compost in the beds, so I'm thinking of buying some topsoil to get some clay in there. After all, we still have a drought on here.

I'm really excited about this, folks.

Advice solicited: what should I plant since I only have this rented until the end of August? I assume I'll be renting it for the September to March growing season as well, but I don't want to count on that. They may have needier and/or neighboring folks to give the plot to then.

*We hope! If you have any tricks about repelling fire ants without pesticides, please do let me know.

Photo redux

I came across my Photobucket account, which I'd mostly forgotten about. Here are some highlights, which many of you will have seen prior.