Buds're bustin' outta bushes/And the rompin' river pushes

After a long stretch of rainy days, there was finally a sunny streak. And the garden loved it!


We've just had our first sungolds ripen. And the lettuce has been growing gangbusters, so we're having daily salads. (Although because of all the really hard rain immediately after planting, some of the seeds travelled and there are leaves in interesting places...) Oh! And out of nowhere a chili pepper matured. Woohoo!


The basil is finally recovered, which is great. And the peas are peas - we can't add string fast enough!


The bad news is that we gave up on the peppers from seeds and bought some more seedlings. We also added some cucumbers into that bed, since there's now room. But! I think as of today, there is one (1) plant pushing up in that bed that isn't necessarily a weed - it might be one lonely surviving pepper seed. (Too soon to tell, but the leaves resemble the pepper leaves of the transplants.)

Also, the spinach is struggling. At first we thought it wasn't at all viable, then finally we got a little bit, and over the past week we have a small-but-noticeable patch. However, it is already yellowing and shrivelling. Sad spinach :( Guess we'll have to replace it with something different next year. (For now we added one pot of garlic chives.)

We're trying to figure out how to handle the beans. They're bush, so we're not supposed to stake them. But after one of the violent storms last week, they're flattened and entangled. So they're not standing up on their own anymore, and in fact some of them are now being smothered by others and are dying. We tried to untangle them, but it's difficult to do without breaking off the tops accidentally. (But they're beautiful. We bought seeds for purple beans, and the flowers/buds on these plants are just a gorgeous shade.)


I think we've finally made a dent in the weeding. I've never had to weed this much. Whatever it is that came in and blanketed everyone's spaces is pretty invasive. In one of the gardens near ours, the weeds are actually killing off the vegetables. I've been weeding daily, and only now do I feel like it's at a "normal" level. (In a "gardening as spiritual practice" moment, I got to vent some anxiety by going all crazy on the lack-of-pepper bed. I needed to tear up the weeds to make room for the cucumbers, and I no longer had to be careful. I could just take tools and attack the weeds with abandon. It felt good. Very good. Especially since that's now the clearest patch in our entire plot.) I've been ignoring the weeds by the tomatoes (since the tomato plants are pretty tall and can take care of themselves), but I should at least take a minimal pass this week.



I wasn't sure I'd be good about maintaining a garden that isn't right outside my building. But we've turned it into an evening ritual - I do some weeding while Arthur thins the lettuce. A short, but daily, task. (And at least for now, pretty endless in both cases.) And it really helps that today's weather is perfect. Couldn't ask for a better day to be in the garden.



Oh, and someone's dill keeps popping up next to my lettuce. I still smell like dill. Which is sad, because dill is something I can't really eat anymore.