Experiment

Following three hot, dry weeks we have had a whole week of gentle soaking rain with cooler temps. What a relief.

This year's garden experiment is huge! I am growing tomatoes in straw bales. So far, so good. All are healthy and some are setting fruit.  I'm following Craig LeHoullier's method. They are all grown from seed by me and gardening friends. All who attended the class overdid it. To our credit we  shared. Some are dwarf, some are heirloom, some hybrid. I am hoping for a more successful experience this year.
Tomato varieties include:
Bella Rosa (heirloom)
Yellow Pear (heirloom)
Cherokee Purple (heirloom)
Lemon Ice (dwarf)
Pink Passion (dwarf)
Mountain Fresh F1 (hybrid)
Mountain Magic F1 (hybrid)
Juliet F1 (hybrid)
Celebrity (hybrid)
Green Vernissage (heirloom)
Other garden successes include kale, lettuce, carrots, garlic, potatoes, cabbage. Green beans are forming tags.
Soon we'll be eating green beans and potatoes.
Spinach was an epic failure. I think I'm done.

Salads for supper! And kale powder!

Power to The Kale! Long live The Kale! A nod to the Brits here on the eve of a royal wedding.
No kidding. I dried a backseat (laid it out on a sheet and let the heat in the car do it's magic) of lacinto kale, blitzed it in the food processor, and have one scant cup of magic potion. It was a lot of kale, people. It is interesting dried. Not potent, a mild crunchy treat actually. It is, apparently, the latest health food craze. Whoda thunk?

And I thought it shrank down when cooked. Regret not taking a before photo. 

Salads are a big deal right now. We eat them seasonally, never buying grocery store we are, like, chuffed. The current belle of the ball is a lone spinach plant that overwintered. Scott harvests a bag of it weekly. (The lettuce harvest is more frequent.) The close runner up are the radishes. Maybe we planted too many. We eat them daily, the radishes. Truth be told, they are a lot of crunchy fun!  A great substitute for chips. Not chocolate chips y'all, potato chips.

Established herbs deserve a shout out here. All is well! The best is the parsley which is about to flower and make seeds for another year. New ones are ready to go in!

For all other harvests we wait. And plant. And plant some more. And water, because it has not rained in almost two weeks. That friends is a sad sentence carrying more meaning than non-gardeners can imagine. Sad. Very sad. On the bright side it is not humid. 😎