Diggin' in the dirt...

So, as you, my faithful readers may know, I'm a bit of a nutcase and I have THREE gardens. One is a 4 x 8 raised bed at the community garden. One is at my house (in too much shade--LOL!) and is made up of three 4 x 12 foot grids a'la Square Foot Gardening. And the other is a huge expanse that I haven't even measured out at my friend's farm. It's about the size of my house lot, I think. And then, of course, I volunteer in a big plot grown in the community garden where the proceeds go to the food pantry.

The photo above is from my garden here at home. Note the lovely Black-seeded Simpson lettuce interspersed with cilantro volunteers that I have decided to tolerate. The tall stuff is garlic. I planted that last year and it never sprouted. And here it is this year, now that I have given up eating garlic. Isn't that just like life? Oh, well, I'm sure I can sell it. The very back row is endive, but it isn't up very high yet.

Please, pay no attention to the weeds in the path, or my crude grid made of lath (Square-foot Mel with his beautiful white military-precision grids would have a conniption!)

I worked in both the community garden and my big garden out at the farm. At the farm, my husband came and hoed weeds, made squash hills, and mulched with straw. What a nice guy. The girls helped me plant some purple pole beans, scarlett runner beans, Malabar spinach, and two kinds of fennel. I also planted several varieties of summer squash, winter squash, and cucumbers. My daughter planted a couple of replacement peppers for some that got trampled by the cows. All that's left for spring planting is cantaloupes and more cucumbers. And pinto beans are going in where the lettuce is coming out. Tomorrow I harvest the remaining Four Seasons lettuce for the Farmer's Market.

Tonight, I moved a ton of compost from a donor's house into bags in my car. Tomorrow I spread it. What a workout! I was supposed to have help from another garden volunteer, but he works on an ambulance and got a call, so he couldn't make it. I got a very nice workout!

Payday. Woohoo! It always feels nice to have grocery money. For about $100, my husband bought 8 watermelons, the first bing cherries of the season (not ripe enough, darn it!), bananas, cantaloupes, cucumbers, peppers, romaine lettuce, bok choy, grape tomatoes, mangoes, and frozen berries.

Today I ate:

8 a.m. About 1/2 of a large watermelon

12 -1 p.m. 3 bananas, some Four Seasons lettuce, some lamb's quarters

5:30 3 C. of cherries (most weren't ripe enough)

9 p.m. A little over 1/2 of a large watermelon