Roots

I picked a bunch of carrots. They weren't very good, but we roasted them and they were delicious.

We've had an explosion of some sort of burrowing rodent throwing up hills all through our backyard. I think that they must have gotten to the garden, because a couple of carrots seemed to have been eaten at the bottom.

Something also got my broccoli plants. I think it was most likely the dog, but I didn't actually see her do it.

Fall Planting

I put in broccoli and lettuce today–starts from Julie.

Tiny Corn

We picked our first two tiny ears of corn today. One was perfectly ripe and one was not quite. But Ian and Molly loved it!

Tomatoes & Beans

We had an early harvest of tomatoes, thanks to a well timed Miracle Grow application and some early hot weather. Here's Ian with the first tomato of the season.While he wasn't quite as exuberant about the peas as I thought he would be, he has made up for it in his uninhibited enthusiasm for tomatoes.

The green beans were kind of overshadowed by the peas. While there have been a couple of very thin beans start develop. They've been eaten—by birds or squirrels I think. I put in a few more seeds where the plants hadn't survived the overshadowing of the peas and they came up within a couple of days. So, hopefully I haven't missed bean season and hopefully it's not too hot.

Harvests

We had delicious time standing in the garden eating peas. Molly loved to practice her standing balance and pull a pea pod off the vine. She preferred to open the pods and eat each individual pea—unfortunately her fine motor skill coordination isn't as refined as she'd like it to be and some would inevitably end up on the ground. No problem though she'll eat them from there too.

The very first ripe peas went to our Joy School group. Several of the kids—Thomas and Evan—took a keen interest in checking up on the garden every time they came to our house. I had hoped to reward them each with one pea pod, but no luck, they got the idea and soon devoured everything that had any size to it at all. But their exuberance was wonderful.

We had our friends the Howells over and compared notes on our small gardens. Neither had ever grown peas, so we took them out and introduced them. Amanda really liked the fresh garden peas, but Brandon, a true Carolinian (i.e. Southern) complained that they were too crisp and crunchy. He admitted to preferring his vegetables mushy—even wanting to send back the "uncooked" vegetables that you get at expensive restaurants.

The hot weather came early this year and we only got to fully enjoy the first of my three successive plantings of peas. We got about half of the second bunch. The plants in the thrid planting didn't do much at all. So, next year I think I'll put more squres into the first planting. Despite Mel's warnings, I think it's hard to have too many peas.

These sugar snap peas were fantasic. We even had a few that we chopped up and added to two suppers. The pods were delicious!

Seeds

I have been fascinated by seeds lately. I'm astounded that the little plants come out of the seeds after simply putting them in the ground. Ian got a few sunflower seeds from nursery two Sundays ago and we planted them and there are little seedlings poking out of the ground—one yesterday and three more today. They are different than the other sorts of seedlings I've had grow, they are bigger and thicker in their little stems and something, maybe waxier too.

I have also been watching some apple seeds grow. Right now they are planted in paper towels in a glass. The seeds are right up near the edge of the glass and I can see the roots go down and the shoots start to go up. I am even more amazed because they came out of the apples I used for apple sauce for Joy School the other week.

The seeds in the garden are also growing great. Everything is up. The parsnips are starting to get their first set of distinctive leaves. But, the bean sprouts were the most interesting. Here are three of the seedlings yesterday.

Little fingers

As I escorted our Joy School friends out to see what the seeds sprouted seeds looked like—we were learning about how seeds grow—I was surprised to find two dandelion flowers smiling up out of the empty garden box that has been waiting for corn to grow. As my attention was focused on coraling 6 pre-schoolers, holding their attention, and minimizing the damage, I didn't think too much beyond a slight worry that such a tenacious weed had already broke through my haphazard cardboard barrier and stretched out through my 4 inches of fine Mel's Mix.

By the time I got back out there this afternoon, the bright yellow smiles had wilted. One of the ingenious Joy Schoolers had taken our lesson to heart and planted some beautiful flowers.

The corn got started today. Since I seem to be a little short of Mel's Mix I mounded up 16 mounds that should be plenty deep. I planted 4 seeds today, that should give me a 4 week progression, hopefully that's enough plants to polinate themselves.

Following a nursery lesson Sunday, we also have a few Sunflowers that we've added to our bevy of seeds to watch. The Sunflowers be out by the end of the month. They're planted in front.