While I was keeping cool in NM, this baby was growing to ripeness in TX. Came home (in the rain--yay!) on Monday night, got up at first light on Tuesday morning and headed for the garden to find this nice squash, many zukes, and the pinto beans happily clambering up their bamboo tripods. Thanks to a neighbor for watering, and to the rain goddess for raining on the garden.
The blue tubs were empty when I took this photo yesterday, but this morning, I transplated a dozen tomatoes from their soft drink bottle self-waterers (where they spent my vacation under the grow lights, growing to transplant size and then some) into the tubs and other containers. These are early-maturing tomatoes (Silver Fir and Heatwave), 55-60 days, so I hope to have ripe tomatoes by the end of October. We'll see--it's an experiment, remember? Learning from mistakes? In the foreground: carrots. In the bed in the back: southern peas (cowpeas) and green beans. More planting today.
The vacation was lovely, but I'm ready to be home. Applebeck Orchard has gone to NY. I'm expecting the copyedited manuscript of Landscapes of the Heart next week, copyedited on the computer, which I HATE passionately but can't escape. Best just to grit my teeth and hope that there aren't too many problems. I'm back at work on Extraordinary Year, or will be when I finish planting the fall garden (maybe Friday). Bill will be back in a couple of weeks. And Hurricane Gustav will be in the Gulf on Sunday, headed who-knows-where.
Reading note. It's said that you can do everything right and still fail to harvest a worthwhile crop of watermelons. Somehow, I did everything wrong and succeeded anyway. Who is to say that making all the wrong choices doesn't lead as surely to ripeness as making all the right ones? Given time enough to ripen, we can make peace with even our worst failures and shortcomings. Given time enough to ripen, we can find that even death loses its terror.--Janice Emily Bowers: A Full Life in a Small Place