Summer Already???

As the title implies, it's already hot! In fact, it's unseasonably hot. Unlike last year, when it seemed like it would never get hot enough to plant tomatoes, it got hot really early. One night it was 39 degrees, and three days later, it was 85-90. I've got all the tomatoes and peppers in at both the farm and our house, although I just finished getting the rest of the peppers in row 3b yesterday. One of the plant phrenology indicators is that it's warm enough to plant tomatoes when the blackberry bushes bloom. And here we see that they are blooming.

And the tomatoes themselves are all blooming. I had to cut off this tiny tomato before I transplanted the plant.

Buddy had a good idea to transmute the standing planter into a compost sifter.

The wheelbarrow fits underneath nicely, and the sifted compost is beautiful.

The greens are doing great. We've been eating lettuce and chard.

Along with peas and the first tip pinches of basil. Some of the basil plants got munched by snails, but the rest are thriving.

We're also getting lots of snow peas, with the golden ones being especially prolific.

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What We're Eating
Egg salad made with chard stems and onion scapes, served with lime pickle and preserved lemon, eaten with lettuce and homemade pita bread. At the farm, we nibble peas straight from the garden as snacks. I've also made fava hummus, and I'm about to make a bunch more.
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Boy do we have favas! I picked lots of big meaty pods from 9th Street.

The beans were well formed.

My pan wasn't big enough!

Titus and Jane continue to help us get 9th ready for the new tenants, who move in tomorrow! Jane helped us pick colors. We're going with the last two on the strip, with the lighter being the base color, and the very dark, almost black being the trim color. The third color is white around the inside of the window frames, just to match the white of the new windows.

And we had Rock Band last week. Delina brought her friend Dave, who was pretty good for a noob--and less noobish than he let on.

Garden Tour

Last Saturday, Cultivating Community had a workshop and then Monica led a garden tour, and we were a stop on the tour. So we got the garden all spiffed up, with new straw. I also got the zucchini put in at row 8. We all pitched in to make the place look its best.

Catherine bought Amber some new clothes and a hat with flowers in it.

I didn't take any pictures during the tour, but we had a great time. There was quite a good turnout, with at least 25 people. Rick, Catherine, Buddy, and I were there, showing people around and answering questions. We even handed out tomato plants at the end for whoever wanted them. I could have talked for much longer than I did, but it was nice to be able to share what we're doing. People seemed encouraged and impressed. I told them that co-op gardens DO work, and they are a nice way to socialize while getting a little gardening done. I also pointed out that almost everything was recycled or repurposed. Before the tour, we had put the rest of the tomatoes in row 4b and the zuchs in 8 so that the garden didn't look quite so bare.

They were huge starts with nice strong root systems.

I planted them pretty tightly.

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Weather Note

Well the wind could stop any time now... There has been a hot dry wind for days. Two weeks ago, I was worried that it wasn't warm enough to transplant the tomatoes, because night temps were still getting down to the low 40s or even high 30s. But this week it's 85 degrees! This is exactly why I hesitate to put many cool-weather crops in during the spring. But we should get nice early summer crops

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The squash was all up a week ago.

And the greens are coming along nicely.

The grapes are looking good. Rick brought over a bunch of nice oak leaf mulch for them from 9th street.

Meanwhile over at 9th, it looks like we have a renter, so we've been scurrying around getting the last bits fixed. We were able to dig up and reset the end pole for the chainlink fence. We then put a new top rail and new fabric up. It's like brand new.

Then it was fence party time. Batch and Rick cleared out all the old fencing and bamboo.

We made a jig to trim off the ends of the reused fence boards. The long 2x4s that served to frame the deck were what we used for stringers. The only thing we bought were brackets and screws... and a lot of beer for labor costs!

Here Batch and Rick screw on the boards. 

How many guys does it take?.... I'm just glad we had these three helping.

It looks great! Also notice how tall and vigorous the favas are! We did a second picking last weekend.

In the carport at 9th is this nest with baby pigeons. It's really hard to see, but it's just above where the boards overlap in the front. I think there are two babies, but there might be three.

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What We're Drinking

We have foam pilsner on tap at the moment. We're eating fava bean hummus with homemade pita bread.

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Cindy is back in town, and she stopped by the farm, as did Dean.

The cherries are starting to get ripe!

On our last walk, we checked out this Norm Dillinger car.

The horse hood ornament was especially nice.

We had seven of us at this month's lunch (Laura, Catherine, Cindy, Lori, Delina, Nancy and me), and when we went shopping afterward, I simply HAD to buy this dress. It fits perfectly (size 14!) and looks great. And best of all, my silk tatted clutch goes perfectly. Now I just need the perfect shoes. The gal at Katies is also going to reorder the fascinator I should have bought, which should also go.

Planting Time

Well, it might be a little early, but it feels like it will be an early summer this year, so we started putting the tomatoes in. I dug up a ton of the back area. Here Rick C helps while Buddy supervises. The chickens are working on another section.

Batch helps by hauling compost.

The starts are huge and fat. Definitely time to get them in the ground. Technically, last frost date was yesterday, but it's been warm. Buddy put the compost thermometer in the soil overnight, and it read 60 degrees in the early morning. Also, the bermuda grass is growing. As one other point of plant phrenology, the clematis and white dutch iris are blooming.

So with all these signs, we decided to go ahead. Again, Rick C. helps. He bends better than any of the rest of us. We put in two Indigo Rose, then two Tangerines, then two Cosmonaut Volkovs. I'll plant the rest in row 4. Well... the rest of what I have room for. I have lots of starts to share. Yesterday I got row 1 planted in hot peppers: 5 serranos, 5 Biker Billys, 7 padrons, then a red and an orange Thai pepper. I also put about 7 anchos in row 3 around the peas.

As mentioned, the clematis is blooming. This is the first blossom we've gotten from the three we planted last year. Also, we planted the cypress vine starts right by the clematis, around the base of the archway.

I upgraded the bath area with one of the black chairs. I had my first "bath," more of a spash session. But that's a sign of the temperatures.

The flowers between the pavers are looking nice right now. They're filling in nicely.

Catherine went up to Laura's art day, and made this decoupage box.

Very cool.

The plum trees are really filling out and starting to enclose the beer garden nicely. There is some fruit on each of the plums, and a lot of fruit on the apricot branch. The apricot tree is having a rough year, but that's to be expected with the intense pruning it got.

It's rather a lean time for harvesting. While the peas are thriving, they're not quite ready yet.

We had one lettuce make it through the winter.

And fortunately, we were able to harvest some fava beans from 9th Street.

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What We're Eating
Buddy emailed me a Mother Earth recipe for skillet cornbread, Glen traded some smoked pork for a growler, and I peeled some fava beans. It was all delicious.

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I've been trying to notice something interesting each time we walk. The new leaves on the oaks just sparkle against the sky.

And then there was this... it's hard to see here, but there is a green sphere in this tree, way up high.

How did it get there?

We were able to move the fence post back into position over at 9th Street. Titus helped do a bunch of cosmetic fixes to make the house look nicer, so we can get it rented. Now we just have to put on the top rail and weave the new fencing in. We think we'll fix the back fence with wire and really tall poles, to keep the neighbor's dog from jumping over.

And what is this creepy guy?