I haven’t been getting as much time in the garden lately because Z has been having to work an “honest” day (finishing later) and T has been clingy. In the last few days, I’ve started a new compost pile, put out 6 wagon loads of compost (in the paths between the gourd/pumpkin rows, need about 10 more loads), seeded more corn and green beans, picked some strawberries, worried about all the stuff I’m not getting done, and- tonight – picked ~1/4 gallon of blackberries. I also froze about that much from when I picked earlier in the week. We have lost 4 or 5 broccoli plants in the last 2 days or so. 4 for sure. I picked some broccoli earlier tonight. Oh, tonight, especially in the Chandlers, I found a lot of… limbs? of the strawberry plants that died. And a few in the summer berries. I think this might be a disease in the soil. Need to look this up again.

T’s school is on vacation, so we were out of the house all day today. There will be guests starting on Sunday, so there’s a lot of housecleaning to worry about and if I’m lucky  maybe we can clean up some of the blackberry plants that are growing just inside the garden gate. I also need to do a lot of cleanup work on the old strawberries.

This evening I found an Indigo something cherry tomato! It came off in my hand and T tried to eat it. Most of it was purple, but you can see some green at the bottom. It was pretty hard and not flavorful. Exciting, though!

Z did a bunch more tractor work this morning, trying to rake the beds smoother. Unfortunately they look like they have “checks” for flood irrigation, since the landscape rake pushed all the debris and clods up into what should be the paths. Boo for erosion and still not being finished. Also, he didn’t add any compost… Anyhow, he set out sprinklers and drip lines for 2 beds so hopefully we can seed some cover crops tomorrow. And hopefully he gets out there in the morning to try to fix those beds.

I planted a packet of the same purple pole beans as last year, and tried putting some summer squash seeds on the other side of the drip tape. I realized most of the way thru that this will not work, because the squashes would grow right up into the trellis. Have to put the beans on the other side so there’s room for the squash to be squash. Doh! Will have to do that for upcoming plantings.

I picked strawberries, but I only brought in one basket. T ate tons of them! Later on he was mad that he didn’t get to plant seeds with me, but he had been too busy playing with irrigation stuff to help. That’s fine.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of green beans today, but I picked 2/3 of a basket of bell beans. I saw a bad bug (squash bug, or that weird elder bug thingie?) on the bell beans, so I should probably get those out of my strawberry bed. Ugh, the summer plants’ leaves are just covered in dust :(.

Yesterday I drove out to Petaluma to pick up some cheap overgrown organic seedlings from a local seed company. It was a lovely drive, aside from how sick I felt. We’ve had a stomach bug this week.

Tonight I got the tomatoes and peppers in (with fish meal, fish bone meal, and oyster shell lime) and 1 or 2 marigolds (they are flowering). A couple of the tomatoes may have passed their permanent wilting points. 😦 It was 93 degrees today. There’s a huge leak in the drip tape way down in the peppers – hopefully Z will deal with that first thing in the morning.

Z’s parents picked some of the old strawberries, which is great because they said you can pretty much pull some leaves aside and find a basket’s worth of berries right there. They also picked some greens. Hope all that stuff made it home in decent condition! The flea beetle damage in the greens is pretty bad. I shifted the compost tonight :). It’s about as done as it’s going to be for a while. I am going to reuse that stuff in the next pile.

I don’t remember what I last posted, but I’ve got 2 1/2 beds of winter squash/pumpkins in. Hoping  to have at least one nice, diverse bed with flowers and stuff. The sunflowers are coming along well, even with all the weeds.

Yesterday and tonight I planted Bottle Gourd seeds in the eastmost of our winter squash row. Had 2 packets but T took about 10-15 from first packet. Today I added alyssum and I think calendula to that bed. Also planted 1/2 oz of Kakai Hulless Pumpkins (center row, there might not be enough space for all these things). I took out the broccoli raab because it was nearly finished flowering and put some calendula seeds in its place. The calendula in the corn/bean row is starting to make flowers! The dill in the greens and tomatoes is looking nice. There are a few zinnias coming in at the head of the tomatoes, and maybe at the head of the north sunflower bed. (did I mention I planted some sunflowers on Sunday?). I picked a few basil leaves tonight. I am not a huge fan of lemon basil, as it turns out ;).

I tried hilling some dirt around the potatoes this morning. It sure takes a lot of dirt! I didn’t get very far before I felt compelled to do other stuff – like pick strawberries. The Chandlers are really slowing down and I think will be done by the end of this heatwave, if not the week. Wow, 98 next Wednesday! I keep feeling like I should get more fruit-type things to plant. There will be blackberries soon. And pears.