victory at the plant sale

Hooray, I got cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, and a couple pepper varieties (I'm not sure how hot they'll be), and the tomatoes and basil my neighbor wanted. As usual, my college's Hort club plant sale was well attended -- the line went 3/4 around the building before they opened up the sale at noon. No wonder the basils I found last year (a couple hours after opening) seemed beaten up. The crowd is slightly jostling and very mission-focused. I got some folks to point out the next vegetable I was looking for, but many didn't even hear the question.

Now, last year I definitely brought flowers to my supervisor and one female co-worker for Mother's Day. I didn't do that this year, because I discovered that my supervisor is allergic to what I have blooming right now. So, did I give her irises last year that she was allergic to, or were my roses that far ahead of things last year that I brought in roses? I never did get around to pruning them this winter (the most recent addition is probably grateful since I also didn't scrounge out the anemones that try to give it stiff competition for sunlight.) So here's a check-in on what's in bloom right now: a few roses are in bud, and the single-flowered climber has had blooms; the irises are taking their turns blooming; plenty of columbine (both white and pink; need to cut the pink flowers more aggressively this year to let the double white flowers seed in), and lots of bluebells (blue, white, and purple.) Also several volunteer lunaria that I'll pull before they can set seed. The fruit trees are done flowering; the raspberries and kiwis are in the same tight-bud stage.

In indoor news, my little betta fish and his peace lily are doing well. The betta sometimes fixates on the colorful caps of the dry-erase markers scattered across my desk; it's fun to guess which one has his attention and make it move, to see if he reacts. The peace lily prefers a life that includes me changing about 1/4 of the vase's water every week or so. And the betta gets a kick out of exploring the new relationship between roots and the spires of his castle to see if he can swim over the top this time, so that's a practice I'll definitely cultivate for them. It cheers me that he uses his castle as such: he hides out in the swim-through chamber when I'm pouring in replacement water, which puts more movement in the water than his fancy fins care to sustain.

Hooray for sporadic rain in the Willamette Valley in April! The rest of the veggie garden's seeds are in (until July or so), and the ground is prepped for the few plants I'll be getting this Friday (it is so awesome, working for a college that has a Horticulture club! Heirloom tomatoes, here I come!)

I'm already developing hopes for the fall -- primarily, that half barrels go on sale decently again (they didn't around here last October) and I can finally complete the square footage I want for these veggies. Having some room to experiment next year without sacrificing space for the stand-bys would be really nice. Three barrels for zucchini and three barrels for tomatoes should be sufficient for our grilling and storage needs this year. I'm so certain I'll meet the goal of not buying salad greens after the first lettuce harvest that I'm setting a zucchini goal, too: no buying zucchini this summer, plus 6 cups of shredded into the freezer for breads during the winter.

I'm trying a new-to-me pumpkin this year, 'winter luxury'. It's billed as the most amazing pumpkin for pie you'll ever find, so I have high hopes. The gourd itself looks pretty unassuming, so I'll be sure to get some jack-o-lantern pumpkins in there, too. (the neighborhood children do have expectations, after all.)

This is not the year for me to branch out to the near-by community garden, though I did consider it. A proper corn/pumpkin/beans patch is somewhere in my future, and it's not at this house. (my soil and my sun are in two different locations.) But if I can get the front yard productive and headed in the right direction (and divested of about 7/8 of the bluebells) that'll make room in the orchard for a proper asparagus patch: an item sorely lacking so far among my perennial foodstuffs.

This lack has brought me to the point of harvesting some fennel shoots to see what they taste like, but not quite all the way to cooking them up. I figure I have only a month or so left to try that this year without hacking down a fennel plant and making it start over. Which might not be a bad plan, in and of itself. My fennel succeed raucously both in the front and in the back yard.

Roses are in bud, irises are in bloom and bluebells are beginning to taper off. What a great time!