Whew!

Soaking the garden dirt off the fresh carrots and beets that were harvested this morning.  Everything was hosed off; but there's some left behind.  The water will be dumped on an azalea.

Carrots will be blanched and frozen with some reserved for Farmer MacGregor's corned beef.  The beets will be pickled and set up in jars. There's still more out in the garden yet to be harvested.

Two beds are ready for tomatoes. I'll need to hit the sidewalk sale at Floyd's and get started tomorrow.  Summer is here.

UPDATE:  Looky here what I found in my haul of carrots.  Hope this puts a smile on your face. If it doesn't, go out and pull some weeds.

Wisteria. Wowzer!

Wow! Wisteria is loaded up on the pergola with soft purple petals falling like sweet scented confetti. That perfume blended with all the citrus (grapefruit, orange, lemon, & manderin) and sweet alyssum is fabulous. It makes the transition from nice, cool weather into steamy armpit weather just a bit more tolerable - for now anyway.

Last weekend all the trees and berries were fertilized and the broccoli and cauliflower were pulled.

This weekend's tasks: 

Harvest more beets (pickled) and carrots (frozen) to store for later.

Prepare some beds for summer crops.

Plant tomatoes IF I can make it that far.

Meditative Roots

Out in the garden this morning before it gets too hot.  Gardening is my meditation - similar to swimming laps. My mind has no specific focus but my body is on auto pilot to get the task done (kinda). I'm unplugged (kinda), with the exception of my iPad, speaker (70s radio from Rhapsody this morning).  

While the weather is somewhat tolerable (70s - like my taste in music this morning) I need to get the beds ready for summer. That means pulling the spent broccoli/cauliflower bed.  Most of the plants have bolted producing yellow blossoms the bees are loving. The bees will have plenty of other pollen in the garden - citrus, stone fruits, apples, wisteria, and danged old dandelions.

Pulling that bed revealed strong, healthy roots with no signs of damage from nematodes.  Good. This bed was solarized last summer. So far, that process looks successful OR the buggers just don't like broccoli like George H. W.

Speaking of roots, my current time soaker is genealogy.  It's most interesting, but there should be intervention for this jig saw puzzle like quest. One of my garden gnomes and I recently travelled to a genealogical conference in Salt Lake City.  Wow. There is a huge community of geneaddicts (I just made up that word. Don't bother to look it up. Yet.). 

My break has lasted long enough. Time to meditate some more.