The Tuesday forecast was for rain… all day. Before it began, I got out in the garden to measure tomato rows and inspect the leafy green vegetables. Little white moths have been busy laying eggs, so once the rain finishes, I’ll apply DiPel to take care of the coming caterpillar hatchlings that love greens as much as I do. Proper application of this naturally occurring pesticide makes a real difference. We need rain.
I picked the first basket of kale before the rain. I reviewed the freezer and there remains plenty of 2023 crop. I’ll take bags that have the largest number of ice crystals and use them in vegetable broth. There are plenty of other bits and pieces in the freezer — broccoli stalks, summer squash, and collards — that will all go into the pot. I bought a big bag of organic celery, seven pounds of organic carrots and a big bag of yellow onions at the wholesale club. Add bay leaves and a little salt and I’ll have a good spring batch of broth for water bath canning.
It looks like 70 tomato cages will fit, with enough space around them to get at them for harvest. Now it’s a question of when the rain will finish. It’s always something.
Editor’s Note: I’m still working with short posts until the garden is planted. Won’t be long.
When the Aug. 10, 2020 derecho blew an oak tree akilter, I had to cut it down. I left a tall stump for a seat from which I took this photo. This will be a plot of tomatoes. The seedlings are getting tall in the trays, which means they need more moisture and roots do not have a place to grow. If I can make it through a long day on Monday, I will get them in the ground. That’s a big “if.”
This plot is smaller than the one I used last year, so I may need more space in another plot. I haven’t measured and counted yet, so no worries until I do. I had hoped to leave one of the large plots fallow, but it may be required for production to fit everything in. This is what happens when a gardener just starts a bunch of seeds without detailed planning. It’s how I have gardened since I began.
So I measured and counted and came up with this planting plan:
Tomato Planting plan plot #4 – 2025.
It will be a bit crowded yet I can deal with that. I may have to take the fencing down to access the two outside rows. Won’t know that until we see how things grow with these indeterminate vines that go all over the place.
Editor’s Note: Still short posting while I work on the garden. About another week to go before the main planting is finished.
The weather has been fabulous the last week or so. Mostly clear skies, moderate ambient temperatures, and normal relative humidity. Each day I begin a little earlier and work until just before I drop. That means about six hours. It is beginning to look like a garden.
Instead of working straight through on a single garden task, I have a couple tasks going at the same time. I work some on one, then another, and then another in small bits of time. It breaks up repetitive motion, keeping me healthy. It also makes garden work more engaging.
The last day of May was cleaning and organizing tomato cages and stakes, turning over part of the soil in plot #4, and then grinding all the desiccated tomato vines into the yard.
I picked a big bunch of greens: Pak Choi, three kinds of lettuce, and arugula. In the house, I managed three loads of laundry. By the end of all this, I felt tired and sore.
Here is a photo gallery of the best last day of May shots.
Trail hiking.Canadian Geese.Sunrise on the trail.Transporting tools.Turning the tomato plot.Tomato cages are ready.
On Friday I dug into the garden plot that was fallow last year. Tall weeds took it over and died, leaving a soft place for wildlife and two feral cats to bed down and sleep protected from trouble. As I moved the weeds aside and pulled up the plastic, my feet sank into the soft, fertile loam. I worked a lot of years to get soil to be like that.
Because the pile of dead grasses was so tall, I burned it instead of running the mower over it for mulch. The fire was intense, radiating its heat 20 yards away. Luckily, it didn’t harm the nearby kale and chard plot. It burned, bright, intensely, and soon exhausted its fuel. Saturday morning I will start turning the soil over for tomato planting.
Because ambient temperatures were forecast in the low 80s, I started early at 7:30 a.m. By 1 p.m. I was tired and achy. It was a good day’s work. A six hour shift is what I can stand these days. Enough of them back-to-back and we’ll have a garden.
I found volunteer collard plants in the plot. I picked them all and we’ll use them in the kitchen this weekend. I can already sense it will be an abundant year.
Editor’s Note: Still short posting while I work on the garden. About another week to go before the main planting is finished.
When the repair shop returned the John Deere yard tractor, the right rear tire would not hold air. I removed it and ran it across the lakes to the tire shop. The diagnosis came back air was escaping through the sidewall due to rubber deterioration and the tire needed to be replaced. According to the tire’s date code, it was older than the technician that worked on it. The guys (and they were all males) at the tire shop had fun talking about that.
The garden is proceeding on a reasonable schedule now that we are past the worst of spring weather. This week has been about tilling the soil in plot #3, covering the surface with plastic sheets recovered from last year, putting up a fence, and then beginning the work of clearing out the greenhouse. I made good progress by Tuesday and should finish planting seedlings ready to go into the ground today. The next big project is clearing a space for the tomatoes. I know just where that plot will be this year.
I harvested arugula and spinach. Under the covered row everything grows well and soon there will be Pak Choi, lettuce and more arugula. Picking kale is not far away as it is growing well in almost ideal conditions. Already it is feeling like a productive garden.
Yesterday I went grocery shopping after garden work was done. I had a dozen items on the list and quickly got them into a shopping cart. Just as I finished gathering the last item, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. I left the cart near the frozen foods section in the health market and ran to the car to see if it was there. It wasn’t. I returned to my cart and calmly returned all the items to the shelves. Shopping will have to wait for another day.
Editor’s Note: I am short posting when I get time until the garden is planted. It is taking longer than expected, yet I am determined to harvest produce from this soil, this year.
Taking time from writing my autobiography is not a clean break. While I’m digging in a garden plot or walking on the trail, my mind is consumed by how to pull everything together and bring the work to a close. Up to the time we moved back to Iowa in 1993, a chronological narrative seemed appropriate. Beginning here, in this place that was a vacant lot when we arrived, life got complex to an extent a time-based narrative doesn’t really capture those 32 years. There was no single narrative.
Thanks to another low-wind, warmish, and dry day I had time to myself to consider the bigger picture of what I am writing. That and get the next big plot turned over. Well, by the time I finished this, I had turned it over with a spade:
Plot No. 3 spaded.
I read Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes by Leah Litman this week. She points out how the U.S. Supreme Court takes more and more power unto itself without substantial resistance from the other two branches of government. While today the president is ignoring some of their decisions, whether there has been a Democrat or Republican as president, the Supreme Court is calling the shots in society through jurisprudence, according to Litman. (Major questions doctrine = good grief!) The attention hound of a president distracts from this very real center of power among the six Republican-appointed justices. If you are following the U.S. Government in 2025, consider picking up a copy and reading it. It informs what is going on in the news in real time. Few books I know are like that.
Today is the fire fighters’ breakfast at the fire station. The menu is simple, but not vegan or particularly vegetarian. I’ll go for my annual dose of pancakes and orange juice. I expect to encounter many I know so it’s not so much about the food. It’s about joining together as a community. We need that now more than ever.
Editor’s Note: I’m still on short posts while I focus on the garden. I have three main plots to go to call it planted. Wish me luck!
After several days of rain, Friday was a clear day for gardening. The cruciferous vegetable plot is fully planted, the next large plot is cleared, and I cut weeds so I can access the compost bins more easily. I lit the first burn pile of the season. The plot with the burn pile needs mowing so I can store the tomato cages there until ready to use them. I put my Practical Farmers of Iowa placard on the compost bin to officially open the garden. It felt like a productive day.
Cruciferous vegetable plot.
The right rear tire of the yard tractor wouldn’t hold air. I called the John Deere shop and they sent me to a local tire service that has been in business since 1932. I checked in the wheel, and now await their phone call. I’m good with waiting until Tuesday to pick up the wheel. Everyone, especially a mechanic, needs a holiday weekend.
I complain about the internet from time to time, yet it was easy to locate a YouTube video that showed how to remove the wheel from the tractor. It saved time and frustration. It assured me I was performing the work correctly. We didn’t have that in the pre-internet days. As a bonus, I had the correct tool to remove the clip holding the wheel on the axle.
It’s the time in the garlic cycle where heads from the 2024 crop need to be used. Thursday after supper I took half of what remained and made garlic purèe with olive oil. I froze eight jars, which is plenty for the rest of the year. There is an abundance to use fresh until scapes come in.
Friday was a good day in the garden. Here’s hoping for more like that.
It was raining Monday morning so I drove to Monticello to pick up two 50-pound bags of garden fertilizer. It’s the same locally composted chicken manure I’ve been using since working on the farms, called Healthy Grow 2-4-3. I tried other types of fertilizer and the granulated format makes application easy. I don’t do the science of testing soil pH and selecting an appropriate fertilizer. Basically, I am doing monkey work by mimicking what successful vegetable growers have done at farms where I worked. The yield and quality of produce improved after I began using this fertilizer.
When I arrived at the warehouse, no one was around. I called ahead to determine if they had what I wanted. The trip is 35.3 miles one-way and I didn’t want to make it for nothing. When no person picked up the phone, I went anyway, taking a chance someone would be there. The main building was wide open, so I looked around. I walked through the office and warehouse and found no one. Despite about 20 vehicles in the lot, only two employees were there across the yard where a truck was being loaded. A driver was in his cab picking up a truckload of fertilizer. He asked me what I wanted and I told him. He said they would take care of it.
The office person loaded the truck, made necessary bills of lading, and dispatched the driver. He said it was their busiest day of the year and that he would get my fertilizer. Eventually another office person arrived and did my paperwork while the first loaded the two bags in the back seat of my car. I enjoy this annual pilgrimage to Monticello. What could be better on a rainy day?
It rained all day Monday and the forecast Tuesday was more of the same. The electric mower arrived Monday, so I’ll get that ready for use when the rain lets up. It was a concession to the fact I am aging, and can’t drive the John Deere on the steep side of the road without increased risk of a flip over. With the proper tool, it should be a safer mowing experience.
When it rains I am concerned about the downspouts from the roof getting clogged and flooding the window well on the east side of the house. With all the maple tree seeds flying around, it has gotten clogged previously. When I return from trail walking, I am sure to inspect the roof from the driveway to assess the amount of fallen seeds. Looks like everything went through the downspout so far. As I age, I try to avoid climbing up a ladder to clean the gutters. So far, I am down to once or twice per year. Would like to get that down to zero yet good help is hard to find.
Our community well was out of commission on Monday, which means I got out the large Rubbermaid drinking water container and placed it next to the kitchen sink for handwashing. I also got a gallon jug of store-bought drinking water to use in cooking and for coffee. We tried to use as little water as possible so we didn’t drain the lines. If the community does drain them, there is a public health procedure to follow to make sure unwanted bacteria doesn’t get into the lines and therefore into our vulnerable, unwitting bodies.
As I write on Tuesday morning, my main worries are getting out on the trail between rain showers for a walk. There are plenty of indoor chores to do, including a larger than usual amount of dishes for cleaning because of the water shortage. We actually need the rain, even if I’d rather get the rest of our garden in first.
Not sure what I will do the rest of Tuesday. There is plenty of work, so it will boil down to the most pressing chores. Rainy day or not, answering the question “what’s most important in our lives” is a constant activity. One we should relish while we can answer it.
My electric lawn mower was delayed in shipment. Instead of arriving today, it will be tomorrow. I attempted mowing the garden plot using a trimmer, but it doesn’t get the job done. I will clear off the weed barriers to reuse and be ready when the mower does arrive. I need to think a bit before planting this large plot, anyway.
Toward the west will be cucumbers and summer squash. That much is decided. There are green beans for direct seeding, so there will be a row of those. I need to put celery somewhere. I have chard plants started but not in the ground. The hot peppers and tomatoes aren’t big enough to transplant. I guess I will walk the ground, then walk in the greenhouse and the solution will become obvious.
Below the plastic weed barrier is a life seldom seen. Bugs, ultra-soft earth, evidence of rodents and worms everywhere. Starts of plants went nowhere because of a lack of light. The soil made me sneeze as I unintentionally breathed it in. The weather has been perfect for gardening. Except for a quick trip to town to get a lottery ticket, I was at it all day. I was immersed in it. It was spring, as good as it gets.
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