Summer Solstice - 2011

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the point of the year with the longest day length. For gardeners, this means anything planted after that day will have less sunlight every day. So, I try to have everything in before the solstice, and then I shift into harvest/weed mode for a month or so until it's time to plant for fall/winter.

This spring has been pretty good, in spite of the wind and rain I've got everything in that I needed to get in, and a few extras.

Rowen helped me plant the community garden plot. (And by help I mean he napped for the first hour, then blew some bubbles, and then followed me around like a little duckling making his quack quack noise.) We put straw around the squash hills, which have sprouted and grown real leaves. We put seeds in for some more purple green beans, (because you can never have too many) kohlrabi, (sorry dear, I couldn't resist) two different basils, a red and a green, and some swiss chard. We also rescued some sad looking onion transplants and put them in the ground, I don't know if they'll make it, but I'm not worried about it either way. While we were there we met our garden plot neighbor, Ms Linda. She was very nice.

The home garden is also bursting at the seams with freshly planted warm weather crops and lush well grown cool weather crops. Garlic scapes were harvested this past weekend. Bulb production is looking good. Onions are bulbing nicely too. Cabbages have started to head. Lettuces are sending up seed stalks. Peas are covered in pea pods, but due to the herbicide spray from last year, I'm hesitant to eat them. I'll likely save them all for seed. Beans are looking good and are about to flower, as are potatoes. I got 10 tomato plants planted, with organic egg shells crumbled into each hole to stave off blossom end rot. (I'm hearing reports of blight in the NE again, keep an eye on tomatoes again this year.) I also got three pepper plants in and a few herbs. :-) We should be good on tomatoes and peppers, if they produce well. *cross fingers* Rowen wasn't able to help with the tomato planting as the mosquitoes were about to carry me away, and it was decided he should stay inside with Dave. They both helped slather me with anti-itch creme as soon as I was done. Such nice boys.

Speaking of the men-folk. Rowen did get to help with the card we made for Father's Day. I put some cut out letters in a ziplock with a few dabs of paint and let Rowen squish it all around. (I think there was some hammering involved too.) Once a nice tie-dye look had been achieved on the letters I took them out and let them dry. We then colored a nice background on a construction paper card and I glued the letters onto that. :-) Yay crafts!

Happy Solstice everyone, enjoy summer!