Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Two lists for you today, the first day it actually felt hot in the Twin Cities.

On my bike ride to the library I...
-- heard frogs singing.
-- saw kids at a skate park.
-- watched a dinosaur great blue heron fly overhead.
-- had two woodchips on the path magically (and startlingly) turn into butterflies.
-- saw a woodchuck, who flallumped back to its burrow as I went by.
-- smelled that sweet, Minnesota-woodsy-creeky smell.
-- went by two youths who would have looked a lot tougher had one not been leading a pair of grinning puppies while the other pulled an upright vacuum cleaner.
-- thought to myself that it really didn't need to be any hotter, and then worried that it's only mid-May.

Edible things I've planted in my gardens so far include...
-- five tomato plants (three heirloom slicing tomatoes, one hybrid, and one yellow pear... and I have three Brandywine seedlings indoors that are still too young to go out).
-- three different bell peppers.
-- jalapeno.
-- two different eggplants (Ichiban and Dusky, I believe)
-- six brussels sprouts.
-- seven broccoli.
-- four cauliflower.
-- Swiss chard.
-- one green and one yellow zucchini.
-- pumpkin and butternut squashes.
-- 'earlysweet' cantaloupe (which grew well for me last year!) and a small watermelon variety.
-- seeds sown directly: kale, lettuces, spinach, radishes, beets, carrots, corn, peas.

I still have half a raised bed to fill in with veggies, not including space I've set aside for bush beans. I'm planning to grow parsnips and rutabagas from seed (although I should have started those a while back -- I didn't find rutabaga seeds until today!). And I might just grow loads more kale anywhere I have an open spot.

I went to the library with nothing specific in mind, and I came back with a couple books on Minnesota history. The one I'm reading now is full of gems -- letters and newspaper ads and such -- and I've been diligently copying them down to the computer so I can share them later. There's definitely an element of 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'! So you can look forward to that (well, I hope you'll look forward to it).