Our veggie bed is small, as you can see. Only 4 by 8 feet (1.2 m * 2.4 m) but it’s still big enough to produce a lot of lettuce and some kale, chard, beets, fennel, peas, and (although I lost my optimism, we’re still waiting to see some) cauliflower.

Every thing that grows is a prize. But the biggest reward for me is to see the kids – my city kids – interact with it. It doesn’t happen every day because we spend most of the year indoors (we had mostly cool, grey, and rainy days this past June!), but when they do…

I love to see them dig, pick, pull, cut, and eat right off the plants. We have plump peas now,

They are so fresh and tender and sweet that we eat them straight out of the shell in the yard – they barely make it back inside the house. (I bought a bag of fresh peas at the farmer’s market. $5 dollars for a bag of 1 pound! And it was a Big disappointment. They were so starchy and tough and bitter. I cooked them for about 20 minutes, and then sautéed them in butter for another 10 until they finally softened, but they still didn’t taste so good.

Today I picked the rest of them, otherwise the heat will turn them starchy.

In a few weeks we’ll have blueberries and tomatoes. Oh, glorious tomatoes…

We’ve been living in this house for nearly 6 years and, thinking back, I wish we had planted blueberry bushes along our fence the first year we moved here. One can never have too much blueberries…

Some housekeeping: I am happy to to report that the beer trap worked!

A few days after I put the trap, I went out to check again on the status. I found a few bodies of rotting slugs – yuck. It was disgusting. I ended up throwing the whole can away and planned to make a new trap but forgot to… We still have slugs, probably some veterans and some newcomers.

Meanwhile, we cut back most of our kale and chard – and into the pot they went – to make room for the tomatoes. I found that tomatoes grow best in the veggie bed, or the ground, but not so much in pots. I also planted two tomato plants in the front yard as part of my vision to have vegetables, fruits, and flowers in the front yard instead of a lawn. So far, they are doing marvelous. We already have a few green ones hanging on the branches.

These blanched greens will accompany the pasta with pesto and fresh peas we picked (4-5 minutes, cooked in salted boiling water.)

***

Summer finally began. It was indeed a miserable June. I’ll confess, I used the F-word a lot in June.

On Tuesday summer arrived! From mid 50’s F degrees we had a big jump to the lower 90’s F – now, don’t I sound like a weather girl/middle-aged woman reporting the weather?

Ahhhh, Summer. It’s going to be a short one this year. Only two months. And I don’t want to waste another second. I plan to spend it as much as I can outside, with the kids, with water (sprinklers, hoses, lakes, rivers, waterfalls), with cool watermelons, ice cream, and milkshakes….

Categories : Urban garden