osprey94's Blog

Broccoli and I...not a good pair!
Jun 20, 2007 | 6:26 PM PST
Tags: broccoli , strawberries , teaching

Well, this is the second time I've tried growing broccoli. After the first attempt, I didn't plan on trying it again. I don't love eating the vegetable enough to put up with it, I thought. The first time, some creature ate through the stems and they all flopped over before I could harvest. This time, I found a pack of 6 plants at the ACE hardware store near me and they looked so beautiful I thought I'd try again. And...they bolted before I could harvest them. It hasn't even been very sunny or hot here. What is up? I think I'll pull them out and plant...well, that's the problem...can't decide. Oh! I've been wanting  some onion plants, so that's what I'll do. Hope I don't have a problem finding some starts. It seems like I don't have a lot of luck finding them when I want them.

I need to build my fourth raised bed and fill it soon. It's silly to have it almost built and then not follow through. The logs are lying there in formation. I just need to dig some trenches to set them in and fill it with some soil mix.

Then,  what should I plant? Maybe for now I'll just plant a cover crop until I figure out what to plant.

The strawberries are driving me crazy. There are millions of them ripening all at once, but RIGHT when they are ALMOST ripe, robins (I've caught them in the act so many times that I'm convinced they're the major culprit) get them or they rot and get moldy. I pick bowls full of the almost-ripe-enough ones and they just don't taste great. I've frozen two gallon ziplocks of them. Maybe I'll make strawberry ice cream soon with my ice cream maker. Even almost ripe strawberries would taste good in ice cream! *Sigh* I have GOT to build those row covers for them! I do love to procrastinate!

Those damn robins, by the way, sit atop my topsy turvey tomato planters and crap strawberry seed poo ALL OVER the planters and the tomatoes! As if to say, "I'll eat your strawberries you slaved over and then I will CRAP all over your tomatoes as a an extra bonus!" Wee!

I'd like to pull out a few rows and replace with asparagus. We don't need so many strawberries. I think maybe currants might be nice, too, I don't know. Honestly, until I get a canning element for my stove I don't want to plant too much of anything! It'll all go to waste!

I went to our town's farmer's market today and there were 4 stands! Two were selling birdhouses, one was selling metal sculptures and one was selling some houseplants. No veggies, no seedlings, no fruit, no homemade soaps or sachets or honey or ANYTHING. I wonder if I could make some money there for my excess produce. It'd be EASY to create a much more appealing and useful stand at that market. They need it!

Well, tomorrow is another weekday when I will be NOT working. Oh, it's a rough life. But, don't get the wrong idea, I have 3 multi-day training sessions to go to this summer and am traveling for most of July (not that that's a hardship, but it does make the summer FLY by even faster). I'll be back in that classroom before I can even wonder what happened to my summer! But, I am NOT complaining. Teaching is perfect for gardening obsessed humans.