Yes, it is true, my last post was in AUGUST. You missed the harvest? Well so did I. Then I got a regular job and it all went to heck. But I’m back, fighting the urge to buy seeds I don’t sow, plants I won’t grow, and what else, I don’t know. But I still hold true to the promise that you’ll feel a little better about your life when you leave here.
14 Jul
A visit to the Farm
My friend Penny is a member of the CSA, Anchor Run Farm in Wrightstown, Bucks County. When she goes away for a couple of weeks in the summer she sometimes lets me have her share. I love travelling there. See why?
The entrance to the barn where all organic veggies are displayed in bins with instructions to take things like 3 eggplant, a pound of tomatoes, a bunch of kale, a bunch of spinach, two pounds of eggplant, a bunch of beets, etc.
In addition to what the farmers have picked you can go out to the fields and pick specific things.
This was the week to pick peas.
Good things in the future:
Yum, sorrel. Like I know what to do with it.
View as I exit the farm. Good-bye happy place.
10 Jul
Staunch women don’t let rain deter them…
Polly at the ready. (Please can we go inside now?)
Hello rain!
Some call it a weed, I call it purslane. It’s the one crop I have the most of…
8 Jul
Went away…
Packed up, took the dog and My Mother and headed to Maine. Before I left I said good-bye to the garden.
Good bye baby eggplants
Good bye baby zucchini
Good bye glorious fig tree
I left it in the hands of my daughter who in previous years watered the day before I returned and found utter desolation. The acorn, the tree, falling not far.
7 Jun
Scott Arboretum Plant Swap
I almost waited until the plants I got at the Swap died to post but that would be really lazy.
Let me take you to the Swap. When one arrives, one takes a gander through what’s there and plans a strategy. The Dearly Beloved and I had a simple strategy: she heads right and grabs every pink thing I’ve pointed out to her and I go left and try to remember what’s she’s shown me.
Then we take our places in line.
It looks daunting, I know. I met the woman who was at the front of the line. When I asked her what her secret was her answer was so vague I don’t remember it now.
The rules are read. The anticipation grows.
You’ll have to imagine the stampede of plant fiends. I could not photograph and elbow others at the same time.
During the first round:
Our haul. Not bad. We took it to the car and prepared for Round 2 when everyone lines up again and unless marked, every plant is a dollar.
Round 2 doesn’t have the frantic pace and there’s the sense that everything good is gone, kind of like CVS on Halloween when all that’s left is a bag of peppermint drops.
There’s still lots to choose from:
We stepped into the all-new amazing Wistar Center to check out their restrooms and spotted this lovely little stash. Mhmmm, why weren’t these plants at the sale?
On our way home these pretty poppies waved good-bye.
31 May
Judged by Stressed Tomato Plants
John Cheever said that he imagined once he got to heaven he’d be judged by a panel of Labrador retrievers. I’ll be judged by some stressed out tomato plants. They definitely have reason to deny me entrance.
Stop staring at me!
Three hours later…
I’m lining the paths with photographer’s paper that I got after a shoot with this guy.
Fifteen tomato plants is way too many, I know, but how can you refuse a gift like Mr. Stripey, and I had fisticuffs with another gardener at the Scott Arboretum Plant Swap over some small cherries. And one night whilst walking Polly we came upon a flat at the end of a driveway with a sign for free plants and who could resist someone’s leftover Mortgage Lifters?
Polly wisely waits under the fig tree.
