Late in the Season

I finally got the vegetable garden set today. About three weeks ago, I dug up the sod in a triangle bed just outside our back fence, along one edge of the driveway leading into our detached garage. It seemed a useless patch of grass, too small to play in, good for little more than an extra four minutes of weekly mowing. Silly, I thought... but it has a nice warm micro-climate, sheltered and insulated by the wood plank fence, and warmed by the concrete driveway, with a full-sun westward facing. Today, I finally finished with separating the soil from the roots, tossing the dying grass in a pile by the worm-bin, and tilling up the soil in the now vegetable patch.

We had bought a bunch of seeds to start the garden (along with some still languishing bulbs and tubers) that populate our back stairwell. I decided at this late stage in the season, it'd be better to plant some seedlings than to start seeds. The Inventor and I headed out to a couple garden centers. Tomatoes we found in abundance, but sweet peppers were hard to come by. Many varieties of hot pepper, but I could only locate two types of sweet (both oddly enough purple). So, we have a half dozen tomato plants, five hot peppers, four sweet (purple!) peppers, one bean plant, and three strawberries. I also bought a few packs of lettuce seedlings (which it's certainly too late to start from seed) in hopes that they'll provide us with a month or two of baby salad greens. I'll plant them along the inside of the fence tomorrow.

Still a little room in the triangle patch. Maybe I'll put in some seeds, or purchase a couple other plants (eggplant? more beans?) Not really enough room for cucumbers or zucchini there. I might find another spot (though I'm not sure it'll be this season). There's a lot to do in the garden besides. I was also planning on starting a small bed or two inside the fence, and have half a notion to plant some corn in the greenway along the street. We'll see. Anything that doesn't get done tomorrow will have to wait.

We'll be taking off for a few days starting on Tuesday. My wife's grandparents own a remote house near the Wisconsin Dells, on a dirt road, alongside a pond ("the lake house"), which is the venue for occasional family gatherings, most traditionally for the Fourth of July. We'll be heading up a couple days early, and staying on a couple days past.

No computer. It'll be five days without email, or internet. RocketMom promised she'd try to plan enough activities and outings so we wouldn't get bored. And I promise, I'll try to just be in the moment. Vacations are good... I'm just not always so good at being there.