Check out our salad bar

So far, everything in our new Square Foot Garden seems pretty happy.  So happy, in fact, that someone (and not Bill) has already started helping themselves to our bounty.  Our first perfectly ripe strawberry has vanished without a trace!  Some of my gardening friends have suggested it was a blue jay; others say it was a chipmunk.  Whoever it was, they took the entire berry without disturbing anything else.  Just another one of Nature's great mysteries out here at Troy Valley.

The things that I started from seeds (lettuce, carrots, spinach) came right up, but I learned that I used far more seeds than necessary.  Next round I'll only put two or three seeds into each hole.  It's hard not to overdo it because the seeds are soooo small.  The green onions came in sets, but I think I have too many in there.  In fact, I need to harvest some and use them up.  The cilantro has gotten enormous, as has the parsley.  Guess I need to get to using up those as well.  When I planted the cilantro it was looking pretty piqued, but it came right back once I got it into a large space with some good soil.  And the parsley was just a little nub because it had gotten nibbled by a squirrel before I got it planted.  The pepper plants haven't flowered yet, but some of the tomato plants have a little flower or two.  As you know, the strawberries are starting to ripen so I just collected my first handful (I'm trying to beat our berry thief to the punch). 

Mel (the SFG guru) says you need to use compost from mixed sources - not just cow manure, for example - but that was all I could find out here so when I heard I could get my hands on some "spent" mushroom compost I thought I'd give it a try.  I guess there's some controversy in the gardening community over the use of mushroom compost because it can be too "salty" for young plants and seedlings.  But I mixed it with cow manure compost, and also vermiculite and peat, so I think it's okay.  It's probably not organic (I didn't verify that when I was compost shopping).

So far, my gardening endeavor hasn't been nearly as tricky or time-consuming as I had been led to believe.  If this keeps up, I'll be doubling the size of our garden next year!  Now why do I have this feeling that all you longtime gardeners out there are giving me that "awww-she-is-sooooo-naive" look right now?

Out of this world

One of my favorite evening pastimes is to stargaze from the big platform in our wildflower meadow.  It's a quiet opportunity to take in the vastness of our solar system, our galaxy, our universe...to contemplate my relative insignificance in God's grand scheme.  This evening meditation always helps to put my seemingly insurmountable and all-consuming challenges into humbled perspective.   

And then, just as I am about to become one with space and time, to transcend this Earthly mortal existence, a piece of space-junk goes tumbling by.  And there I am once again with my butt firmly and pragmatically planted in my ordinary lawn chair on my ordinary platform here on Earth.  

It's an interesting juxtaposition of activities, simultaneously stargazing and space-junk-gazing, and it plays with my emotions.  At one moment I am pondering the relative irrelevance of my existence, while the next moment I see that I, along with my fellow humans, have recklessly set thousands of pieces of garbage into orbit around the only home we'll ever have.  I feel sheer wonderment over what we humans can do along with utter disgust over what we humans have done.   

If you've ever stargazed, chances are quite good that you've seen plenty of space-junk.  Here is a fabulous  website for tracking everything - galaxies, planets, space debris - in your nighttime skies. 
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Needless to say, I can't take credit for the photo...it's from spaceimages.com

Show-off!

We eagerly went for a hike this morning, in the pouring rain, so we could get a glimpse of this rare and stunning native wild orchid.  It's called a Showy Orchis (Orchis spectabilis) and the field guide says this perennial flower is found in moist woods (check), especially beech-maple woods (check), in May or June (check), and should be left undisturbed (check!!!).  It can take orchids 15 years to mature and produce flowers, and the soil and light conditions have to be just right.  What an honor to have one show herself in our woods...and well worth the soggy hike.