Zen and the art of vegetable planting

The weather and my garden soil (which I amended with too much chunky compost too close to seed-planting time, I fear) conspired against me this year, which means that instead of getting entire beds of cut-and-come-again baby lettuces, I got a scattering of lettuces that I decided to let grow to full size.

So my garden produced lots of lettuce (more than even I could eat), but later in the season. I used to get a little worked up about this sort of unexpectedness, but this year I'm just too busy to micromanage the veggie patch the way I once did, leading me to mellow out and just accept that sometime things play out in ways you didn't expect. Seeds, and vegetables, are living things. Sometimes, they're just going to do what they're going to do.

I had 100% failure of my beet plantings (usually a failsafe crop for me), but my carrots (a hit-and-miss crop for me) are doing fantastic. Go figure.

The chickens are alright

I know, I know, it has been a frightfully long time since I've updated on what's what in my tiny urban farm. I blame it on a combination of being insanely busy, and having a long, cold, gross, disgusting spring in which even certain failsafe veggie seeds (summer squash, anyone?) failed to germinate properly. I have some theories about why that is, which I'll discuss at a later date.

As for the chickens, they are clucking along quite nicely. No eggs yet, but any day (fingers crossed). The ladies have had some adventures this summer, which I will catch you up on, along with the details on what is growing despite benign neglect (I am the tomato goddess....click here and scroll down to "Neighborly Advice" if you don't believe me) and ripening like mad (apples, grapes and plums, oh my!).

Oh, and one of the ladies (Marmalade) is now sort of famous in Seattle. More on that, too, later.

Yikes...I have so much to catch up on!