First tomatoes and more

Last weekend I spent several hours doing some serious work in the garden, ripping out weeds and too many plants that had gone to seed. I'm saving some of the seeds and hope to plant them next year. Friday was the heavy work day, Saturday I planted more seeds for a late harvest of peas, lettuce, carrots, and cauliflower. I don't really know whether there's enough time left for any of these veggies to grow before winter sets in but this is my year to experiment.

The yellow pear tomatoes and the mystery small red tomatoes (cherry/sun gold/sweet 100?) are doing quite well. Found more blue potatoes when I went to plant the carrot seeds. Today's lunch was leftover eggplant Parmesan I made with the funny little white eggplants a local college agriculture program donated to the garden.

Surprisingly, Saturday was a very quiet day at the garden! Friday there were many people there. Workers at the adjacent farm, families with children touring the garden and harvesting from their family plots, and solitary gardeners like me catching up on the weeding and harvesting that was too hot to do earlier made it a lively place. But Saturday there were very few people there, and after watering the garden, I sat and enjoyed the relative solitude. Hummingbirds zoomed across the gardens in what looked like a game of tag; one even perched on one of my tomato cages, but not long enough for me to get out the camera and take a photo. Finches were busy harvesting sunflower seeds and racing around, chattering away at one another. Corn stalk leaves rustled with the wind. It all reminded me of why I like gardening; besides the satisfaction of helping things grow and getting delicious, fresh food in exchange for a little work, it provides a space to connect with the natural world, and refreshes the spirit.