April 2009: More from the spring.

Ive been needing to do this ever since last year -- in fact, I've had the materials ever since we first moved here -- but I only recently put out the corn gluten (source of nitrogen) and soil sulphur (for the acidity). These are supposed to be more eco-friendly alternatives to synthetic fertilizers, but with the sulphur dust in particular, I'm not so sure in retrospect. I don't have any concrete reason for that, just a feeling . . . maybe it's how my garden looked like a radioactive wasteland afterwards.

A huge old parsley plant we've got . . .

. . . and one of its residents.

A few radishes, red and black:

A few different varieties of lettuce . . .

Kale and cabbage, still holdovers from the Fall planting:

Several rows of potatoes in the background, onions in the foreground, and a variety of root vegetables in between (turnips, rutabagas, radishes):

I was really surprised to see that potatoes, so coarse and knobby, produce these dainty little flowers.

Then there's the blooms from onion plants, which aren't half-bad themselves:

And more on the theme of plant features that you don't really consider when you're buying their commercialized kinfolk in the produce aisle of the grocery store, here are the blooms from escarole, cilantro, and broccoli:

There's a moral here: whereas I normally think of all the dirt and sweat we're paying to distance ourselves from when buying food at the store, we're also distancing ourselves from a lot of the beautiful things that happen in the full life cycle of a plant . . . the leaves, the stems, the flowers, not to mention the bugs and birds that they support.

Now, fennel and brussel sprouts:

A little fruit . . . strawberry plants and a fig tree. For the strawberry, we were supposed to discourage fruit this year for a more prolific output next year; unfortunately, the plants didn't make it past June. I don't know if it was the soil that I planted them in or the sun and drought, but they are long gone. For the fig, it's still doing well -- I think it's going to be a winner.