A Second Farmers' Market

I went onto campus for lunch yesterday. It was the last day of the quarter, and the students were engaged in an epic battle involving polystyrene swords, red capes, bunnies, and Haile Selassi signs (well, okay, one: mostly the garb was faux-Roman), by way of letting off steam. One guy seemed quite badly hurt, though, and was being ministered to by EMTs — there were two firetrucks on the scene. By the time I left there were three police cars. Steady, lads…

The other side of the quad was quite different. There has been an attempt to persuade students to eat more fresh food, and a second farmer’s market has been set up since the beginning of May on a Wednesday at lunchtime. (The real, big farmers’ market is three blocks away, also on a Wednesday, which makes you wonder, which I did.)

Small but a great way for people to connect directly with the people who grow their food. I ran into Kelly who helped me plan my native/herb garden, which is now almost unrecognizable: I urged her to stop by and see it sometime. The poppies have just about finished blooming but they’ve been an infusion of orange all spring, nicely offsetting what is primarily a gray garden with purple accents…

I bought three different colors of beets, which we ate tonight in a profusion of herbs from said herb garden, a vinaigrette, kalamata olive bread, farmer’s cheese, and an Australian shiraz.

First Flower

Pica got back from her writing workshop today so I am off watering duties for now. This morning I noticed that one of the guavas is now bearing blossoms! Pica planted these guavas not long before a prolonged hard freeze this winter. We shepherded the guavas through the cold spell by covering them with gardening fleece so it is especially rewarding to see those blossoms now.

Here Come The Triffids

Pica’s zucchinis are starting to bear fruit.

Invaded by Lagomorphs

My three-sisters garden is chomped to the ground. The corn has no chance: the second it peeks out, the cottontails are on it. They take bites out of the squashes and spit them out, but tell that to the poor squashes. I can’t plant beans till the corn’s four inches high, etc. Oh woe is me.

I sound like Fred. I may start sounding like Mr. Macgregor.

This is my entry for Illustration Friday’s theme, Signs. It’s far more polite than what I originally had in mind: let’s just leave it at that.

Chivvying Along the Chopping

They irrigated today.

This means they flooded the field, flooding our driveway. We are in a drought year; there’s water out there for the taking. Not a moment to be lost!

So while Numenius chopped onions, parsley, mint, tomatoes (not ours, yet), and feta for a tabouleh, I started hauling water from the ditch onto the various bits of the garden. The new wildflowers, planted and peeking, probably too late—need extra care (it’s hot now); the fennel; the eggplants; the leeks; the garlic; the parsley; the onions; the butternut squashes; the watermelons, zucchini, canteloupes; what’s left of the beets and carrots and chard and mustard; the lettuces and peas; the artichokes, now brilliant purple and splendid; and the marigolds I’ve planted near the tomatoes to deter nematodes.

I’ve bought two Spanish plastic baskets, ones I grew up seeing used in fields, but that are now available at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, in recycled plastic. Their advantage is that they can haul dirt, veggies, and water — and because they’re flexible, they’re easy to fill in a ditch.

I was called inside at 8:30 with totally failing light to participate in the Yolo Ham net, which took ten minutes — during which time I became acutely aware of the extent of the caked mud on my jeans. Mud Glorious Mud.

Dappled Things

There was a snake under the peach tree yesterday — a gopher snake. It was trying to get a little sun. It had a fat bulge in its belly, undoubtedly the gopher that had been shaking through the Mexican primroses earlier this week.

I went out this evening to try and find it again; it was in the same spot, lazily flicking its tongue, checking us out.

Snakes have a hard time in ag lands. I wanted to tell it to invite its friends, to have lots of babies. I have no shortage of work for snakes… including the inflatable rattler at work that needs to be brought home so it can guard my lettuces.

Flowers as Characters

“Numenius, you know you don’t like pelargoniums? Well, I feel the same way about mallows.”

We were walking at the Tilden Bot Garden on Saturday in the rain which N. insisted was heavy mist.

“The ones I don’t like are Alstromeria,” said Joe. “They’re cheap. They’re the Britney Spears of flowers.”

At left is an alstromeria drawn by my niece when she was seven and sent to me. Since I don’t get many drawings from my sister’s kids, this one has been on my wall since. But I see Joe’s point: they have the aesthetic best suited to little girls heavily into anything pink and delicate (which T. no longer is, spending hours and hours these days hanging around the horse barn).

I had hoped the black-and-white columbine Ron gave us to plant last fall would have flowered by the time we left for columbine country (Colorado) tomorrow, but you’ll have to wait for a drawing of that one for when we get back in ten days. Aquilegea hybrid, var. Magpie.

Salty Balty

The Giants won one game this week. They played six games — at home. Tomorrow they set out on the road.

Giants fans are miserable, already, one week into the season. Hard to see how anyone could be more miserable than Salty Balty, who calls in regularly to the postgame wrap, bemoaning the geriatric lineup and calling for heads to roll — a refrain that was taken up by caller after caller.

Today I did more gardening than I probably should have, given how my back is feeling, but it was fun to listen to the game (though not fun to hear them lose).

Peppers, chiles, leeks, fennel, squashes — all went in today (all the melons went in yesterday). It may be a little early. Oh well. We’ll see… Maybe Salty should take up gardening.

Botanic Garden

We met Ron and Joe at the Botanic Garden in Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley on a drizzly morning today. The Botanic Garden is exclusively devoted to California native plants. I realized as we went through the collections that I don’t think I’ve been there since I took my classes on California plants in 1992 back in grad school at UC Santa Barbara. The plant species seem to be a lot more familiar than when I was there last.

Ron and Joe related that this garden led to the origin of the California Native Plant Society, which is the most important organization for the conservation of the California flora. The garden dates to 1940; in the early 1960s there was a plan to expand the 9-hole golf course across the road over the garden. Local citizens objected, and the organization that grew out of this eventually became the CNPS.

Above is a sketch of Trillium angustipetalum, a plant collected from Humboldt County. It is in the lily family, but as Chris Clarke relates , who knows what that means any more.

Beets!