You Can't Beat Beets

 

It moves fast when you aren't looking. 

Kiki and I left town on Friday morning for an overnight camping trip. We returned Saturday morning, and I just had time to shower before hopping in a friend's car for a 4.5 hour drive to Cedar Rapids Iowa to see A Flock of Seagulls. 

Unfortunately the band did not show, so we got to see a local Cedar Rapids band called Surf Zombies. They played surf music. They played it well. We decided not to stay for opening band (now headliner) Naked Eyes. Hopped in the car and drove back.

The reason I tell this sad tale of woe is that I didn't lay eyes on the garden for 24 hours, and it is kind of boggling the pace at which it is growing now. The sunflowers were visibly taller. I would not be surprised if they shot up six inches over that 24 hours. We've had a little rain, and things have perked up. There's some lettuce that looks like we might be able to start eating it as early as next week. The squash, cucumbers, zucchini, and pumpkins all shot up as well. A few of the beets were ready to eat. Pulled in another two handfuls of peas and a few beans were ready to pull. The cabbages are starting to actually look like cabbages, and I have hope that they will actually turn out O.K. (I was concerned.)

After the rain, I was able to cut the grass and make the yard presentable once again (I didn't cut it during the two week dry & 90 degree period). I spread the grass clippings about equally as mulch and compost. 

After I'd added leaves to the mulch and as brown for the compost, we are now down to just a single bag of leaves left over from last fall. This means every single leaf that fell into the yard will soon have been reabsorbed somehow. The grass clippings and leaves topped up half of the compost bin, but even only pouring a few gallons of water from the rain barrel over them they were starting to shrink. The grass clippings seem to supercharge the compost, which, at the bottom, is turning into something actually resembling dirt. 

Things are looking promising!