The unfortunately named "Mexican Midget" tomatoes are producing magnificently.
I've been a little neglectful of the blog as the summer has been full of travel. This has caused a little bit of neglect in the garden (but not too much), and some reflections on the environmental impact of travel.
First off, the garden is doing pretty well this year.
The zucchini are a real standout. How do they grow from a nice, but slightly too small fruit into something that could potentially threaten Tokyo over the course of a night?
Last week I took in the last of the snow peas (which produced for a surprisingly long time), and set some to dry into next year's seeds. The few cucumber plants that I did this year are starting to blossom.
While the tiny salad tomatoes are producing heavily, the larger tomatoes have run into some serious blossom rot this year. Haven't harvested one yet. Maybe it is the draught and the uneven watering? Maybe it is a lack of nutrients in the soil?
There does seem to be a bit more rain now, and I added some blood meal (which I purchased by mistake last year, but which is supposed to be good for tomatoes) to the base of every tomato plant. So hopefully that addresses the problem. We planted the tomatoes late because of our trip to Maine in early May. We just returned from Mendocino, CA yesterday.
Tom & Kiki on the Pacific Ocean, Mendocino, CA, August, 2023
Tom and Kiki on the Atlantic Ocean, near Brunswick, ME, May 2023
These were both very nice trips. But they both required air travel.
With the smoke from wildfires causing a record number of air quality alert days this summer - a visible sign of drastic climate change - we've been re-thinking the amount of carbon we want to be responsible for emitting.
Airplanes emit around 100 times more CO2 per hour than a shared bus or train ride. The website, "No Fly Climate Sci" provides a lot more good information, so I won't repeat it here. What I will mention what Peter Kalmus, climate scientist and author, the sites founder says: “Why the focus on flying? Hour for hour, there’s no better way to burn fossil fuel and heat the planet.”
Add to that the absolute horror of the entire experience, from the tension and anxiety to the total loss of any civil rights once you enter the airport, to the money. It's a crucible of anxiety, money, and human misery. Flying at the back of an over-stuffed tin can from Reno to Minneapolis yesterday with undisciplined children kicking the back of Kiki's seat the entire way on screaming baby airlines did nothing to improve our opinion of this mode of travel.
So we're going to try the train for our winter escape from Minnesota, and see how that goes.
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