To The Surbiton Manor Born

  I've been dealing with my dad's estate over the summer, which has impacted my work on the garden. One of the most obnoxious things that I've discovered is that he receives about half a dozen solicitations for support from liberal causes every single day.  According to the Sierra Club ,  [ A] n American adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail a year . To produce this much paper requires cutting down  somewhere between 80 million and 100 million trees annually . If left standing, these trees would absorb 1.7 million tons of CO2 a year.  In an ironic twist, many of these solicitations are for environmental causes. I began my campaign to eliminate his and my own junk mail pile by responding with a note - many times in their postage-paid envelope - asking to be removed from the mailing list. I also found a series of resources to get rid of it here.   I won't rehash the details, but everyone should be getting rid of this rubbish.

You see those innocent looking little salad tomatoes? Sprinkle tomatoes as Trader Joe's calls them. Mexican Midget variety as Seed Savers Exchange names them (somewhat unfortunately).  Well they are not so innocent. Last spring, the seedlings were the strongest. So I planted some in every tomato bed. They've gone berserk. They are just an incredible pain to harvest. Delicious, but a real pain. Next year, just a couple of plants.  I've started working on moving two of the 4x4 beds in the lower garden to a place that gets a good deal more sun. Both beds have produced nothing for two years, and I'm pretty sure its because they spend a lot of time in the shade. The ambition here is to then level the area around these beds and lay down a gravel path that connects to the stairs. Construction began in earnest this weekend. (The two beds not producing, where the garlic and potimaron squash went to die, They are being cannibalized for parts of the new bed.) It's been hot (ne