Hmmm. How about that- I never blog anymore, and I'd assumed this space had been reassigned by now, but it hasn't, so here I am, for a moment. That's a lot of commas.

Garden news:

My new, all-white eggplant is languishing as eggplants always do- I'm hoping it will explode in July, as all past eggplants have. Three or four kinds of potatoes continue to colonize, and I think one tomatillo sleeper is living among the spud shrubs, a child of the mostly ignored crop of last summer. I saved some seeds from the first tomatillo crop, and meant to plant them earlier, but I forgot all about them until I spied the straggly, different-looking mini-bush in with my Yukon Golds, which I had dug up and spread all over the former tomatilla acreage (just shy of 3 square feet, truthfully). I'll tell the friend who gave me the original seedlings that it looks like one seed decided not to wait for the official planting date. Things are starting to flower, which I always enjoy. I sometimes tell people I'm a flower farmer, on the strength of this. This year I have fava beans sharing a tiny hill with some peas, both seeded from the stash jar of a dear friend, who lets his beans wave around like horsetails. I trained mine, along with the peas, up three slender bamboo sticks leaning togetherward, and they are now over two feet tall, half the height of the bamboo array. I spend about five minutes, morning and evening, coaxing the newly curling tendrils off of one another, out of thin air, even off of themselves, and onto the bamboo. Lot of commas there too. Wonder why I care?

What else am I growing? Oh, giant pumpkins. And hopefully some heirloom collard greens from Oakland and/or Berkeley. I tried to sprout the one and a half seeds, which were all the donor could spare, without success and finally planted the sodden little grains in a gently watered slope on the sunny side of my blue potato patch. I hope for the best, but fear the worst. If nothing comes of this planting, I'll write to the donor and ask to be included, perhaps a little more generously, in next year's sharing. Historical greens are too important to wait on good manners, not that I won't speak politely while rudely demanding preference... Is that it for the garden news? Well, there are not many snails around this spring, for the first time in a long time. Plenty of slugs, which are just as bad, and harder to relocate when you catch them. I can eat snails as happily as I eat any meat, not that I do (eat snails) anymore, but I don't know, I honestly don't know, whether I would eat slugs. I guess I might, if they weren't slimy, and were appealingly prepared. It's the least of my worries, but I took a moment to address it, eh?

Other news:

Unemployed, and uninspired. Bought a folding mountain bike, haven't ridden it in weeks. I go out and dust it once a week, and pat it on the saddle, and call it a good horse. I'm in love with another bike, and that's enough of an excuse for me to ignore the bike I'm with. The details would possibly bore you, but the other bike folds too, and it could be made into a pretty fair mountain bike. Tomorrow I will ride MY bike. No reason not to, and I like doing it.

I'll put up some garden and bike pictures soon.