Making Progress, But Whimping Out

It's brutally humid out there.  After filling our new free little library last night, I had planned this morning to hoe, water, start planting fall crops, and then harvest.  I even turned down two offers of OSU football tickets to get this done.  However, it rained a quarter inch last night, which made it too messy to hoe or plant.  When I finally arrived at 9 a.m. this morning, it was already pretty humid.   By noon, I was ready to call it a day.  There was no watering, hoeing or planting this morning.  But, I was responsible enough to harvest.  I was also able to fill two bags of greens for a neighbor family.  None of the other gardeners stopped by.

I've attached some charts of where we are on our food pantry donations.  As you can see from the top chart, this year we are likely to exceed our record level of donations from last year.   We are also doing better this year on squash, but not so much on tomatoes or peppers as in prior years.  We still have some time.  And, the LSS Choice Food Pantry still gets most of our donated produce.

When I arrived this morning, I put some more -- adult-- books in the library.  I had also printed out some book markers from the free little library website and put in a sign telling neighbors to take a book; leave a book.   A neighbor fellow stopped by on his bike and took two books on gardening and landscaping.  He likes DIY books.  Duly noted.

Cathy came by after a volunteer meeting at Urban Connections.  She's getting ready for next week's Children's Parade.   She put some more of our children's books in the library.

I found the praying mantis in my plot (which was MIA last week while I focused on the garden spider).  It was hanging out on the ground near the tomatoes.    It was very, very pregnant.   I almost stepped on it.   I hope it lays its eggs -- or whatever praying mantises do -- near the fence and not my tomato trellises because I will be ripping out the trellises at the end of the season and the fence will be safer.   I had to remind myself to watch where I stepped after that.  It declined the assistance of my hand to boost it higher up.   For her part, the garden spider now has her web about two feet west of where she has been the last month.    She's bigger, too.

Before

One of our gardeners is about to get booted.  She hasn't weeded her plot in ages and the weeds are up to my chest.   She also hasn't harvested any of her food.  What can I say?  She's a college student with two jobs and probably lots of beaus.    I told the large group of new kids who moved into the neighborhood after we broke ground that they could share her plot if they helped to hoe it.    They've been pestering me all summer and I need some place to direct all of their energy.  We had a slew of new kids move in right across the street just this week.  I have no idea what their names are yet, but they watered up a storm on Friday night. 

After

Well, hopefully I will get to planting our fall crops next weekend.  I've already started some cabbage and bok choy seedlings.  I need to get them in the ground very soon.  Our collard greens are becoming infested with aphids, so I need to start another row of that, too.

Check out how much better the lot at the corner of Cherry and Morrison looks after the guys finished mowing it last week.

Finally, I included another picture of Tyrese's shirt from Friday because I liked it.