Outside chores

Risa, impatient as ever, has put in the tomatoes in very coolish ground. The good news is they show no sign of shock, because the continuing rainy weather has been kind to transplants. She hopes it's also because she watered-in using about a tablespoon full of milk powder and sugar per plant, which seems to have been enjoyed by other tomato starts in days gone by. These starts are from a small organic business just getting going about five miles away, owned by a family friend. They are Sungold, Stupice, Black Prince, and Amish Paste, spaced four feet on a diagonal zigzag pattern, with kale starts on the opposite dogleg.

Here we have a bushel of mint beginning to solar dry. Even with the cloud cover, the heat in the box has steamed up the window in ten minutes.

A second bushel. There's lots more mint; Risa needs to make more of these dryers. If there's ever another bumper crop of tomatoes, like in 2007 or 2008, she'll need them all.

The chickens watched the whole process of harvesting and setting up, and now they are bored and picking at the mulch around a young pear tree. They only like grass clippings if you mulch something with it, hence the wire cage. In the background you can see a fresh stump; sadly the plums got a nasty case of a leaf-shriveling virus and had to go. Risa may put quince trees in their place.

When you're done with outside chores, "Chicken soup with rice/Is very nice." Shown here with homegrown zukes, onions, veg-flake spices, and, umm, homegrown chicken ...