Spectacular Growth!

Hey, remember that corn I planted a little over a month ago? Well, it's almost as tall as I am now! Sunflowers too. The potatoes are flowering, which means we'll be digging fresh spuds in two weeks, and everything else is near ready to harvest. We made our first batch of fresh garden pesto (is there anything better!), and have been picking greens to steam with poached eggs for breakfast in the morning. It's one of the most satisfying things in this world to me -- walking over in the morning to the garden, steaming mug in hand, to pick greens for my breakfast. Ahhhh.

I've been gone for a few days (only four actually, although it feels like weeks) helping my dear friends move their lives north to Eugene, Or. It was a pleasant trip, if bittersweet -- I spent lots of great quality time with my friends and my sweet god kids and I got to see some great new places, including Mt. Shasta and Portland (I loved it, and I am making plans to drag Man O' Mine up there in early September). But it was sad to see my friends move farther from us. Seems like normal people with families can't really afford to live in this most expensive of states any more, and that's a drag. I will really miss having these wonderful people, who are really more like family than friends, within a day's trip of us. But I know they'll be much happier up there. The kids will have a safe space to be kids that will be much better than anything offered in the urban bay area where they were living. So that's a good thing.

We're deep in the June gloom here on the coast. While the Gloom (days of low fog and no sunshine) makes me moody and is bound to slow garden growth a little, my body is so much happier in a moist cool climate than it is in a hot dry one that I really don't mind it. I know it's foggy here because it's upward of 100 degrees inland, and I do not do well with hot and dry. I am basically non-functional above 90 degrees, and here I can be out in the garden (or at the beach, which is warm and pleasant even in the steamy fog) all day.

Here are some good pictures of the garden's spectacular growth. First, one taken ten days ago (note that it was sunny), on 6/16, for comparison:



Next, a photo taken today from approximately the same angle (yowzah -- check out that sunflower!):



The tomatoes, and one monster tomatillo (the tall one with the yellow flowers, in the foreground):



A colorful assortment of happy little lettuces:



And last, the happy foundation for summer pesto:



We're making pesto tonight, actually, and a cherry pie with some fat organic cherries that Man O' Mine and I picked up at the new farmer's market in our neighborhood after a pleasant bike ride on Saturday. Mmmm, pesto. Mmmm, fresh cherry pie.

I love summer!