7-7-10

NUTTY WATCHES SARDO THROW

INCREDIBLE INGRID

DON'T OVER WATER

THE RAINBOW CONNECTION

LADY IN RED

BRONZE ARROW LETTUCE

PURE SUMMER

STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES

There are still some Little Lebowski Urban Achievers kicking around in Oylmpia and before everyone boarded an airplane to fly and return home, we stopped to play a round of disc golf at a nearby park. There were blackberry bushes alongside several of the holes, and we imagine playing the course again in a month or month and a half would surely be sweeter. It's been a cold and wet spring out on the west coast and crops are delayed, even the wild forgeable kind.

After our friendly game, we made it back to Corey's on Fox Run. Corey has a lovely little garden at his place that we helped tend in the late afternoon after the hottest portion of the day ended. Jordan, an old friend, helped set it up when he was here staying with Corey in the spring. They set up two compost piles, and gardens circling the house. Planted and growing in the backyard beds are onions, carrots, spinach, chard, kale, bronze arrow lettuce, and tomatoes. There are also sugar snap peas, cilantro, mint, and more tomatoes growing in the front yard. Today we helped Corey by turning the compost piles, transplanting chard, sowing basil and bush beans, tying tomato plants, building an addition to the pea trellis system utilizing bamboo, and of course, weeding.

After 6 months of farming, our experience enabled us to help Corey in a number of ways we never would have been able to at the beginning of our trip. Yet despite the lessons we've learned and the experience we've gained, we realize we still have plenty to learn. Corey asked questions about how certain strategies would play out in the fall, and whether certain insects would harm his plants. We were unable to answer all his questions thoroughly and with complete accuracy. But strides in the right direction continue, and we hope after a few more months, with an entire growing season under our belts, we'll be ready to try our hand somewhere on our own land. Trouble is, we don't have land.