GimletBlog

This year’s vegetable garden has yielded countless tomatoes, and there are still plenty ripening on the vines.

Two years ago I stitched a lovely little Hardanger doily from a pattern in the 1997 Diana Craft Journal, and took the pattern up a notch by stitching it on 32 count linen with long filament silks.  That doily was given away as a gift, and this summer I got around to stitching another one to keep.  I managed to finish it in time for Puyallup Fair, where it won a second place ribbon!  The rest of Team Gimlet (and Team CurlyBee) were forced to linger in front of the display cabinet in the Home Arts building until it had been sufficiently admired.

This is the first time I’ve submitted anything to the fair, but it won’t be the last.  Those ribbons are addictive!  Usually a commemorative refrigerator magnet or mug comes home with us from the fair, but this is a much better souvenir.

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Since we last looked at Thing Two’s garden, a few tomatoes and radishes are now ready to be picked.

Thing Two is also excited because he recently completed his set of series 4 Lego minifigures.  The mad scientist was the most difficult one for us to find, but we finally did it!

The Team Gimlet: At-Home Unit probably needs to get out more.

But until that day comes, we’ll take it easy for these last few days of summer and watch the honeybees buzzing lazily around the peppermint blossoms.

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The garden is looking very green these days, with occasional glimpses of red.

It looks like our mystery tomato plants are producing small “grape” tomatoes.

More radishes are doing well.  Thing Two is looking forward to picking them.

The mint has grown quite tall, and the peppermint has blossomed.  Walking between the boxes or watering the plants is an easy, quick dose of aromatherapy.

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We thought last summer was dismal for gardening, but this summer has been so dark and damp that the best growing crop in Thing Two’s planter box is mushrooms.  The mint and chives are also thriving; in fact the peppermint is nearly as tall as Thing Two.  A few of the tomato blossoms took, so we’re watching the tiny green tomatoes and hoping for more sun.  Thing Two has also been watching two radish tops, and this weekend we decided that the larger of the two wasn’t going to grow any bigger, so we might as well harvest it.

After posing for pictures we had to sample our garden’s bounty.  We managed to cut the radish into three pieces to share.  Thing Two decided it was “very spicy”.

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Yesterday’s long day of sunshine must have done the trick:  after today’s end-of-preschool picnic, Thing Two headed out to the south forty the back yard to check on his garden.  He ran back to the house, shouting, “I have tomatoes!”  When we last watered the garden we hadn’t noticed any blossoms, much less tomatoes, so we thought Thing Two was being overly optimistic.  However …

The plants are now covered with tomato blossoms!

Thing Two’s great-uncle, an avid gardener and Thing Two’s inspiration in all things horticultural, toured the little planter boxes two weeks ago and suggested that Thing Two’s five year-old attention span might be well satisfied with growing radishes.

As you can see, the radishes are looking great as well.

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This year has gone down in Seattle history as the year without a spring:  relentlessly cold, dark, and wet, even by local standards.  Our rosemary plant didn’t survive the winter, but the mint and chives not only survived, but are flourishing, giving us hope for Thing Two’s third summer garden.  (A note to our nearby friends:  if you’d like some mint for your garden, we have plenty and would be happy to share!) We’ve been carefully nurturing some tomato seedlings inside, guarding them from the cats who thought they were a salad.  Finally we had a little sun, and that was enough for us to get to work.

Thing Two planted only a few things today: he added some basil and carrots to the tomatoes.  We’d like to build another raised bed this year, and replace our rosemary shrub.

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Our Early Girls did not disappoint:  despite our garden’s late start, today Thing Two was able to harvest his very first tomato.  He decided that he would like to eat it for his before-bedtime snack.

The verdict?  Delicious!

He was a little disappointed that the second reddish-looking tomato on the plant wasn’t quite ready to pick yet, because he would have happily eaten another one.  The tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes, though, so it won’t be much longer before Thing Two will have many more.  The cucumbers and carrots are still pretty tiny, and we’re waiting anxiously for the pumpkins to start growing.

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We hope Thing Two’s garden will produce a harvest, in spite of the late start of summer.  Every day he enjoys watering and caring for his rapidly growing plants.

The spearmint and peppermint are doing great in their new home.

The basil and cucumbers make their debut.  So many different shades of green!

Meanwhile, Thing Two has also become interested in astronomy, and on the few cloudless summer nights we’ve had, he’s been allowed to stay up and look at the stars.  Thing One also liked planets and stars when he was about the same age, so the books, solar system mobile, and bed sheets we had bought about ten years ago are now being put to good use again by by a new little stargazer.

As with all of Thing Two’s interests, he is eager to talk to anybody and everybody about constellations and the planets.  Much of the information is accurate, and some is his own invention.  He especially likes to create his own constellations.

• All about Boötes, the herdsman or ploughman, and the first constellation Thing Two was able to see in the night sky.  He was so excited to finally see a real constellation that he danced all around the deck.

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