Waiting for (more) Rain

It hadn't rained yet when I got home from working at the library a little after two, though it was cloudy and the radar showed it's coming. So I decided today is was a perfect day to weed the vegetable garden. It hadn't been done in I don't know how long. Only the tomatoes, which have grown tall, are taller than most of the weeds. I really haven't been good to my garden & I feel bad about it.

I was out there about an hour and a half, yanking weeds, while being careful not to pull up the plants we had planted! Some things haven't made it, but I don't think it was the weeds that killed them. I think they just didn't thrive. But I found most of the pepper plants, some even with small peppers on them! I found one red tomato and at least one more that is thinking about being red soon. The lettuce is doing well, but some of it is really starting to bolt. I t almost always happens -- by the time the tomatoes start to get ripe, the lettuce is about done. Not ideal. I wonder what would happen if I planted another row of lettuce? I might try. It can't hurt. Either it will grow, or it won't. We don't seem to be having luck with squash these days. One plant seems to be going okay -- it's yellow squash. The others either are looking sick or aren't there. We ate our early broccoli & now some side shoots are producing little broccoli-ettes.

After an hour and a half I was tired, sweatty, and had collected two wheel barrow loads of weeds to be dumped behind our old tree house at the back of our property ("the woods"). It hadn't rained yet, but it was getting very still, so I think it's coming soon.

I feel quite satisfied with my afternoon's work. I didn't want to do it & had been putting it off. But I'm sure glad I persuaded myself to go and get it done. Maybe I can persuade myself to do just a little bit of weeding more often -- it would be so much easier.

Just as the first few gentle drops of rain started I remembered to get a bowl & pick that one red tomato. Then I went back to the bushes where I'd dumped the weeds and picked some raspberries, a few black raspberries (or blackberries) and on my way in I gathered the last couple of strawberries growing just off the deck. It's not enough to do much with, except eat, that is. Maybe a small portion of mixed berries over a similar small portion of ice cream?