Julia’s last pre-partum post!

by Julia Frisbie

posted May 24, 2022

It’s been a wonderful week in the garden. This post is shorter than usual because I spent all my free time outside digging rather than inside typing. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

• Preparing beds by mounding up the soil, and adding mulch to the trenches between beds to create paths
• Transplanting ALLLLLLL the tomatoes and the summer squash, plus the first successions of corn and cucumbers
• Transplanting tender flowers like marigolds and sunflowers
• Direct sowing the first beans (after several hours of pre-soaking in warm water)
• Starting seeds for my second successions of corn, cucumbers, and herbs
• Hand watering while I continue to work on this year’s drip irrigation layout
• Pulling/digging/torching weeds
• Pulling tent caterpillars off the apple tree (before drowning them and feeding them to the ducks… this is a delicacy)
• Building a bean tipi (otherwise known by my star-wars-loving kiddo as “the Jedi Temple”) and other trellises
• Watching the red russian kale finish flowering and start setting its seed pods
• Watching the songbirds collect fallen duck down with which to line their nests
• Watching the fringe cups (Tellima grandiflora) come into their full glory at Ship Harbor
• Watching my “Desert King” fig tree finally put out its first leaves of the season

I’m not sure how many more posts I will be able to share with you this summer, because I am nine months pregnant, with all “optional” things soon to be swept off my plate. However, gardening is NOT optional. It’s life-giving. There will still be a garden. So if you want to know how it’s growing, you’ll just have to come visit.

Editor’s note:
Transition Fidalgo and, we’re sure, all of Julia’s readers, are grateful to her for so enthusiastically sharing her garden adventures with us. While she pulls away from posting for a while, we’d like to invite others to send articles about their gardens to us at info@transitionfidalgo.org. May we all continue to grow together!