Planting Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!
The unseasonably chilly weather finally broke on Thursday, and Friday I planted six six-packs of paste tomatoes in my garden, filling two of the four raised beds. They look great now, standing up, already beginning to grow. Then Saturday, woody and cooperated in planting main-crop tomatoes, ten six-packs, in his garden. All the maincrop tomatoes are now planted. I was too exhausted to cook, so Woody, who was exhausted himself, cooked supper. Sunday, after I did the house laundry, I planted two six-packs of cucumbers, all I had room for between the beets and the dill, in my farthest rained bed with arugula and garden cress already fiercely growing. Then I put cosmos into my pollinator garden.
My friend, friends since she was 18, died this week from the ovarian cancer she had been fighting for a decade. I saw her every summer here. I will miss her greatly. We stayed friends all the time she was a waned poster on the post office wall and in the Weather underground, the twenty years she spent in prison and since. I have to figure out if I can get ack here on Thursday in time to join a ZOOM poetry reading in her honor.
Everything in our little greenhouse, all the many many plants I started, is ready to go. We lost most of April as it was too cold to put tender seedlings out. Now everything is huge and must go out yesterday. I’m not expecting to write much if an all this week. The plants take precedence. The next thing to go out will be pumpkins of two kinds. We hoped to get to that Sunday, but it took so long for woody to clear the narrow space where the cherry tomatoes go to climb the fence [Sun Golds] that we ran out of time while I was planting in my garden and the pollinator garden.
We’re far behind and today I work with my assistant and have to continue prepping for the June workshop. I must read and annotate 3 more mss. from poets in the workshop this week. These mss. form the basis for our conferences.
I also have to go over all the lectures and handouts. I also should bring out more warm weather gear although today it finally seems less summery. it went form chilly to hot in the course of 24 hours. the heat and humidity hit us both hard, as it had been so cool. A day of 75 or 80 in summer would not knock me out, but coming without any preparation, it felt overwhelming. I’m not a heat lover, anyhow. My favorite seasons are spring and hall.
Two more mass gun slayings and Congress will not act. They love the money from the NRA and they’re terrified that gun owners will not re-elect them. Everything is falling apart. Every week, another mass staying or, like last week, more than one. Republicans, especially the far right white supremacists have a lot of blood on their hands, but they probably like that. After all, it’s only Latinos, Blacks and Jews who are being executed. They probably think that’s just fine. Less of us.