The Fink Farm Dirt

Well, maybe not acreage . . . but a very nice flower bed, indeed. Along the wall of the house, we planted hollyhocks and sunflowers.  If they grow as hoped, it will shade that wall this summer, keeping the den cooler.  But the wild cards in this vision are the fact that the sunflower seeds were old and the hollyhock seeds harvested from dead heads found along the streets on a dog walk last summer. The next row has zinnias and gallardias,which have never grown before at Fink Farms.  The zinnias are quick sprouters though.  We also planted a pot of coreopsis and a six pack of  gazanias.  We added in one small dill plant which seems to love its new location. Kate had a chance to use her favorite piece of gardening equipment, the Mantis tiller. An amazing chewer of soil, it is. She started down another piece of land on the north side of Karen's house, but there are mighty tree roots in that bed that will need more attention than we had Sunday. Meanwhile...

This may be a form of profiling, but I always had the image of composting vegetable gardners as being of the anti-consumerism, recycle and simplify-simplify-simplify persuasion. But in the space of six weeks, our gardening equipment has expanded in size, type and sophistication. We were given a baby tiller; a big, stacking compost bin; and a chipper. We found a deal on a folding, tough nylon wheel barrow. We bought the industrial pooper scouper to clean up after our dogs and the neighborhood cats who think of our garden as a the Kohler of the earth. Kate macerated 75% of the garden plot, pausing long enough to transplant a volunteer tomato plant. She has the BunnyLuv waste straw carefully piled as mulch. She's been fondling saw blades and looking up at the termite infested branches of a tree leaning over Karen's garage. The longer she looks the more termite and rot infested the tree becomes and the more necessary it is going to be for her to climb up on the roof of the...