Gardening At Night

I was humming the R.E.M. song "Gardening at Night" while working in my garden this evening. One of the lovely things about Seattle in late spring is that it stays light until 9:30-10 PM. It's about 9 right now, and the sun is just finishing its descent behind the Olympics.

I put in the last of the tomatoes and the pepper I grew from seed. Right now, I have six tomato plants and two pepper plants growing. I started four tomatoes and one pepper from seed. Not too shabby!

It's been really wet up here in Seattle lately. Today was nice, but our rainfall patterns have better resembled November than June. This makes for a muddy garden. The soil in the starts I planted tonight had turned to mud. I won't need to water anything for a good long time, but I am worried about my zucchini. I think it may have powdery mildew already -- a disease that zucchini usually doesn't get until late summer. I need to call The Garden Hotline to figure it out.

All of the rain has turned my peas into Peazilla. After last weekend's adventure on the Olympics, I returned to find that my peas had essentially collapsed their trellis and were threatening the pepper I'd just planted. The vines are at least six feet long, and they're all wrapped around each other. They're massive! I tried to take a picture, but the low light ensured it was out of focus. I'm enjoying putting freshly picked peas on my salads. They're so tasty. Anyway, once it gets warm, Peazilla is going to become a pain in the butt to take out. Peas don't grow well in warm temperatures.

Lots of new adventures to report. I started a new blog for my sportswriting, Sportsology. You can find it at http://sportsology.wordpress.com. And I got into UW Bothell! So my summer and next couple years are set. Yes! I'll be taking classes during UW summer quarter and gardening all summer long. It should be great.

Enjoy your spring salads, fresh peas, and fava beans before it's too late!