August 18th- My First Egg!!

In the past week I have experienced some more firsts. I had my first school day of my forth year. I had my first meeting where I imagined I was the Hulk and smashed the tables in half, storming out in a cloud of dust (this happens about four times each school year). Shortly following that first, I found, cooked and ate my first egg. It was a brown egg. It was a delicious egg with the whitest white I have ever seen and the deepest orange yolk that screamed "I am rich in omega 3 fatty acids and beta carotene." I interpreted that as fry me in butter over easy and enjoy. Life is good.

This past Friday, the 14th, I went straight to my garden to decompress from the second day of school. After cleaning up some of the unused portions of the former potato patch, I continued planting my fall garden. Based on the relation to other crops in the patch, I planted the following based on their heights: Winterbor kale, spinach, Savoy Tatsoi (mustard greens), and Royal Red lettuce. The kale and lettuce have already started to pop up. In the same patch, radishes are about to be pulled in another couple of day.

The back yard in also in the process of transformation. Apples trees turned out to be a bad idea in the back. Through the combination of aphids, fire blight and less than 8 hours of sun, on had died and the other was sick. In comparison, I have a 1b apple stock tree in the front parking strip on which I grafted Pixie Crunch bud that is kicking butt even with some aphids. There is nothing quite like smearing aphids on you fingers from the tips of your plants and watching the ants that herd them for their butt nectar flip out. So, getting back to the back yard. After pulling up the apple trees, I created a 10x10 box out of 2x6 untreated boards with pointed 2x4's at the corners. I laid down black plastic in the area of the box to kill the vegetation and set the box on the ground. My plan is to let the plastic sit on it for at least a month or maybe through the winter and then double dig the earth beneath, adding compost and topsoil to bring the level up 4 or 5 inches. This area gets full sun in the spring because the trees are bare, it will be perfect for some greens and early crops that will appreciate the shade from the hot sun when the leaves grown in. I am not sure what will grow during the height of the summer but will do some experimenting. I am planning to put another raised bed box closer to the house where the tobacco is now growing.

I will also add a note to my tomato and pepper plants who are producing at maximum capacity. I have been able to give away some massive green tomatoes and a bag of tomatoes and peppers to the neighbor across the street. My jalapenos also aided me in winning second in my BBQ competition. After drying them in my oven, I crushed them and mixed them into my pork rub. It gave me the bite that set me above the rest.