Spring Runnings-Around

It's that time of year when suddenly everything is bursting into busy-ness and also the contents of my garden are growing like crazy! It makes for a busy life trying to keep up with work, school, impending graduation and exams, and also launching my garden into the summer! I've been feeling a bit scattered, wishing I was able to blog in a bit more comprehensible and frequent fashion, but you'll just have to deal with my tangential meanderings for a little while longer. Thanks for sticking with me :)

Here are some things that have been happening lately:

I had to get rid of my worm bin, and release the poor worms into nature. They were having a hard time for quite awhile, and I tried and tried to change the environment in their bin, without success. Last week it was getting to the point where six or eight of them would escape every day, and I felt bad for them and also got tired of cleaning dried-up worms off my kitchen floor--ewwww. So I am now making peace with having to put all of my food scraps in the trash, with no other means to compost where I currently live. I just have to remember that I am being conscientious about it, and I won't always live here. 

I finally took down the lights under my kitchen table, so foot room has been restored. On Sunday I took my tall teenage tomatoes to the garden and got them in the ground- the first ones in the entire community garden! I always jump the gun on tomatoes, but I'm doing better than last year, when I was planting them out in mid-March. As it is, we're past the last frost date and this whole week is forecast to be sunny and 75 degrees, so I think they'll acclimate just fine. 

I finally did some of my community service time (all garden members have to do a certain number of hours of work on communal spaces like paths) and weeded and re-mulched the path on the north side of my plot, which was a veritable quack grass patch. It all looks so much nicer now. 

 The remaining starts from under the lights have moved into my east-facing window. These are all basil- two kinds, standard sweet basil and Siam Queen Thai basil.

My peppers did not germinate well- I planted six but only two actually came up, and the jalapeno (on the left) is pretty stunted. The other is an Aci Sivri, the gorgeous red chilis that I loved so much last year. I'll just have to buy starts for the rest. I'm guessing the seed has gotten too old at this point, and I'll have to get new seeds next year. 

I now have four pots of flowers and herbs outside my front door. I planted chives, sage, parsley, dill and mint, plus some pansies from the garden center and zinnias and nasturtiums from seed. I can't just pop out to the garden for fresh herbs, so this is my solution. There's just no substitute for fresh herbs when cooking, and if these can manage to grow on the north side of a building then I'll be content. 

Elsewhere, I've been trying out my new camera, which seems so small compared to the lovely big Pentax I've been using for the last three years but which is not actually mine. Simplify, simplify. One of my goals for the summer is to take a real photography class, but in the meantime, it's fun to experiment with my new toy:

 Massive artichokes a couple plots over from mine.

 Spring garden so full of potential.

 I love living so close to the river now. Another version of the greens and blues of spring.

Spring sky! 

I am now less than 5 weeks from completing my Masters. It is all closing in on me at an alarming rate, but it is also very exciting. I think this means I have to be a grown-up now or something. Somewhere in the busyness of everything else, I need to find time to start looking for the first job of my public health career. My two years of graduate school have absolutely flown by, and I can hardly believe it's almost over. This year is full of new beginnings for me, and this transition will just be another one, and it will be good.