What a great day!

First, I went to the farmer’s market, as usual. Except that today they had an herb fair with some different vendors with lots of unusual herbs. I went looking for one main thing, comfrey. Now, comfrey has to be about the easiest thing to grow for sale, because it is like mint–it sends out runners and it is fairly invasive. All you have to do is dig up the little plantlets. But did ANYBODY have comfrey? I’ll let you guess.

I did buy feverfew (from Pat & Brian), cardinal flower, ox-eye daisy, clary sage, and cardoon, which the vendor assured me is spectacular.

Then, Sandy and I set up a Slow Food display table at the Deep Roots Taste Fair. We enjoyed it, but we left right before the bad weather set in.

We went to the Liberty Antique Festival just in time to catch a few vendors. I’d say that at least 75% were packing up because of the wind. People were holding their tent poles and looking at the sky for funnel clouds. Let me tell you, if there had been a tornado, there would have been a bunch of dead people on the field, with all those pitchforks, sickles, and axes flying. Sandy said that our best strategy would be to get into a trash barrel.

But still, I bought what I went there for: a big metal watering can, and an enameled metal colander. The bonus buys was a sifter and a bunch of fudge. Yes, I’ve been bad, bad, bad.

Yesterday, Sandy and I went by Charlie’s house and I showed Sandy his fishponds. We’re thinking about putting a little one in where the walnut tree was. As I’ve said before, it’s a shame to waste a good hole.

I came home and planted the zephyr squash plants just before the rain began. I put Reemay over them, and I hope that will help. But I don’t know how long to leave it over them, and it is so ugly. The squash themselves are lovely and I would love it if I could take the Reemay off soon.

Caterpillars are eating the broccoli, some of them anyway. I’m going to have to toughen up and pick the bugs off, I guess. Luckily I have a whole lot of broccoli. This is due to a strategy I heard from another organic gardener — plant more than what you’ll need. We’ll see if it works.

Tomorrow will be a big, full day so I’m going to bed early. It has been a stressful, exhausting week, and next week will be, well, horrible. Wish I could write about it. But I think that tomorrow will be wonderful.

Boy, am I having one weird week. On one hand, there is a thorn in my side that is about to be removed, and it is such a relief. On the other, that thorn is likely to tear some jagged edges on its way out, and I am absolutely dreading it.

This particular thorn would have been allowed to stay right where it was, even though it knew that it had caused pain and we were aware of its actions. It was warned to stop where it was, and we expected it to do so. But it just dug deeper where it thought no one was looking. What a stupid, greedy thorn.

Now it is out of our hands. Someone else found out about the thorn and says that it has got to go. We hope that it will slip out cleanly and quickly.

I made up my mind. I’m going to take a week’s vacation right after graduation, and go to John C. Campbell Folk School for a 5 day oil painting class. I’ve sent them my credit card, and it’s a done deal.

Now I have to go buy paints and brushes and all…

I’ve had the notion to start painting again for a couple of years, since I worked at Greensboro College. When I was 13-14 years old, I took an oil painting class from a local teacher, and I wasn’t bad. But I got tired of it because the teacher started getting upset when I wanted to experiment, and because I was getting more interested in boys than art.

Then when I was towards the end of my undergrad degree at UNCG, I became a weaver. I started a second bachelors in design, then stopped because the fibers professor was abusing students and I was tired of watching it. I always figured she’d burn out or get caught or leave sooner or later and I’d go back then. But then they got rid of the whole damn fibers program. I’ll always wonder if they knew how many students that whacked out professor ran off. Would it have made a difference?

I’ve dabbled in other crafts over the years. When I worked at Greensboro College, I thought I’d finish up that art degree and took ceramics classes. I found out that I love the idea of making ceramics more than the reality of making ceramics. If I had stayed at Greensboro College, I would have started taking painting classes from Ray Martin, who I thought was extremely talented and compassionate.

My MALS class, The Meaning of Gardens, is over.

Over.

[insert violins]

I was really impressed by the variety of projects that people in the class did for their gardens. Mine and a couple of others were basically carrying on a plan that we already had. But some of these folks were new to gardening or hadn’t done it in a long time and it was good to see their enthusiasm for it.

If anyone is interested, you can see my project by going to my MALS portfolio web site. Click on the bugs and the butterflies to move forward.

Yep, a cold front is coming in this weekend and lows are expected to be 38 Saturday and Sunday nights.

But now the tomatoes are nicely hardened off, having survived one 38 degree night naked and then a 35-degree night under plastic. And the eggplants are nestled down under a Reemay blanket. I’m going to mulch them heavily with straw this afternoon.

I have been patient enough not to plant squash, basil, okra, and beans, so I think that I should get good sense points for that.

I really enjoyed the slow food potluck we had at the Montessori School today. It was a good sized crowd - about 30-35 people - not so many to be overwhelming but enough to get a nice diversity of ages and interests. The food was great, but it was curious…there was not one single dessert! I’ll bet that next time there will be too many desserts!

When I came home, I decided that the cold spell was over and I could no longer wait to plant the eggplants in the pots. I also decided to plant some more seeds inside. Cal Wonder gold peppers and ground cherries did not do well in the peat pots. Note to self - never buy peat pots again. So I replanted them, along with Kung Pao and Tam Jalapeno pepper seeds that I dried last season. Also, I planted gourd and squash seeds.

I baked sunflower seed bread again today, and thought I’d share the recipe, which is adapted from a recipe in Betty Crocker’s Bread Machine Cookbook.

1 c water
2 T olive oil
2 T honey
2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/4 c white bread flour
1 T gluten
1/2 c toasted, salted sunflower seeds
1 t salt
2 t bread machine yeast

Load the ingredients in the bread machine in that order and set it for dough. Let the machine knead and take it through the first rising.

Put the dough in an oiled covered bowl. Punch it down and let it rise another hour, or until doubled. Shape it into loaves or rolls and place into greased pans. Let it rise another hour. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake rolls for 20 minutes or loaves for 25 minutes.

This is what I’m taking to the Slow Food potluck tomorrow, along with some walnut pesto I bought from Masoud at the farmers’ market.

The tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and potatoes survived their first night of 30’s temperatures, even though the wind blew the plastic off the frame over the tomatoes. The NOA web site reports that our low was 38 degrees. I’m bracing up for tonight’s expected light frost by reinforcing the frame with packing tape.

I went to the farmers’ market this morning and was tempted by several plants: Brandywine and Juliet tomatoes, which I grew last year, sold by Handance Farm (Pat and Brian Bush).

The Juliet tomatoes are just fabulous. The plant produced hundreds of tomatoes. I picked my last Juliet tomato on December 1 last year. I used them for cooking and in salads and they were equally good for both - like a cross between a Roma and a grape tomato.

And what can I say about Brandywines. They spoiled me for all other tomatoes. They don’t produce a lot, but what they produce is large and sweet, just the best tasting tomato ever, and you can’t buy them in stores. The first year I planted a Brandywine, I had tasted two of them and was eagerly waiting for the other three on the bush to ripen. My friend JQ and her children were visiting and we were talking while the kids ran around and played. The next thing I knew, her children were proudly presenting me with the green Brandywines they had picked for me. I do love JQ’s children, and in hindsight it is funny, but it was one of those days when I knew that not having children was probably a good decision for me.

Dark Hollow Farm had Zephyr squash seedlings for sale. I have done Google searches for Zephyr squash seeds with no success, so I was very happy to see this. I bought them and a long light green Italian summer squash at the market on a regular basis last summer. They are both very tasty and don’t have a lot of seeds. I hope someone will offer those Italian squashes as well. I wish I could remember the name. They have a light green flesh and are beautiful in a squash casserole along with the yellow squashes. The Zephyrs look like yellow crooknecks from the stem to about halfway around the bulb, then turn a stripy dark green.

I put my hand under the plastic of the tomato greenhouse this afternoon and it felt very warm. I think this might work very well.

I decided to put bricks all around my plastic bottle greenhouses over the two peppers and eggplants to help retain heat.

Thankfully, I did not repot all my eggplants for the front porch, so I only had one to bring in! I would not have had room for all those big pots. But the seedlings seem to be happy staying in their little 4-inch pots for the time being.