The squash is winning the race for sure. Here’s an example of the flower on the straightneck variety, and then the pattypan, “Balmoral.”

The straightneck squash will be ready to harvest — the week I’m gone, of course!

The beans look great and are beginning to twine up their poles.

These strawberries are past tense: I at them right after taking the picture.

My favorite flower: nasturtiums growing in the cucumber bed (good companion plants). Here’s a recipe for Nasturtium and Cucumber Tea Sandwiches.

Other updates: cucumbers are beginning to produce tendrils. Tomatoes are still a little on the small side, but one will be ready to eat in about a week and a half if the sun will shine on it enough! The eggplant is beginning to flower, and two of the three watermelon plants are finally beginning to grow larger. The pepper plants are sporting very wrinkled leaves — I’ve always had this problem with them, but a man at the farmer’s market told me that they do that early in the season before it gets hot, and that it doesn’t make any difference. Hope so!  Finally, I ordered sunflowers from the Co-op, and I planted them on the far east side of the garden, by the beans.  Pics of those to follow, when they get impressive.

Signing off.
CCL

Anna and Melissa made fun of me for the large bean poles, but those are poles I cut down myself from the back yard and I was a little proud of my not spending money on anything. What can I say? I read a lot of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Caddie Woodlawn when I was little, and all of my grandparents lived through the Great Depression.

We planted on 4/18. Already we have a tiny ‘mater (’Lemon Boy”), a pre-bell pepper blossom, and even some strawberries!

Gosh, watermelon leaves are pretty!

Lovely green squash, known to all Abernathys as “skosh.” I’m growing yellow straight neck (”Early prolific”) and a pattypan called “Balmoral.”

I also have planted two “Fairy Tale Hybrid” eggplants, six “Boston Pickling” cucumbers, two ghosty-white cucumbers (can’t remember the variety), one “red Beauty” pepper, banana peppers, and some Italian beans from Slovenia (long story).

Logan gave me two cattle feed bins from his family’s cattle farm in Coweta. Here they are with yard clippings in them.

I used a jigsaw to cut holes in the bottom centers of the bins, the just a little larger in diameter than the scrap piece of PVC I got for free from the local ACE Hardware.

Mojo helped. Surely none of this would have been achieved without his aid.

Next I cut a window in one of the feed bins.

In usual ding-dong fashion, I got ahead of myself: I should have attached hinge and lock hardware to the bin window before cutting, but it wasn’t anything a little tape couldn’t help.

Next I drilled holes in the PVC pipe to ensure proper aeration for the ‘post. Here are the stacked cinder blocks (complements of LRR) to hold the tumbler. My last challenge was how to attach the feed bins together to make the barrel. Believe it or not, I had already gotten this far without deciding for sure how I was going to do that.

In the end, I chose to go with duct tape. What cannot be done with this prodigious invention?

This is, admittedly, a very small bin. I tumble as often as I take scraps out there, but the process is still rather slow. I also end up mixing the compost by hand quite a bit, just to make sure it’s getting proper aeration. I’ve been composting for about three months now and I’m pretty happy with this set-up. I spent only $8 on the hinges and lock from ACE.