It’s another planting day Thursday at Keewaydin, and I am starting to feel the turnover of the season. The beds of salad mix, arugula, kale, clytonia, tatsoi, joi choi, spinach, radishes and turnips are coming to an end in the greenhouses, and it is time to plant crops that can sustain the summer heat in the hoop houses. Today I planted melons and basil in G4. Tomatoes and peppers will be next. It is exciting to remove some of the beds of greens that require so much weeding and plant transplants into the black plastic. Now half of the G4 beds are planted in black plastic, which significantly cuts down on weeding (although I still have mixed feelings about using so much plastic). There is a neatness and uniformity about planting into the black plastic that really appeases my Capricorn, but also…they just stay so clean that it is hard to deny the efficiency of its use. Rufus and I work late into the evening. I scramble to finish planting before it gets dark and Rufus is a madman on his mowing tractor, dashing across the lawn on the “cubarino” (cub tractor) to get just a few more passes in before it is pitch dark. We squeak in an almost unacceptably late dinner at 10:00pm and hit the hay, cuddling up with our handful of accomplishments for the day.

~Joy