sum sum summertime

It would appear as though summer has arrived in Philadelphia. Without a lot of warning if you ask me...

On the personal front, the last few weeks have been kind of insane. Besides being neck-deep in finals at the moment, I dislocate my left index finger in a bike crash a few weeks ago. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but it has delayed some of my gardening projects because I'm currently not able to lug a flat of potting soil up to the deck. In any event, I am healing and the papers are (gimp-ily) getting written, so I thought I would take a break from my magnificent tome about 1950s religion to bring you up to date in el jardín.

The second round of eggplant and tomato seedlings are doing much better in their temporary pots. You may recall some poor judgment on my part last month when I tried to plant round one too early. The temporary pots go outside for (usually) the afternoon and come in at night. However, I imagine that the 80-degree weather we have been having will start to keep the nights warm enough for me to plant them soon.

A few days ago, I planted zucchini seeds. I am expecting great things from these little dudes, considering my abundant success with cucumbers last summer (cucumbers, zucchini, same thing. Psh). Hank and I eat a ton of zucchini, so I cannot wait to cook up some of my own pride and joy!

One issue I am beginning to realize may be a problem this summer: wind. Although the deck is protected on two sides by 10' walls, it nevertheless gets very windy. I want to look into making a trellis wind-screen with some sort of aggressive vine. Any recommendations? Flowering is nice, but not necessary, and it has to be container-friendly. Had I realized this earlier, I would have purchased pole beans, which would have fit the bill perfectly, but alas, I bought bush beans or their smaller stature. Anyway, this project is in its infancy, so any suggestions would be muchly appreciated!

That's all on the garden front. I'll be mostly done with school next week, and hopefully by then I will have more exciting things happening on the deck.

Until then, join me in my excitement over the return of good produce to my grocery store! And my CSA starts next week!

Om. Om nom nom.

Update: Upon inspection a few minutes ago, the zucchini have started to sprout! That was superfast. I guess they like torrential rain and hot weather...