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JUN

25

2017

the last time i was in the garden was on thursday; it rained a little bit on friday and rained some more saturday morning. there was nobody in the garden today so i took my time surveying my plants.

i noticed they installed new raised beds at the back of the community garden. unfortunately, just as many have feared, the back part of the community garden doesn't get much sunlight, so whatever grows will there have to learn to survive in the shade.

my handful of annual gazanias are growing but so far no flower buds yet. one of the plants has some slug damage, but the others seem fine so far. the leaves are thick with hairs, almost like succulent leaves, so i'm kind of surprised anything would eat them. maybe the damage was caused by rabbits, but now that they're so many better things to eat in the garden, hopefully they'll leave my gazanias alone.

the mysterious plant in my plot that i suspected was a musk mallow is in fact a musk mallow, the pink flowers prove it. they're supposed to have a musky scent but the flowers barely have any fragrance to them. most of my larkspurs have flowered. this being their first year in their new location they're not especially exciting. once they seed and i have more of a carpet of larkspurs next season they'll look better. my larkspurs are also blossoming in other plots. they're sort of delicate and have a tendency to fall over. that's why they need to be grown en mass so they can support each other.

my 4 eggplants are growing like crazy, i've never seen them so big, with leaves bigger than my hand. something with the soil? something with the fertilizer? something with the plant? to think, early on, i didn't think they'd survive give how snails chewed up most of the leaves. but the new leaves seem to be free of snail damage and now every day they get bigger and bigger. i've seen these similar japanese variety eggplants growing in another plot, but they're nowhere as big as mine.

i removed the plastic collar on my plants last week. i originally put the collars to prevent slug/snail damage, even though it was quite easy for them to climb over the collars. but i noticed that plants in collars didn't grow as well; maybe the enhanced sheltering stymied them from getting any larger.

my thai basils are okay, i pinched off the flowers to keep them from bolting. i grow them every year but i never really use them for anything. elsewhere, cucumbers are flowering, not sure how well they'll do because i haven't really set up any trellis for them besides the nearby tomato cages. the zucchini seeds have germinated, currently protected by a plastic dome to prevent slugs/snails/rabbits from eating them. those allium shoots growing in the corner? not onions but garlic, i noticed the few scapes growing from each stalk. one of my tomato plants already has some small green tomatoes (i think it's an heirloom tomato). malva zebrina has started to produce flower buds. the plants themselves aren't very tall, unlike the hollyhock at my parents' place. i'm hoping they'll grow taller even after it begins to flower. it's my first year successfully growing zebrinas so all of this is new to me.

around 1pm GC was about to make something to eat. he was going to make beef noodles for lunch and asked if i wanted some. i suggested an alternative, that we ride bikes down to central square to check out the very first central flea. i told him there'd be food, but if nothing was good, we'd still be back in about half an hour. he was game so i pulled the bikes out from the basement and we left.

i'd imagined that they'd shut down a stretch of mass ave to hold the outdoor flea market, but actually it was just held in a municipal parking lot off of prospect street. we found it from the sound of live music and a steady stream of people all going in that direction. it was mildly interesting at best. we took a quick tour of all the stalls and saw the selection of food trucks. in china handicrafts are the cheapest things you can buy; here in america, they're one of the most expensive. we left soon afterwards, taking a circuitous route back home. i left for belmont soon afterwards, leaving GC to make lunch. he was going to a coworker friend's house for dinner at 4pm, so at the very least i didn't have to worry about strange smells when i got back later.

unlike in my community garden plot, my parents have two squash mounds in their backyard that have very large zucchini plants growing without any problems. in fact, zucchinis seem to be best the performing vegetables in the backyard this season. their tomatoes and eggplants are nowhere as big as mine. their hot peppers are doing well, but mostly because they escaped damage from pests. the golden raspberries are the best i've ever seen in any season, i expect a large haul of berries this year (twice actually, as they also produce in the fall). i finally planted all the leftover seedlings that've been sitting in a large milk crate outside. a few tomatoes, a few more eggplants, some habaneros. however i didn't plant any of the balloon flower seedlings, they're still in pots.

my 128GB thumb drive got corrupted tonight. it had a bunch of movies and shows, none of which were backed up. i can remember some of the files but most of them i forgot, which says something as to whether they were really that important. i shouldn't feel too bad, i can always download them again (if i remember what they were that is). the weird thing was it said i had 136GB worth of storage space, and continued to say that even after i formatted the drive. makes me suspicious that it might corrupt again, i'll try not to save anything important on it. i had a bunch of 1970's cult movies which i still remembered and managed to download (don't torture a duckling the 1972 italian giallo directed by lucio fulci and blood from the mummy's tomb the 1971 hammer horror starring valerie leon). there were also whole seasons of certain shows, like outlander, american gods, Deutschland 83, young pope, and emerald city. those probably took up the most space, i'm least bothered by their disappearance.