Garden Sunday

Today May 19th, really seems like the first full-fledged day of summer. The temp is in the upper 80s; thunderstorms threatened half the day.  Yesterday the daughter of long-time friends got married in a delightful, non-traditional ceremony outside on a lake.  Utterly charming.  The neighbors' lovely daughter is graduating from high school today at the top of her class.  How nice.  Their dogs still bark too much.  And today the Phactors are busily getting the gardens into summer mode.  The herb garden was easiest, but no lemon grass is around.  How do you live without lemon grass?  We cannot imagine such deprivation, but Thai basil was in good supply.  Colorful birds were around all day: gold finches and scarlet tanagers; how nice.  Planting of the kitchen garden got off to a good start, but the peas are probably too late to be a really good crop.  Unfortunately the lily pond filters needed cleaning and it's a terrifically messy job washing the green-brown bio-slime out of everything.  Quite a number of early summer plants started to flower; Sinocalycanthus, tulip tree, golden chain tree, Niellia, beauty bush, and more.  Now to construct a nice summertime supper: spicy fried chicken livers on fresh greens with a soy sauce-sesame oil dressing.  And it's a good thing we got ourselves going because in another month the Phactors' garden is part of a garden tour.  Contact TPP if you want confidential information about the tour.