I am trying an experiment this year–one variety of tomato; two methods of training. The variety is called Santorini, and it was passed along to me by the kind folks at Skyfire Garden Seeds out of Kanopolis, Kansas.

Earlier this month, I pulled the last of the spinach to make way for a summer crop. While other area growers were just getting their first harvest, my early-sown crop had been clipped twice, and was starting to bolt to seed.

We’ve had our massive snowmelt; we’ve made it through those early, chilly gray days of spring and the first glorious sunshine-and-blue-sky epiphanies. We’ve even had our hot spell in May that drove everyone out to the garden centers and the river shouting, “It’s here! Summer!” Now, we have our monsoon.

There are lots of causes for celebration on the farm (and lots of causes for whatever the opposite of that is), but yesterday was truly a day to be grateful for: My son coming down for the summer vacation and the first harvest of strawberries.

One of the best insect-protection methods I’ve used on my small farm—one that is reusable and does not require the spreading of chemicals or poisons—is floating row cover (FRC). It’s a spun polyester “blanket” that is draped over a crop and anchored at the edges by soil, timbers, rocks, or landscape staples.

With all the wet weather lately, I’ve been working on projects around the house. Today was perfect for it: raining steadily all day and perfect for firing up the oven and getting the house perfumed with baking bread and roasting chicken.

Today was a vexing day in the gardens for both H and myself. The last shipment of potatoes had come, and they really needed to get in the ground. Of course, so do the rest of the cabbages and a few hundred leeks. So, I loaded up all the above and thought at the very least I’d get the cabbages transplanted, the potatoes in, and the beds ready for a quick transplanting of leeks in the morning.

In his book, The Town that Food Saved, Hewitt doesn’t spend a lot of time going over the depressing statistics relating to food miles and the obesity epidemic–those facts are present, but they’re a side-line to the main focus–which is how a local food system gets built, what it might look like, and how long-time residents of a community might react to it being built on their home turf.

It’s hard, once the days warm and the farm season starts in earnest, to keep on cookin’–and I do mean literally. But thanks to a stocked pantry and a few tried-and-true recipes and meals strategies, I manage to feed us remarkably well, I think.

On the one hand, being one of the few vendors with an abundance of early produce benefits me—I don’t worry about going home with leftovers from the first month or so of market sales. On the other hand, it’s always the person who actually has the early produce and sells out quickly that gets blamed for not having enough.