a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

  • Dog Days of July



    It’s the dog days of July, but when you think about it, every day is a dog’s day.


    I’ve had to separate Ema and her ducklings from the other ducks. She needs time alone to raise her ducklings without being harassed by the drakes or fighting with Snow whose eggs should be hatching soon.


    Ema has picked the soft straw next to the duck’s swimming tank as her nest for her ducklings. When they aren’t foraging through the potatoes and garlic rows, Ema and her ducklings are either swimming in the water tank or preening and resting on the straw by the tank.


    All it takes is spending an afternoon watching a mother duck with her ducklings, or a hen carrying for her chicks, to understand that ducklings and chicks are much happier being raised by a mother.


    The Upstate Abundant potatoes are looking very good this year. A few more weeks and I will have some for the Mount Vernon Farmers Market, or will I end up eating them all?

  • New Ducklings, New Potatoes


    When I went to put the ducks to bed last night I heard peeping. Emma’s eggs had hatched. Today was their first full day outside, and she took them all over the garden. The row of komatsuna and rows of baby radishes are now gone, no doubt devoured by the little ducklings. Now I know that I need to protect baby greens from ducklings.



    Emma is very protective of her ducklings. Get too close and she’ll charge. She even nipped my leg at one point.


    Today was all new potato day, the first picking of the season, a handful of potatoes dug up from underneath a few potato plants. There is nothing to compare to the taste of potatoes fresh out of the ground, their skins so thin and delicate, you have to carry them as carefully as eggs to keep the skins from rubbing off. Potatoes like these are too good to sell.

  • One More Day?


    Happy and his consorts are always happy to devour any leftover tofu or okara when I am in the cabin making tofu.


    One more day? The cherry trees are full of cherries this year. The birds are leaving them alone this year. Often they don’t get to ripen this far before they are picked clean. Will they taste better tomorrow? With this many cherries, and just two of us to eat them, we can try some today, leave some for tomorrow, and have more the day after.



    Let radishes go to bloom and this is what you get, delightful, butterfly-like flowers dancing in the breeze. There are so many vegetables that send out charming flowers if you don’t eat them. Carrots, onions, kale, lettuce, all are worth growing just for their blooms.

  • Weeds Are Useful


    There are plenty of places in the gardens where the weeds and brush grow profusely. I don’t mind them because they are a haven for many good insects and spiders to live. They come out and quickly dispatch any invading bugs with joy. And the weeds and grasses are a steady source of nourishing mulch for the vegetables, and make great hilling matter for hilling the potatoes.



    I’m getting around to weeding the arugula patches. In a way, self-seeking arugula is a kind of weed. Once it is established, you can’t get rid of it, but then why would you want to?


    A book I am enjoying reading this summer is a collection of 120 thoughts by the actress, Kiki Kirin 樹木希林, who passed away in September 2018 at the age of 75 after living with cancer for five years. She played in numerous movies and television shows. One of my favorite of hers is Sweet Bean – あん, made in 2015, where she plays an elderly woman who shows up at a small shop and teaches the shop owner how to make the most delicious sweet bean filled pastries.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJnLW_tTgAE&w=560&h=315]

    After her death, a number of books have been published about her thoughts on life. In the book I’m reading she writes, “It doesn’t matter if there is one person, two people, or ten people around, if you’re a lonely person, you’ll be lonely.” She also says that now that she is old, she is often requested to come and talk about being old and death. When interviewers ask her what she thinks about death, she says, ”I‘ve never died so I don’t have a clue about death.”

    Even though she was often asked to make speeches, she was surprised that there are those who claim to have been saved by listening to her speeches. “That’s dependency disease you know. You need to think for yourself,” she writes.


  • When Potatoes Bloom


    It’s a special time when pototoes bloom. I look forward to their gentle flowers every year. With flowers this lovely, it would be easy to deceive those who have no ideas potatoes develop in the ground, that potatoes are the fruits of these delicate blossoms.


    The cherries are maybe a few weeks away from ripening. Mine never make it to market. We and the birds end up eating them all.


    The five young Barred Rocks are not far from laying their first eggs. All siblings, these five hang out together all the time.


    It’s also the special time of the year when garlic scapes can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What do they taste like? They are a lot like string beans with a hint of garlic.