On Saturday morning we were doing our weekend morning yoga workout with Rodney Yee when the dogs announced a car pulling into the driveway. Out of the car bounded Jim Phelan with his ever-happy face and a magazine called Fine Gardening, which he had bought us, a magazine written for exactly people such as us.  The cover article was "100 Skills to Make you a Better Gardener". 

Jim Phelan and Lillian Burkart have a plot that is located between the water pump and our plot, so whenever we see them we take adavantage of their presence to interrogate them about their latest contraptions.  Lillian, for instance, has plastic tubes, made from water bottles, which she puts around the stems of her tomato plants.  The tops of the tubes are lined with copper tape from the hardware store.  Garden slugs touch the copper, and a small electrical current from their slimy bodies touching the copper gives them a tiny electrical shock.

Lately they've buried dixie cups filled with beer, and beer-loving slugs have managed to drink themselves to death.

There is no love between gardeners and slugs, apparently.  Even Joe D'Eramo who seems an easygoing and peacable fellow told us on the sly that he took great pleasure as a child salting slugs and watching them dissolve.

Later on Saturday the community garden group had a fabulous garden party.  The table was filled with fresh vegetables, homemade tabouli, mint iced tea, strawberries

Radishes!  Fresh from Someone's Plot! (Paul Niemera looks on)

fresh from the garden, and other wonderful delights.  It may very well be the first time in my life that I haven't come home from a party with my stomach laden with sugar, grease, and transfatty acids.

We were happily surprised to find that the gnomes visited this past week.  From a state of questionable health, our plants have doubled in size.  We have tomatoes growing on our tomato plants.  Even the free seedlings that Bill and Sydney Blackwell put by the gate last weekend (which we planted in the empty spots left by demised cucumbers and cabbages) have taken off like gangbusters.

Ann Whitney and Paul and Susan Niemera came over to the plot and gave us a walkthrough analysis of the plants:

• The broccoli, which is about 2 inches high, needed to be thinned down.  When we planted the seeds a month ago, I threw the entire packet in an approximately 2 1/2-foot strip of the first row much to John's horror.  Who reads directions?
  
• The tomato leaves that touched the ground needed to be pinched, because if the leaves touch the ground they can catch diseases that spread to the rest of the plant.  Spraying the plant with a solution of one drop of an extremely mild detergent (like Ivory) and water will help kill the bugs.  Paul says this trick will work on the entire plot.
• The spinach needed to be thinned.  We pulled every other plant, and had fun eating our very first salad from our garden on Sunday.
• We pulled the bigger leaves of our swiss chard and added that to our Sunday salad as well.

On our next trip to the garden we will add more ties to the tomato plants, prepare a beer party for the slugs, and give our bugs an Ivory detergent bathing.