Wednesday--Thursday--Friday--

Harvested enough tomatoes to fill two-thirds of my large wire strainer and almost as much of Gold Marie and Blauhilde beans.  I gave two of the Amish Gold and about half of the cherry tomatoes to one of our neighbors.  We had unseasonably cool temperatures and clouds all day yesterday.  No rain, though, so I need to water containers this morning.  Planning to harvest spearmint today and, perhaps, lavender.

I have been reading about the algal bloom on the west coast for a while now.  Anyone notice how the environment is "missing in action" in our political discourse?  I have.

For something like the last forty years I have noticed this fact and it makes me laugh every time Mothers' Day rolls around and the news media trot out the saccharine stories about how valuable mother's work is.  The hard truth is the unpaid work we do is not valued in this society.  It doesn't add to the GDP and economists rarely (if ever) take it into any account of economic activity.  I have always gardened when I could but beyond the inputs I purchase (tools, soil, seeds, plants, etc.) my gardening produces nothing of economic value, i.e. it doesn't add to the GDP.  Actually, it deducts from GDP in that I am not purchasing the items I grow from a commercial outlet (the supermarket.)  We rarely buy peppers because I grow them.  We don't buy many herbs because I grow them.  We will buy fewer sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and beans because I grow them.  I can't supply all our needs from my small space but we buy fewer and, therefore, contribute less to GDP.  Perhaps, we need better metrics by which to evaluate our economy.

It has been a busy day in the gardens.  Harvested some more tomatoes including a bunch of green ones which are now fried and either eaten or in the freezer.  I left four ripe slicers (Amish Gold) on the counter while the rest of the slicers and all of the cherry tomatoes are now in the dehydrator.  Also drying are several ripe and several green shishito peppers, oregano, chocolate mint and lavender.  The herbs will dry much faster than the tomatoes and peppers but I can remove those and grind them tomorrow morning and then add sweet basil and sage and perhaps something else to dry along with the tomatoes and peppers.  We find our freezer space very constrained and have pretty much reached capacity there so the choice is either dry some of the produce or get a pressure canner which is a pricey option.