No More Asparagus

The asparagus bed
The caged strawberries
The swallowtail caterpillar on the dill

We have stopped cutting asparagus. It's time to get the bed weeded, the soil amended and let the plants send up their ferns. It's the first short season vegetable to finish. Now there's spinach to freeze and strawberries to pick. Mint, dill and catnip to dry. The lettuce is ready for use. The peas are blossoming. The potatoes are coming up. The scapes have to come off the garlic. There are plenty of weeds to pull and spent flowers to deadhead. New flowers are opening every day. It's a time of wondrous excitement for a gardener with so much to do.

But this morning we have rain! No watering cans are necessary today. The whole garden is getting a good soaking. Everything will wait. The spinach and lettuce will be crisper, the strawberries will be juicier and the swallowtail caterpillars will have all day to munch on the dill. The weeds will be a little bigger, but they won't go anywhere. A rainy day for a gardener is a lot like a snow day for teachers and kids, a glorious unexpected day off.

As we sat on the bench last evening, a male hummingbird buzzed right past my left ear on his way to the catch fly. A dragonfly flew over. The wind wafted the fragrance of the evening scented stock our way. Later, after we settled into bed we watched the fireflies put on their quiet country fireworks display out the bedroom window.

The rain, although a beautiful soaking one, stopped and the sun came out. We in effect got a two hour delay. So I got outside to take some pictures, froze half of the spinach and the ripe strawberries. Like the old days of newspapers this is the late edition of this post.