KEEP CALM...

So there won't be many tomatoes coming out of my garden this year, so what.

I will carry on, I will continue to farm.  I planted kale, chard, arugula, peas, beets, mustard greens, and carrots last week and they popped up in just a few days.  Well everything except the carrots.

These fool proof plants will carry us into the fall with loads of leafy greens and the great tomato failure of 2012 will fade into insignificance.

I think of the fear of crop failure for people who really depend on their ability to grow their own food.  We have the luxury of growing food as an amusement, not a means of survival.  But for most of history and for many people in poor countries growing food is a life and death matter.

And in the additional irony department, here is a little dry farmed patch of volunteers that popped up where the compost bin used to be.

There are lots of tomatoes, sunflowers, squash, and buckwheat.  It has only received moisture that has fallen from the sky, no watering on my part. 

I'm not watering, but I'm not plowing them under either.  I think I'll just let them go and see how they do.  Maybe I'll thin them a little to enhance the chances of a few.

This reminds me how hardy and determined plants are.