It was all going so well...

Lab work has been going really well on the samples that I collected last cruise, starting with getting lots of DNA because we filtered lots of water. I've made fosmid libraries for 8 of the 12 samples that we wanted from that cruise and started the last 4 last night. The I go to school this morning to start the 12+ hours of processing the sample today, only to find that the building has been shut down due to a blown electrical transformer. So, right now all of my precious DNA is sitting in the size selection gel degrading as the lab gets hotter and hotter. No electricity means that our beautiful building with it's huge glass windows and skylights is now a giant greenhouse. AAACCCCCKKKKKK

Garden update round 146

It occurred to me that I've only posted overview pictures of the garden for quite a while so here are a bunch of more detail pictures.

The herb square. We've seriously tried to keep up with the herbage including cutting a lot of tarragon last week to make vinegar (the oil experiment was tossed after a week because it was cloudy and I'm afraid of being the microbiologist who gives people botulism), cutting savory yesterday to dry, and putting parsley in pretty much everything we've been eating. The rosemary and chives are finally coming up in the center but you can't really see them in this picture

The main bed

We pulled the peas this past week and most of the kohlrabi so there isn't much going on in that bed other than baby edamame. We've replanted peas for round 2 in September and are still trying to decide what do do with the kohlrabi squares.

Dr. Wyches Yellow tomatoes

Purple Calabash, yippie. We lost all of the Purple calabash last year to curly top virus, so are excited to have healthy "ugly" tomatoes this year.

Speaking of ugly tomatoes, this was one of the first brandywine tomatoes to set. It's a mutant conjoined tomato but I expect it to taste just as good as the prettier brandywine...and it's huge already.

And finally, the midgets are starting to ripen.

Blackberries

Our breakfast in pictures. Walk to back yard:

Place in blender:

Yummmmmmmm:

I really like this city. The fact that blackberries are feral all over the place, including our backyard, is just icing on the cake.

Tomato pruning

We did some serious tomato pruning while we tied the new growth up. They look really good. It was hard at first to cut off perfectly healthy but it doesn't seem to beharming them at all. And the pruning has kept the plants from becoming an impenterable jungle which is should provide some blight resistance.

The plants are generally loading up on tomatoes (still not ripe). I can't say that there's any obvious difference between the number of tomatoes in the plants that have only one square foot opposed to two. There is a significant difference in the depth of the compost from west to east which complicates the comparison of the effect of space- the tighter spaced tomatoes are in the deeper soil. So is the apparent similarity in productivity due to unequal soil depth? Beats me. I do think that we'll change the layout next year so we don't have 2 rows of tomatoes adjacent to each other. It may not impact the productivity but it does make it difficult to see what each plant is doing, which is a big chunk of the fun.

Paaarrrrrttttyy

We finally had a party last night. Been meaning to do that since we moved here but between our work schedules just never got it done. Till now. Thairo got to show off some fancy grilling and made really good ribs.

Very very clean DNA

Alright, lab work is finally going well-based on field work having gone well last month. I didn't sleep much during the cruise but at least I got good samples. Here's a picture of that DNA-each tube has DNA from one of the depths at one station. The DNA is the bright band about 2/3 of the way down the tube.

Another garden update

It's been a week or so since I posted the last picture. We've picked a pint of raspberries basically every day this week. The peas are still producing but I expect them to start slowing down soon. The falls are mild enough here that we'll pull these peas and plant a second crop just before my next cruise (mid Aug). Every tomato plant has baby tomatoes-yippie. And I think that the peppers and chilies will flower this week.

The herbs are doing great as well. Actually they're doing too well, the chervil and cilantro had to be pulled because they bolted. We've ut the tarragon and are going to try to make herb oil. Stay tuned for the out come of this trial.