Had my first two harvests over last weekend – more salad turnips than you can shake a stick at, and the first load of kale. I have about a half dozen turnips left in the ground that were a bit smaller. They should be ready in a week or so. Turns out to be a great use of space – the winter squash I planted the turnips around are just getting big enough to fill in that edge space.
It’s the weird between time for the gardens – things are starting to fill in, but aren’t really there yet. The above is the community garden plot – it’s filling in a bit more noticeably than the pots at home. I’m waiting for the peas to start blooming. It really should be any time now.
I think I made a miscalculation at home. I needed to stop using the tomato grow bags – they’re pretty blight ridden at this point. Because of the size, I thought they’d be great for greens. However, they either let go of the water way too fast, or the black color just isn’t working. I can’t keep either the Swiss chard or collard wet enough. This year may be a bit of a bust, greens-wise, at home. Oh well. They’re at least easy to buy at the store – I just like having my own when I can.
The planet Kibou-daini is obsessed with cryonics – any member of population can expect to be frozen before or just after death (depending on how much you can pay, of course), and these not quite dead citizens still feature in the voting rights of where they’re stored. When one of the cryo-companies tries to expand into the Barrayaran Empire, the Emperor smells something fishy, and sends Miles Vorkosigan in to sniff around.
This book chronicles the natural history movements in the era leading up to Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, and how the advances in technology of that time created a craze for finding new species, and what that meant for science. Darwin certainly wasn’t the only game in town – you meet a number of other naturalists – either in the field, or those gentlemen that funded or ordered species for their homes. It’s a fascinating mix, and after reading this book, I’m frankly amazed that there are any exotic species left after this era – I’m glad we can record things thoroughly with cameras these days.
This is a book of short stories, rather annoyingly including the novella length “Something Rich and Strange” – which I already own in a stand alone illustrated edition. I like that story, but I wish I’d had more new material to read.
The North Wind and the Sea 