Today was one of the biggest harvest days I’ve had in a while: a cucumber, a bunch of large tomatoes, several cherry tomatoes, a handful of chili peppers, about three tomatillos, basil and sage, a sharp stalk of lemongrass, and two yardlong beans.

You can see from that shot that the bunching onions are abloom, bringing all sorts of pollinators to my garden.

But although most prolific, those aren’t the only flowers I have at the moment:

Vinca

Double petunia

Million Bells

Dahlia

Unphotographed: a snapdragon and candy cane-striped impatiens and my small white dahlias.

I also have veggies growing, including chard, other peppers, sorrel, a couple kale plants, and some zucchini that the squash bugs have infiltrated (as well as the cucumbers and one tomato plant).

What’s growing in your garden or yard these days?

Honestly, I’m feeling pretty unenthused about the weekend. (My computer says that’s not a word and suggests changing it to enthused. I’m working on it computer, I’m working on it.)

There’s a used book sale at the library over by Eastern Market, so maybe I’ll wander across town. It’s supposed to be a nice weekend weatherwise, so hopping on the bike would probably be a good thing. Plus, then I could bike by Fiesta D.C., the Latinx festival and see how crowded it is.

There’s a new book sale at one of our local indies, so Rudi and I may head up there tomorrow evening after he returns from his bike ride.

If nothing else, I can immerse myself in some books, and that never is a bad plan for a weekend. And my shawl is back to mosaic sections, so maybe I can move it along. I’d love to get it off the needles some day.

Sunday, there’s the farmers market, which last week felt super packed, so I should probably start getting up earlier to avoid the crowds. And it’s Adams Morgan Day, which is D.C.’s oldest neighborhood festival. Again, not loving the idea of crowds, but I think they’re working on taking better advantage of the parks.

This weekend is Subway Series part 2, so maybe I’ll stream some baseball. The Mets won the first game, which makes me happy.

And I should spend some time at the garden. My beans have not been the success I’d been hoping for, with the yardlong beans and my burgundy filets not really materializing. I have some pods on the lima beans, but they were awfully flat still last weekend. Fingers crossed they’ve filled out this week. It’s a good time to plant late fall crops, like lettuces, so I’ll dig into the bags and find my seed packets. After all, nothing’s more hopeful than a garden.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We’ve been able to return to indoor volleyball finally. I have missed my volleyball sneakers, which got less than six months of games before the world shut down. (I could wear them for grass court volleyball, but opt not to in order to keep them nice for as long as possible.) Also, the new permutation of the team seems nice, and I’m not saying that just because they opted to keep me as captain.

2. I got to spend the last hours the outdoor pools were open to the public for the year floating in the deep end. In contrast to the penultimate day, a cool afternoon that threatened to drip, Monday was sunny and warm, and the pool was packed with everyone who hadn’t left town for the long weekend.

3. D.C. is full of triangle parks, caused by intersections between our streets on a grid and state-named streets, which are at a diagonal. They’re clever reclamations of “wasted” space, sometimes holding statues, like the ones near my house, dog parks, or tables and chairs, like the one by the pizzeria, where I took my to-go supper after the staff told me they’d already closed the patio.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

About to return to the mosaic knitting, just as we’re about to head back to school with Jerry Craft’s Class Act, a second look into the microaggressions a Black kid has to go through at a prep school in New York City.

Grey Kitten and I were talking tonight and I said this song ruined the community pool for me this summer. Not once did anyone break into a song and dance number while I was there, let alone one written by Lin-Manuel Miranda for his hit musical, In the Heights.