My peas are drying up and the lettuces have reached their teenage years — tall and gangly. We’ve reached the summer gardening season just in time for the July heat to kick in.

Other people have the ability to have space in between their plants and to separate, weed, and clear things out with ruthless efficiency. I like my violets too much, so I tug their leaves when they get too tall, which just means they send up new ones the following month. Things grow, and because I don’t know for sure if they’re weeds or cultivated plants, I just leave them. All this is to say that my garden inevitably looks highly messy, but it’s just jammed full of goodness.

I mean, look at all these greens!

The cucumbers, peppers, and squash are growing (Mum, the cucumber is the one I bought before I came north, not the ones we split).

My next round of flowers are getting ready to blossom:

I’m harvesting the celery I planted back in the spring, and I brought home two of the everbearing strawberries for Rudi. (I ate the other one — so sweet!) The lemon balm has gotten out of control. Anyone have any recommendations for things to do with it?

And my bronze fennel will be attracting lots of pollinators:

It’s good to be a gardener!

Count me as the rider crossing the finish line just in front of the sag wagon on Day #1 of the Tour, but a little start is still a start after all.

This is Fully Charged. The colors are a bit washed out in the lamplight, but the pink is Periwinkle Sheep Watercolors in Hot Mama and the green is Kelbourne Woolens Perennial in Neon Lime. The latter has a little alpaca in it, so I’m making it the more background color, since I think it will fuzz a bit and soften the colorwork. We’ll find out if it was a terrible choice.

With June wrapping up next week (seriously, already, again?!), I’m trying to squeeze a lot in to the next couple days:

• Cast on a new shawl for the Tour de France knitalong.
• Go to the library.
• Water the garden.
• Swim.
• Find raspberries and apricots at the farmers market.
• Do some work.
• Read outside.
• Watch a dvd. (Ammonite is overdue to the library.)
• Listen to some music outdoors.
• Do laundry.

What’s on your weekend to-do list?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The Strawberry Full Moon stands out vibrantly against the evening sky.

2. Fireflies hit critical mass, and you can see them sending each other coded messages from every hedgerow, front garden, and field. One even finds its way into the apartment, much to the fascination of Corey.

3. Our basket of blueberries from last Friday’s pick-your-own adventure sits out on the counter, allowing us to grab a handful every time we walk past and encouraging their addition to everything from pancakes to salads to yogurts. It’s been a delicious week.

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

My rainbow socks will not likely be done by the end of the month, particularly with Tour knitting starting on Saturday. But I do have a finished sock, so that’s not nothing.

I am about halfway through both Arsenic and Adobo and Act Your Age, Eve Brown. The former has started irritating me less, so although I am relatively certain I know the who of the murder, I’m happy to read through to see if there’s some depth to the why. And the latter series of books is always enjoyable. Both Chloe and Dani have now made (phone) appearances in the story, so I’m even happier.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

Work ran late tonight, and by the time Rudi and I decided we should run to the local shop for mozzarella (they were sold out at the farmers market on Sunday), it was just after 9. But they’d been open until 10 last week when Rudi went, so we weren’t worried. But, it turns out, that was a Wednesday, and today was a Tuesday, so we did without.

It was a nice night, so we wandered around for a little, debating treating ourselves to Thai takeout or a gelato, but ultimately decided it made more fiscal sense just to cook supper at home and buy a container of ice cream for dessert over several nights.

So, we walked up to Walgreens to see what they had on sale. But they’d closed at 9. (They used to be a Rite Aid and used to never close, so it continues to be a true surprise when we find they do now — and at random, early hours.)

But that was fine, because Safeway is open until 11, and it was a nice night.

We arrived at Safeway at 9:59 to find they’d changed their hours, too.

So back to the neighborhood with no mozzarella and no ice cream.

Would the ice cream parlor still be open, at least? (We were pretty sure we knew the answer by now…)

No shopping for you!