Babies!

I believe this is what "knee-high to a grasshopper" sized corn looks like. May is monsoon month around here, apparently, which is great for crops, but also very good for weeds. Thanks to our new comrades, we're finally keeping up! Pictured here solo (he is posing with that sprinkler, mind you) is Sebastián, followed by his cuñado (bro-in-law) Francisco, pictured with Chris.
After a few days of warming up our Spanish, we learned that they were potato farmers in Guatemala (they've been in the states for about 5 years) and can pretty much run the show from here on out! We're even ordering a few seeds from Guatemala on their recommendation to see if they yield as well here as they do there. I'm laughing that I was a little worried that I might go a whole summer without practicing my Spanish- instead I'm learning a whole new set of vocabulary! Of course I've already threatened to teach them English later this summer when it's too hot to work ;)
A quick photo-montage of the babes: to the left, the carrots have responded, finally, to intensive weeding, as have the peas (below). To the right, baby tomato plants 'hardening off' before we put them in the ground. We've now got about 400 plants outdoors and will most likely do a second crop in the greenhouse after the lettuce is done... expect me to be moving quickly from tomato heaven to tomato hell come July.Finally, a quick shout-out to the Parents, who made a harrowing drive through tornadoes and driving rain for a Mother's day visit. We had dinner in the Skamp, visited the horses next door, and talked a LOT about algae. It was short but sweet, and I appreciated having the day off with not much else to do but eat and eat and eat!
Stay tuned for more tomatoes and images of the Urban Farm I checked out in Chattanooga this week... two hours further south really gives you a head start, or maybe I'm just jealous.