I put in a full 12 hours on Saturday in my own vegetable garden. While much was accomplished, there is still a tremendous amount to be done. I take on projects like this on purpose, apparently. One good side effect — I’ve never been bored a single day in my life.

Last Sunday morning I woke at my usual early hour and discovered I could not move. After hobbling to the kitchen I decided an aspirin was in order for the day. I dropped it on the floor and literally could not bend over to pick it up. I needed a chair to get down to it. By Sunday afternoon I was back at it but with much less gusto.

We have been digging beds or rather irrigation ditches. The clay in this particular site is holding a tremendous amount of water. After the rain last week the trenches were filled, requiring boots, but the vegetables were a foot above the standing water.

In my perfect world I start my tomatoes mid-April in the hoop house on 65-degree propagating mats. Then within the month I separate them into flats about two inches apart. Here’s the tricky part. They then need to go into four-inch pots for a few weeks before hitting the garden. I seem to have missed that stage this year. I have many flats with seedlings long overdue for planting. Because this new plot is so rough a lot of preparation is necessary. You’ll be hearing plenty of complaining next week.

I got a call from Mississippi resident Lynda Grady. She started our totally enjoyable conversation with, “I’ll like to die at your description of cooking okra with garlic. Why! That would be like putting olive oil on a peanut butter sandwich and wondering why it doesn’t taste right.” She proceeded to walk me through the proper preparation of okra: sliced, soaked in buttermilk, rolled in yellow cornmeal and fried in hot oil. I’m a pretty good sport so I assured her I’d give it a try.

She complimented my political leaning, which I found curious, her being from Mississippi and all. She remarked that she was one of a kind. We hit it off at once.

Great thanks to Ellie Kohane! She gave me a cut-out from Mother Earth News called Guide to Organic Pest Control. It seems early in the season to have the bugs hard at work already. The article is from the 2008 August/September issues. It lists 11 products guaranteed to fend off the 26 most common garden pests. It encourages the purchase of Whitney Cranshaw’s Garden Insects of North America.

The top 11 organic pest control products are as follows:

• BT (bacillus thuringiensis) — the top remedy for leaf-eating caterpillars.

• Spinosad — use alternately with BP for Mexican bean beetles and the Colorado potato beetle.

• Diatomaceous earth, an itchy irritant of snails, slugs, leaf-hoppers and aphids.

• Kaolin clay — leaves covered with this tend to be ignored by many pests.

• Insecticidal soap when sprayed on the insect will dry it up. Two applications a week apart should suffice.

• Horticultural oil made from soybeans will clog insects’ sensory and breathing systems. Be careful as it will burn leaves on a hot sunny day.

• Neem oil has earned recognition in the control of squash bugs.

• Beneficial nematodes will work wonders if applied in a timely fashion.

• Nosema locustae — these spores will sicken grasshoppers.

• Milky spore disease applied in fall will take out Japanese beetle larvae.

• Beauveria bassiana is a fungus which will grow on whitefly.

Gardening is a constant battle. One must love it to carry on.

I simply cannot watch the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico any longer. I have gone from outrage to despair! Is it time for us, the U.S. government, to nationalize the oil companies?