I am just in at 11:15 AM from 2 1/2 hours of toiling in my " bouwerie ." A native New Yorker, ( upper west side of Manhattan ), I was just reading about New Amsterdam's history and Peter Stuyvesant, it's last governor under Dutch rule. He was a great farmer and was very specific about the difference between a " plantation " and a " bouwerie." A plantation is a huge land mass devoted to raising one specific crop,..like tobacco or cotton. A " bouwerie " on the other hand, is what he had on his smallish 115 acre ( in those days was considered small ) homesite. He had a large garden raising a variety of fruits and veggies, and lots of woods. I don't have the woods, but consider my tiny farm a " bouwerie ", so can't use the word plantation anymore! ( smile )

One sidelight, Peter is well known for the pear tree he planted on his property at a site which became over the years 3rd Ave and 13th St. He planted it around 1650 and it lived until some jerk knocked it over in 1867 !!! Over 200 years that tree lived, and bore a crop of pears until the end !

Back to this morning. I emptied out my huge plastic barrel of thick, black organic compost that I've developed from kitchen scraps over the last 10 months. Talk about HEAVY ? It took me over an hour to empty it and spread the contents around my 10 banana plants and 4 mango trees. Then spread store bought fertilizer under all the shrubs in the butterfly garden, and then, finally, watered the whole lot. Am worn out, but feeling satisfied that I was able to put this glorious weather to good use.

Am done now, only light TLC until the fall. Whew ! What a morning, just couldn't waste this fantastic " Chamber of Commerce Weather ", had to get outside and work like I haven't in awhile,...for 2 1/2 hour's anyway ( smile )