Dazed and Confused

I MEANT to grow them that small . . .

The veggie garden is done for 2009.  The other day I picked the last of the beans (and what a magnificent crop it was), the peppers, and the lone squash.  The tomatoes were history about a month ago.  The heirlooms succumbed to the blight--so we didn't get to eat even one of them, but the celebrity tomatoes were magnificent.  Oh, they got the blight, too, but they were made of hardier stuff and if you cut out the black bit, were just fine to eat.  And of course, Mr. Groundhog completely destroyed the Brussels Sprouts and broccoli, so I won't even go into that heartache (again).

But getting back to the peppers . . . we got one full-sized (and that was on the small side) pepper, which I allowed to fully ripen.  It was a beauty and I lovingly tended it for about 6 weeks.  One other plant produced a pepper, but it rotted on the stem.  Then in September, the second plant suddenly bloomed and the next thing you knew, we had three tiny peppers. 

There's the rub--they were TINY peppers.  And so was the acorn squash.  I got that as a freebie from the local nursery.  We bought some annuals and they gave away one free squash plant.  Unfortunately, I put the little squash in the driest part of the yard.  I faithfully watered it, but the water seemed to flow downhill away from the squash.  Still, I got some beautiful glads, so I can't complain too much.

Hubby couldn't get over how darned cute that little squash was.  To convey the size, I figured I'd better include something to give it scale.  We haven't eaten the squash yet--and I wonder will we get get a teaspoon each--but it is awfully cute, don't you agree?

Potatoes Galore

Well, not quite.

I’m afraid my family sees my efforts to raise potatoes as rather a joke.  After all, you can buy a five pound bag at the grocery store for less than $2.  And I must admit my yearly yield isn’t much more than a couple of pounds.  But that’s not why I grow them.  I grow them for the enjoyment of eating something I have grown.  And, as my husband pointed out, every vegetable we grow is free of pesticides.  What’s wrong with that?

I must admit I don’t go out and buy seed potatoes.  By the end of the winter, I usually end up with half a bag of bulk white potatoes that have eyes in them.  I let them mature in my pantry and by late May, I’m ready to plant.  (Mind you, I have tried seed potatoes that I bought at the Mennonite store.  Maybe it was just a bad year for seed potatoes, but it seems I’ve done better with my grocery store rejects.)

I tried planting potatoes in the ground and not only did I not have a great crop, but it was difficult to find them all.  So, for the past couple of years I’ve been growing them in a big plastic tub.  As they’re confined to a small area, naturally there won’t be hundreds of potatoes, nor are they tremendously big. 

Some years my potato plants have flowered, but most years they have not.  I keep thinking that one day I’ll read up on potato husbandry, but there’s usually something more important (like keeping us in clean laundry) that needs to be done.

I harvested my 2009 potato crop last week.  First, I waited until the plants were all shriveled up, and then I pulled them from the soil.  Next, I dumped the entire tub onto a plastic tarp.  This made it easy to keep track of everything. I was delighted that upon dumping, I saw quite a few decent sized potatoes.  I have a little (child’s) bamboo rake, and I used that to rake through the dirt to find even the tiniest potatoes.  (We’re talking the size of your baby fingernail.)

That night, I boiled the smallest potatoes until they were tender, drained them, and dumped a big gob of butter into the saucepan, along with a handful (about a third of a cup) of chopped fresh parsley (also from the garden) and mixed it all together. 

Yum!

How I eat green beans

Since I blogged about my garden the other day, especially about how much I love green beans, I thought I might share how I cook them.

I first ate these beans at a Chinese Buffet.  In those day, they added almonds.  I haven't seen them cooked that way in quite some time, but that doesn't stop me from fixing them that way.

First, I get out a skillet and put in an inch or so of water.  Plop the washed beans in the water (I like them whole, but you can cut them in segments or French style) and bring to a boil.  Cook until tender.  Drain the water and toss in a tablespoon or two of olive oil, and a tablespoon (or more) of either slivered or sliced almonds.  Cook until the almonds are browned.  

We also eat the beans boiled with dried onion and rosemary.  I put in a tablespoon or two of dried onion, and a couple of pinches of dried rosemary (fresh is always better) and boil until your preferred level of tenderness.

As you can see, I'm not big about measuring for these recipes.  

(Oh, and how do I eat my green beans?  With a fork, of course!)

How do you cook your green beans?

Mid-August Crop Report

Considering we've had a very yucky summer--weather wise--our gardens have had a wonderful season.  From the perennials to the annuals to our crops.  After the horrific hail storm in late June, we were afraid we'd lose most of our veggies, but Mother Nature is strong, and all of them (even the heirloom tomato seedlings) rebounded magnificently.  (This little guy is the biggest of 11--I'm hoping some of them will ripen before the end of the season (I started them reallllllllly late.))  I can't quite remember what a ripe one looks like.  (I bought one at the farmer's market and saved the seeds.)  It'll either be purple with green stripes, or green with purple stripes.

We've been enjoying home-grown beans for a little over a week now, and there's nothing like it.  I bought some (bush) beans at the farmer's market, but they were nothing like the pole beans I've grown right in my own back yard.  I love going out there every day and finding more to pick.  This was what we had for dinner last night.  (Yeah, I know--it's a lot for two people, but I could make a meal on just these beans.)

The potato plants are starting to shrivel up, which means that in a week or two, I can harvest my crop.  Okay, usually my crop is extremely small--in both size and number of potatoes.  Still, I enjoy growing them.  I usually do them in a tub (as pictured), but this year I also planted some in the ground.  Those never came up, so whatever we get--we get to eat.

Wouldn't you know, I got a stomach bug in early July, and since then, anything with acid (think spaghetti sauce, anything with vinegar) has given me heartburn.  So I'm wondering if I'll be able to eat any of our tomatoes, and we're going to have a bumper crop this year.  I lost count in the 40s (don't count your tomatoes until they've ripened?)  There's nothing like the smell of a fresh-picked tomato.  It will break my heart if I don't get to eat these beauties.  (We're picking this one later today.)

Our broccoli didn't do well.  From five plants, we got enough for one meal before it started going to seed.  The Brussels sprouts are just starting to form and the plants are getting huge.  Hard to believe they were plants with only two or three leaves when we planted them.  One of my parsley plants didn't make it, but the other has been fantastic and we've eaten a lot of parsley potatoes this summer.  Of the four pepper plants, only three have one pepper each.  One of them is HUGE, the other two are tiny.  I'm thinking of trying jalapeno peppers next year -- maybe from seed, as the pepper plants I've bought for the last couple of years have not done well.

As I mentioned above, the flowers have done really well.  Back in June, my Dad remembered he had a bag of glad bulbs in his garage he'd forgotten to plant--TWO YEARS AGO.  A very BIG bag of glad bulbs.  We picked through them and I planted at least 60-70 of them.   Not many came up, but the ones that did are magnificent.  Yesterday I picked a red one (which I neglected to photograph) that is scarlet red with white in the center.  

Here's a longer shot of the garden at the end of the pool.

And how does your garden grow?

A Little Tea, anyone

Almost a month ago, Martha Stewart was making tea out of cow manure.  I know it was before June 12th, because that's the last time I saw any daytime TV.  You know, that's the day when TV signals went digital and that was the end of all my TV watching in the kitchen.  (We do have a TV hooked up to cable, but we mostly watch DVDs on that one.)

But I digress.

I'd heard about manure tea for the garden, because my parents had done it years ago.  (Here's how.)

(Have you heard the really old joke:  Do you put manure on your strawberries?  No, we put whipped cream on ours.)

My folks had some work done in the yard last year, and the workman just about killed their beautiful clamatis.  So in an effort to bring it back this year, they gave it some manure tea.  Hot-damn!  It said, and did come back.  My mother also put the tea on the coneflowers. Holy crap!  Did they love that tea.  (Have you ever seen 4 foot coneflowers before?  I never have.) 

My bean crop is suffering.  Between not enough rain, hailstorms, and too much rain, some of my plants are stunted. 

Can you guess what is in their future?  Yes!  Cow manure tea!  I'm also going to give my cosmos a shot, too.  They've been in the ground for six weeks and they've hardly grown at all.  Other people have cosmos and they're tall, willowy, and FULL of flowers.  Not mine.  Not ever. 

Yup, today's the day for a nice cup of cow manure tea.

First tomato of 2009*

Oh, wow!  My first tomato of the season.  This is from the celebrity "vines."  I have a bunch of flowers, but so far only this one little tomato, which is about the size of my thumbnail.  But hey, they have to start small before they get bigger, right?

The heirloom "seedlings" took an awful hit with the hail storm last week, and I did lose one.  The others are holding their own, but seem to be a bit soggy from all the rain.  (They and everyone else.)  But, hey, if I get just one tomato from that batch, I'll be ... well, not happy, but I'll accept it.  (And it better be good for all the angst I've gone through.)

* No sooner did I type this, than hubby called me out to show me two more. (On different plants.)  Yee-ha!  I see many BLTs in my future.

Summer fun

We had a terrible thunderstorm with hail last Friday, which I wrote about in yesterday's Writers Plot post.  (You can find it here.) The garden suffered a LOT of damage and we were pretty upset about it.

So on Saturday, when I started out on my weekly Garage Sale Hunt, I wanted to find something fun to cheer me up.

I did.

As I walked back to the car with my wonderful find, my husband commented, "These are the things that cause divorces."

Okay, so a pink flamingo is a cliche (and this one is so pink it's almost purple), but after the angst we went through over the garden (which is bouncing back, thank goodness).  I wanted.  I needed it.  And at 75 cents -- what a bargain!

PET PEEVE THURSDAY--Peony Wars

Today's guest is Mary Jane Maffini, author of the Charlotte Adams (professional organizer) mystery series.

Perhaps it was the climate, but I never so much as spotted a peony when I was growing up in Nova Scotia. The first time I saw them, I was a young teacher and a tiny girl in first grade brought me a bunch of delightful deep pink beauties for my desk in June. I was struck, no, make that besotted, and possibly even bewitched, bothered, and bewildered. Of course it was years before I had a garden of my own but when I did, whammo, in went peonies. New ones, heritage varieties, pale pink, white, deep fuchsia, you get the picture. They need to be planted just so, not too deep, not too shallow. They need sun; they need ants. Whatever it takes, I said, I'll do it. I had to have them.

And how did my darlings repay me? Well, let me tell you. Peonies usually bloom in early June in Zone 4 which is where my Ottawa peonies are. They allegedly continue flowering for several weeks.  For years I had jobs that required me to be at conferences for a week every June, although never the same week. For nearly a month I would watch the buds grow, flourish and bulge. Then just as I would be heading out the door to fly off to the Canadian Library Association conference, or the Special Libraries Association gathering, or the Canadian Booksellers Association educational sessions and trade show, I could almost hear the sproinging sound of petals bursting open. Perhaps there would be a tantalizing glimpse of a half-opened bloom.  Then my taxi would zoom down the street and I'd be gone.  I'd return to find millions of white, pale pink and deep fuschia petals lying inches deep on the ground and the spent plants gasping and ready to pack it up until the next year.

But now I work at home, allegedly writing. My conferences are in May except for Bloody Words one weekend in early June. My peony problem should be well in the past. But no. Not so fast. This year I headed out to Book Expo America secure in the knowledge that the peonies were not ready. Bloody Words followed the next week and they were just gearing up. I rubbed my hands in glee. This was going to be the best crop ever! Hundreds of buds all looking vigorous. And I was home, happily writing in my little office with plenty of time to enjoy them, taking a cup of coffee in the morning, and promenading by proudly.

The little scamps must have been playing games with my head. As I finally left for a family road trip in the third week of June, long after the peonies should have flowered, the blooms were getting ready to pop. One had unfurled in a provocative, even seductive manner. Maybe they can hold off until I get home, I thought, seeing as they are already well past their normal blooming pattern. Anything is possible.

Three days after I left, I called my husband who was watching the fort, which includes my tiny garden. "Please check the peonies," I said.

"The what?" 

"Peonies," I repeated, jaw clenched.

Long pause. "Are they the ones with the big beautiful flowers?"

"Yes."

"They're blooming, all right. There are hundreds of them. They're gorgeous."

"Huh."

I'll be home a week from today and once again will get to see a zillion petals on the ground.  Why do they do it? And how do they know?

"Take a photo please," I sniffed, "and email it to me. At least I can get to see them that way."

"But you have the digital camera with you," he pointed out.

True. Too true.

I think it's all part of the great peony plot. These flowers are not to be trusted.

Am I peevish? No kidding. I may be defeated, but it's not too late to plan for next year. This time, trust me, peonies, this means war.

And what's bugging YOU today?
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When not staring morosely at her peonies, Mary Jane Maffini writes the Charlotte Adams mysteries, the Camilla MacPhee series and the Fiona Silk adventures.  Visit Mary Jane's Web site.  her at . Her latest book is Death Loves a Messy Desk. Check out her latest book trailer here.

CROP UPDATE

Things are growing quite well at Casa de Lorraine.  So far, the bunnies haven't eaten more than eight or nine of the beans.  I've been putting cayenne pepper on the leaves, and that seems to be deterring them, and yesterday we put granular blood pellets down, which is supposed to deter them, too.  In this picture, you can see the beans and almost see one that was bunny-bitten.  (Bottom Middle.)

To hedge my bets, I planted beans in the ground, but also in a big container.  So far, the container beans are outperforming those in the ground.  Go figure.  I figure they're going to start climbing before the end of the week. 

Now here's a potential problem.  What if I have a bumper crop of beans this year?  I planted them here at home and at our family's cottage.  I LOVE fresh green beans and could eat them every day.  Hubby isn't quite as enthusiastic.  My luck at freezing them has been hit and miss.  I seem to blanch them too long, and then they're mushy when you go to cook them for dinner.  (Anyone want to give some advice?)

We had a LOT of rain last week, and the potatoes said, "WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" and really took off.  I'm using new dirt this year (again, growing them in a container), and they seem a lot happier than their predecessors.  I'm hoping to have a bumber crop this year.  (Past years haven't yielded more than two meals.)

The broccoli and Brussels Sprouts have been happy with the rain, too.  Likewise the tomatoes.  And already my parsley has gone to seed, which is telling me to get off my butt and pick it.  (Meanwhile, I've been nipping it--hoping it'll bush out.)

This is the first year I've grown lettuce, and again, to hedge my bets, I did it in a little container.  I'm hoping we'll be eating fresh lettuce by the end of the week. That pot on the bottom contains one of my heirloom tomato "seedlings."  I had them in little containers and decided last week they were big enough to have their own pots.  (Actually, there's two in this pot--I ran out of pots.)  They're doing well, albeit late, and I'm hoping to have at least a few purple and green tomatoes before the frost.

I love going out in the garden and seeing my crops doing well, and I don't even mind weeding.  (Still have some mulching to do in the flower beds.) 

Who knew gardening could be so much back-breaking fun.

Flowers in the garden

I love my new camera.  I've had it for about two months now, and I'm really getting back into the swing of taking it with me wherever I go--just to get a grab shot.  (Like yesterday's pig pictures--yes, I only put one up, but I took a LOT more.)  My camera holds over 300 pictures, but it always seems like I'm on the verge of a purge.

I've taken a lot of pictures of the yard.  I like this picture of violets.  They're so delicate.  Frank considers them a week, and yanks them out when he sees them, but I think they're pretty--at least when they're blooming.

The lilacs were particularly beautiful -- a MONTH AGO, but I never had an opportunity to show them off . . . until now.  (Do you think I have a thing for purple flowers?)  They smelled really nice, and Frank called his sister in Florida, who loves the scent of lilacs, to brag about it.  Now they're gone, but we have our memories -- and pictures, too.

Yard work

For the first time in a long time, I'm really gardening.  Veggies and flowers.  Of course, every time I plant vegetables, I've been heartbroken.  Despite the fact bunnies and groundhogs have decimated my veggies in years past, I still want to get out there and try it every year.  And this year I've done it in a big way.

I know a lot of people are planting gardens because our First Lady has had a kitchen garden installed on the White House lawn, but I've been planting veggies for a long time -- not always with success.  (See above paragraph.  BTW, the above photo was taken by Frank last month when we were in Washington.)

My very first veggie garden was a thing of beauty.  My Dad and I planted it at my first house and I had tomatoes, green peppers, broccoli, and Brussels Sprouts.  Guess what?  That's what I planted this year, too!

I've tried to do my veggies from seed, but I don't have the proper lighting, etc., and no room to set up something like that (and stay married), but I wanted to try to do heirloom tomatoes from seed.  These little guys are about a month old.  I know--I know, they're way -- way late, and the thing is--the tomato I got the seeds from was downright ugly -- but I like that its an OLD tomato, like they used to eat generations ago.  (How cool is that?)  And, I all it has taken is my time.  (And Frank has had to rescue the seedlings from my cat Fred several times.  To Fred, they look like salad.) 

The potatoes have sprouted.  I grow them in a big blue container, just to make it easy to harvest my "crop."  Of course, without a lot of room to grow, you don't get huge spuds.  But I enjoy it and it's free.  (Yup, I use the potatoes that have sprouted in my pantry.)

I spent a lot of time on Monday working on "my little patch" of the yard.  (Frank usually does 90% of the garden, choosing the annuals and planting them.)  Right now I've got what was supposed to be a climbing rose.  It's been there at least four years and has not felt inclined to climb.  It had a sister bush, but it died.  I think it's returned to root stock, but it does put out one or two brave roses a year, so it stays.  (Frank wants to rip it out and replace it.)  Last year, I put a hosta in there, and it did okay.  This year it said--whoa!  I like being here! and has taken off.  I was going to put an azalea in there, but decided it would look too crowded, so this year I put in about 40 gladioli (which haven't done anything yet--and probably won't until nearly September) and six begonias.  Then I mulched the heck out of it.  It looks nice and tidy, which it hasn't done for some time.

Here's a shot of the new bird bath.  (That's my little pot of lettuce on the left, and a Japanese lantern my Mom gave me.  Isn't it cute?  That's the veggie garden in the background.)  We'd been looking for a bird bath like this for at least six years.  Nobody seemed to be carrying them.  We thought it was be fun for the cats to watch birds up close (kinda like CAT-TV).  Last summer, Wegmans had a little brass (or something like that) bird baths and, as we were desperate, we bought one.  But we only saw birds use it once--in some kind of frenzy, and that was it.  My mother bought one, too, but the birds didn't like hers, either.  I drove around for about an hour with the new bird bath in the back of the minivan while I did other errands, and it wasn't until I got home that I discovered a wasps nest inside the base.  Yikes!  It's installed, with nice clean water.  Now to see if the birds find it.

The yard is shaping up.  Just have some mulching left to do (and get out the leaf blower to clean up the last of the arborvitae leaves that dropped) and we can enjoy our garden for the rest of the summer.

And I can get back to working on the book.

Busy, Busy, BUSY!!!

I'm up to my elbows in alligators, with no time to blog today (or yesterday), but I thought I'd at least post a picture.

This should give you a bit of a clue as to what I've been doing.  (Today, it's HOT and HUMID and I need to MULCH.)

But you can also check out my rant on Writers Plot.

Hope to be back tomorrow.

Landscaping 101

For several years now, we've been saying, "We ought to do something about the mess in the front of the house."  But things came up, winter came, stuff like that.

Finally, it just got out of control.  Not only were the things we didn't want getting out of control, the weeds were huge.  It finally became time TO DO SOMETHING.

It was a big surprise to me when hubby announced, "I've contracted to have the front of the house cleaned up."  What?  Without my input?  (Slow boil.)  But, okay--it was such a mess I was willing to go that way.  Until I found out that my favorite rhododendron was to be KILLED.  Chopped up by a chain saw.  Ripped out by the roots. 

I don't think so!

Nope, it was going.  Hubby was adamant.

Oh no!

So one day last week, landscaping guys came.  A day early--before 8 a.m.  Backing up the driveway with a big truck filled with dirt.  Yes, they started with the chainsaw and ripping out everything (including my daffodil bulbs!!!) but the were NOT going to kill that rhododendron.  So off to the backyard I went and starting digging a very big hole.

I was prepared to move the bush myself, but was grateful when two of the guys did it for me.  Of course the big question now is, will it survive?  Only time will tell.

I was amazed how fast the guys transformed the "mess" into a nice tidy area with hydrangeas, hostas, three NEW rhododendrons, a ninebark,  and a bleeding heart.

It's a bit stark yet, and I imagine it'll take a couple of years before things "fill out."  (I'm also wondering how long it'll take before the guy who plows our drive in the winter rams into the rock on the far right.)  But no doubt about it.  It's tidy. 

Of course, now I'm thinking . . . maybe we should add shutters.  Repaint (new color)?  And . . . and . . .

Planting a Victory Garden

For years I've wanted to have a veggie garden.  Okay, hubby gave us some space in the middle of his flower garden, but the beans were here, the tomatoes there, the potatoes somewhere else.  I wanted a dedicated garden for growing my own vegetables.

This year, my wish is coming true, but it took a lot of work to get there.  First off, we had a 30 foot maple tree that was in the way.  Now, I love trees and it makes me sad when one has to be taken out, but this tree was A) too close to house B) too close to the pool (which meant that spinners, stems (it was a weird variety of maple) and leaves would get in said pool and foul up the filtration, and it shaded the pool, keeping it too cold to swim in.  And most of all--it was in the very spot I wanted to put my veggie garden!  So, the tree came down in 2008.  Tree man agreed to come take out the stump when he had a chance.  The chance came in March 2009.

Oh boy!  I was finally going to get my garden.

Not so fast.  There was a pile of chips and dirt nearly four feet high to deal with.  So I got out my little garden cart and started trucking them away, putting them in the far corner where I wanted to kill off some aggressive ivy.  (Did the trick, too!)  However, after 25 cart loads, there was still half the pile of chips and I couldn't seem to dig through the pile.

So, since we were getting the front of the house re-landscaped (another story), hubby contracted for the landscaper to clean up the chips.  Easy, right?

WRONG!

It seems that tree/stump man underestimated the root system.  And really, who could blame him with that nearly four-foot pile of chips he was trying to work around.  So, landscaper guy called his stump guy and off he went.  It took him more than an hour, and even then, he had to take out an ax to remove the roots nearest the pool's concrete deck. But, since that had taken so long, the rest of the team had gone off to work on another job.  "We'll be back tomorrow."  Tomorrow ended up being 3 p.m. -- not 8 a.m. And there was also the threat of rain.

Next day, the guys came back and did their work.  Stone guy built a little wall so that they could put fresh dirt in the area to give us room to to plant.  

The guys didn't lie, they finished the job in a little over an hour, and they did a terrific job.  Everything was ready for planting.  I already had my broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, tomatoes, cilantro and curly parsley.  There was just one problem.

It started to rain.  Hard.  For more than 24 hours.  The new dirt was like a sponge.  So, I had to wait FOUR DAYS before I could plant my new veggie garden.  Before I did that, I headed over to my parents house and cleaned up their garden before my mother and I planted beans, tomatoes, green beans, and gladioli.  (Okay, they weren't part of their veggie garden.) 

 So finally I planted MY garden.  All but the beans.  (I like to soak them for 24 hours before I plant.  It gives them a jump start.)  Only now I'm worried about critters.  I've had gardens decimated by groundhogs and bunnies and I don't want that to happen to my garden.  My friend Heather Webber (who writes a gardening mystery series) puts carrots out in her garden.  The bunnies eat that and leave her veggies alone.  My friend Kaye George swears by Cayenne Pepper.  I'm doing both, and hope that the critters leave my veggies alone.

I'll keep you posted.

Spring Flowers

I've had a new camera for a couple of weeks now, and have been eager to start taking pictures once again.  And after that "long, cold, lonely winter," the spring flowers are a welcome treat.

So yesterday I bopped outside with camera in hand and visited my front yard, looking for stuff to snap.  First up was the rhododendron right outside the front door.  It's in need of some shaping, but I'm afraid to hack at it for fear of killing it.  (As it is, the icicles took out a big chunk of the back of the plant this winter.)  But the big treat was that a huge bee was out there, dipping into the pollen.  This new camera has a telephoto lens and -- whoa!  There he was, big as life.  (And see the pollen on his butt!  Is that cute, or what?)

Next to the rhodo we have a little stand of daffodils.  They're the spring plant that keeps on giving.  They've been out for over a week, and we've had a couple of really hot (Wonderful!) days, but they're still pert and perky.  (I have to learn which setting gives me a sharper background.  Hey, it's only been a couple of weeks--give me time, give me time!

We didn't plant the tulips out front -- and usually we have only one straggly bloom, but this year we had more--go figure!  (And I'm certainly not complaining.)  Sadly, tulips seem to last a day or two (especially if it's hot).  As you can see, they're already getting a little brown around the edges, and they'd only been open a day.

Of course, while spring is great for flowers, it's also great for weeds.  Why do they look so pretty when they flower--and so ugly when they turn into puff balls of seeds a day or two later?

The former owners told us they had a row of ornamental cherry trees along the side of the driveway, but the ice storm of 1991 took out all but one.  It's the oddest looking tree because it's tall with very short (they all broke in the storm) limbs.  Most of the year it looks like it needs to be put out of its misery.  But for a couple of golden (or should I say platinum) days in the spring, it flowers and almost looks pretty.  (Well, it does look pretty close up.)

I stopped using my SLR camera about ten years ago and almost exclusively used a point-and-shoot.  And when we got our first digital cameras, they, too, were point-and-shoot.  I've only had the new camera a couple of weeks, and have realized how much I missed taking really good pictures.  Now to learn to use the thing to its full capacity.

Waste not, want not

Every year my next-door neighbors plant tomatoes next to their house. At least five plants.  Every year they pick one or two of them and let the rest of them rot.  Every year I vow I'm going to go over and steal them.  (So far I haven't.)

What a waste. 

Harvesting the crops

It's been a good summer.  I got to take my parents to the family cottage twice this year (for a total of six days/five nights); I did a whirlwind book tour of New Hampshire, and my attempts at gardening have produced a considerable amount of veggies.

Okay, I love flowers, but were I to have the garden of my dreams, it would be 90% vegetables.  There's something really satisfying about planting, nurturing the plants, and then harvesting veggies that either came from seeds or from tiny plants.  Okay, anybody can shove tomato plants in the earth and then neglect them, but unless you take care of your plants, you can't predict a successful outcome.

Sometimes it was too wet.  Other times it was way too dry.  On the dry days I sometimes had to water my plants two, three, and four times a day.  (I have now learned that I should NOT plant my crops in clay containers--unless I paint the outsides. Otherwise they suck up the water, leaving my tiny plants dying of thirst.  Next year:  washtubs. (Thanks for the idea, Susie!))

I planted my bean crop on Memorial Day weekend--here at home, at the cottage, and at my mother's house.  Waiting for pole beans to mature is like waiting for your first crush to actualy NOTICE you.  It takes FOREVER.  Then all of a sudden, you're up to your eyeballs in beans.  Holy crap!  As soon as I pick them in one location, another location is overproducting.  The beans shown here are my home crop.  (Can you say blanch and freeze?)  I grew them in container pots here at home because other years I had such trouble with bunnies devastating my baby plants when I put them in the earth.  The bunnies didn't get them this year, but squirrels did dig up the containers early on.  I ended up replanting three times in order to get 10-12 plants.

And they have thrived.  So much so, that when I put the piggy watering can on the picnic table bench one Friday, I came home from the cottage on Sunday to find the beans had grown around the piggy's handle, and beans were hanging like clothes on a wash line.

My potato crop wasn't as marvelous as I had hoped.  I planted three seed potatoes, cut into 6 parts, but only three plants actually grew.  They did better than last year, but not a good as 2006, when I used potatoes from my pantry that had grown eyes.  This was the entire yield, but the beans shown in the same picture were just the pickings from one day.  Five days later, I picked as many beans, which was enough for the two of us for supper.  We cut parsley from the yard and, after boiling the potatoes, added it and a big slab of butter for parsley potatoes.  Yum!  I've got a huge basil plant growing, but I haven't decided if I should just dry it or make pesto.  Decisions, decisions.

The tomatoes have been slow to ripen, but we've already had a bunch.  They're wonderful, too.  (Celebrity variety.)  I went to the local farmer's market last week and bought an ugly green-reddish heirloom tomato.  I scraped out a bunch of seeds, and next year I hope to grow some of the same tomatoes.  I've only grown tomatoes from seed once, and the results were nothing to brag about.  I'm hoping next year will be another story.

Meanwhile, the bean jungle continues to produce.  Hubby is already sick of beans, but I could eat them daily for at least six months before I tired of them.

I've read that planting veggie gardens will save you money at the grocery store.  Ha!  With the constant watering, and nurturing, I'm sure I spent far more in time and money to grow these few veggies.  I'd be better off going to the local farm market on Thursday afternoons (and I have gone there, too).  Still, I enjoy my "garden."  And I'll no doubt do it again next year.  (With compost!)

And how does your garden grow?

Coming Back To Life

The garden is coming back to life.  It's wonderful to go out there every day and see something new has popped up or is blooming.

These are one stand of our Irises.  Every year they seem to change color.  Last year they were a deep purple.  Aren't they pretty?

The Crop

The weather has finally turned fall-like and since they were harvesting squash in the farm behind us, I decided to head out to harvest my potato crop.   

I'd lovingly nurtured my plants all summer long, but was worried I wouldn't get any potatoes because the plants never flowered.  I was going to look it up on the Internet, but ... well, got distracted.  (Probably while I was watching Blades of Glory for the 96th time.  Watching movies on my computer sure helps beat boredom while you're printing out those 100 brochures.)

The plants had finally shriveled to a point where I could pull them out of my "bin."  (Which holds about 50 lbs of dirt.) Next step, empty the dirt out onto a tarp.  This sounds easier than it is.  First of all, I wanted to do it close to the house, because I wrap up the bin and keep it in my enclosed porch over the winter.  So I had to haul this million pound bin over the water bags and tarp covering the money pit (pool), and then dump it.  Only, the dirt was pretty compacted, so I had to get out a trowel and empty it tiny shovelful by tiny shovelful, being careful NOT to stab my potatoes.

Hey, there actually WERE potatoes, despite the fact only two of my seed-plants sprouted.  (And I found the rotting remains of what did NOT sprout, too. And where'd that rogue red one come from?)  I got three really BIG potatoes, but they were covered in "scab."  Not to worry.  I peeled it off, yanked out some fresh parsley and it tasted just fine (with a bunch of the teeny tiny ones tossed in as well). 

Overall, though, the results are...laughable. 

Next year we're going for "professional" seed potatoes from the Mennonite store in Seneca Falls.  Then we'll see who laughs at my next crop!

Too little, too late?

Things on the gardening front haven't been going that well.  Things are growing, but despite the weather (which has been wonderful for plants), I'm disappointed.

Not with the flowers.  Wow--this has been a great year.  My old (5-6 years) rose bush has done nothing but bloom all summer.  It's gorgeous.  Tiny delicate pink flowers that I can see out my window.  For most of the summer my  new climbing roses did nothing.  In fact, a few buds faded away.  Yikes!  I had aphids!  A puff of aphid powder later and now both are blooming.   Not a lot, but they're very cute and I'm hoping next year when they're really established, they ought to be just as wonderful as the other bush.

All the annuals look great, too.  The weeds are pretty much under control (thanks to mulch). 

It's my crops.  Here we are in mid-August and I've only had one flower on my sickly looking pepper plants.  It was there for one day then gone.  So I don't know if I'll get any peppers.  The tomatoes never took off.  The plants are small and so is the fruit.  (We've only had one ripen so far.  It was good, just small.)  My potato plants are BIG (the two of 7 that grew), but they haven't flowered.  Okay, I did plant them late, but the potato fields in Savannah (NY) were in flower weeks and weeks ago. 

We've nearly killed the basil and parsley a number of times.  Forget to water them for a couple of days and they wilt down to nothing.  So far they've bounced back, but how long can that continue?  (Meanwhile, I keep meaning to make parsley potatoes--but I keep forgetting to buy potatoes.)

It's the bean crop that has me most concerned.  Killing almost 300 Japanese beetles in less than 48 hours was exhilarating and disheartening all at once.  I'm glad I got rid of the little buggers, but what happens to my poor plants while I'm away from them?  I did harvest 4 entire beans last week (to hysterical laughter from Frank), but I've got tons of flowers.  I just hope the beetles don't decide they taste as good as the leaves.  There were about a hundred little beans from 1/2 to an inch long on Sunday.  I'm looking forward to seeing how much they've grown and if they're ready to be picked.

I would've made a terrible farmer, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of growing vegetables.  I try not to peek through the arborvitae to the farm behind us.  Their (professional) productivity (melons and cabbages this year) can be depressing.

It happened again....

Things were going very well in my home bean farm.  Just yesterday morning I went out to gaze lovingly at my little bean crop.  I was disappointed that of the more than 100 seeds, only 26 sprouted, but they were fine seedlings.  And even better, they were starting to climb.

So off we went to Home Depot to buy more mulch to put around them, so they wouldn't get so dry.  We ran a couple of other errands as well and when we came home...  21 of the 26 plants were GONE.

BITTEN DOWN TO THE DIRT--yes even below the mulch line!

I cried.

I put sticks around the remaining plants, but the bunnies got around the sticks last year.  Not a flower, not another green blade of ANYTHING was gone, just my beans.

I haven't decided if I'm going to replant.  It might be too heartbreaking to lose another batch of seedlings....

Sprouts

No, not Brussels, potato!  Last Monday I planted my "seed" potatoes.  For those you've never planted potatoes, essentially you have a hunk of potato with a bunch of "eyes" on it and plant it in some dirt.  According to some website I found online, it takes between 10-14 days for potatoes to sprout.  Mine came up in 8.  (Am I a great potato grower, or what?)

This is my second year growing potatoes in a big plastic bin.  Here's what it looked like last year.  Of course, this was at a couple of weeks, but I'm expecting them to look the same in a few weeks. 

Meanwhile, both my bean farms are doing nicely.  Actually, the beans at the cottage (no picture, we keep forgetting to take the camera) are doing better than the home batch, but then they're a week ahead.  I planted the same amount of bean seeds, but double came up at the cottage, even though they were neglected (because we're not there as much).  It's been DRY around here, and Hubby has been diligently watering here at home.  I think it's actually only rained once since I planted the beans.

I never tire of admiring my crops.  I check on them at least once a day--usually more.  I thought this was odd until my friend Sheila bought an apple tree.  She's writing a book featuring apples, so now I feel as though I should write about my potatoes.  Then again, I'm having a hard enough time writing about a bookshop in New Hampshire.  (Playing with the victim's personality.  Don't like my current version, going back to my original idea....)   

Admittedly, my yield for potatoes has not been spectacular, but then I've only had five or six plants.  Meanwhile, some years I've had so many beans I've had to share them with family and strangers at work.  (Last year was not one of them.  And after talking with a bunch of home veggie growers it seems none of us had decent crops.)

I'm not wishing the summer away, but I'm looking forward to harvesting (and then eating) my darling little spuds this fall.

Growing Grass

One might think that growing grass would be an easy task.  To them I say:  "HA!"  I'm in need of grass and the conditions are not exactly the best.

When I bought my first house, lo those many years ago, it didn't have an independent water hook-up.  The terms of the sale required that the seller equip the house with said water supply.  The terms did not state that they fix the yard and repair the damage to the very L-O-N-G front yard.  And that was my very dissatisfying introduction to growing grass.  My enemies:  birds, weeds, and drought.

Why is it always new water lines that destroy your yard?  We now have water at our cottage, but a third of the yard was destroyed to enable that.  Our contractor has seeded the area and covered it with straw.  All we needed to do was water it.  (Did I mention we had the driest May on record?) 

So we watered it; 30 minutes; move hose; 30 more minutes; move hose...yada yada yada.  Only we don't have dirt, we have clay.  Clay + Water = very slippery MUD.  Thick mud.  Mud that sucks your shoes in and you wonder if you'll follow them.

Days passed and the area did not dry.  Now we've had 36 hours of rain.  Rain + Clay that's already wet = DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!

Baby grass is very fragile.  Step on it and you have a bare patch.  How long will it be before we can step on, let alone mow and/or drive the car on it?  (We have no driveway.  The grass overtook the gravel years ago.)

It's gonna be a L-O-N-G summer.

Roses

I've been worried about my rose bush.  Not that I know jack--er--poop about roses.

Backtrack....

Several years ago, Frank and I vacationed in Bar Harbor, Maine.  Along the public walking trail (which rims the shore) were these huge, old-fashioned roses.  I mentioned how much I liked them and Frank, ever thoughtful, bought me a little pink beauty.

I've been pleased with this little bush for the past 3-4 years, but Frank wasn't sure it made it through this year's harsh winter.  Since my mother fractured her knee a few weeks back, she was in no position to take a look and advise us.  So we lit a candle and prayed it would come back to life.

But in the meantime I've been studying up on rose ornamentation--particularly hand-painted roses on china.  One of my home decorating magazines told me that beautiful examples can be had for as little as $3 a specimen.  Oh yeah?  On what planet?

I have a booth at the local Craft Antique Co-Op and I can tell you that such examples of hand-painted plates are averaging $18-$30--not the $3 mentioned in the article.  And mind you, the co-op has much better (can you say cheaper) prices than any antiques co-op I've ever been in and I've visited them from coast-to-coast.

I'm not sure where this recent "girly fixation" I've had is coming from.  I was a tom boy from get go.  Maybe it started last summer when I got my day-glo pink Crocks--and I'm even wearing nail polish.  But I suspect the seeds were sown back in 2001 on my last trip to England.  I bought a little ornate plate for 50P in a charity shop in Portsmouth.  I hung it in my bedroom and seeing its girliness made me dissatisfied with the very corporate blinds the former owners had installed throughout the house.

First we replaced the blinds in the living room with sheers and valances.  Then the bathroom, and finally just last month in the bedroom.  Wow--it looks like a bedroom instead of a conference room with a bed in it.

Still, my quest for hand-painted roses on plates continues.  I did find a pink rose transferware plate at a garage sale over the weekend, and it's quite cute.  It's slated for B&B Cottage (which is what I call our summer home), along with a very girly gold mirror I bought a few weeks back, a dust ruffle for the twin bed, and a couple of Nippon candy dishes.

I have a lot of ideas for B&B Cottage--all of which require big stacks of money.  The thing is, being a novelist actually pays less than working part-time at McDonalds (and you thought we all made the same kind of money as Nora Roberts and Patricia Cornwall). 

Right now I don't have a plan as to where I'll put my Nippon bowls or transferware plate.  That will come to me over time.  Still, the planning for such things is half the fun.

And by the way, I examined the rose bush yesterday and found the tiniest of leaves had sprouted.  I'm looking forward to another summer of seeing pale pink roses outside my office window. 

Spring sprung?

All this good weather (it's 55F as I type this) is not necessarily a good thing.  The daffodils think it's spring.  They're already up to four inches tall.  I don't want my rhododendrons to start blooming in January either.  Next thing you know, the hostas will be shooting up new leaves.

And this weather isn't good for authors who planned to write while snow gently drifted past their windows through December and January.  Therefore, her/his output may be considerably less than originally planned. 

Today I'd planned to watch a DVD I got for Christmas, but now I'm thinking I ought to hunker down and try to write another four or five pages.  As it turns out, I'm only four chapters from the end of the book.  If I worked my buns off, I could probably finish the draft by next week.  (Yeah, and if it really worked and I could trim a few inches off my butt, you better believe I'd be motivated to finish TODAY!)

Don't get me wrong, I don't like cold weather and snow, but it's not good for the planet when winter doesn't arrive where it should. 

Some people in government apparently need a glacier to melt on them before they'll believe that global warming is real. 

Meanwhile, rain is almost as good as snow for the muse.  (Precipitation is Precipitation, after all.)

Pardon me while I go do a rain dance.

My Gardening Secret

I bought this "Christmas" cactus about five years ago. I've kept it on my kitchen window sill and it thrived but never bloomed.  Until this year.  This year I did something drastically different.

I left it alone.  Honest.  I put it outside on the deck (along with Mr. Rubber Plant) and didn't even water it.  It sat out there from late May until mid-October and I never even gave it a second thought. 

I'm wondering if I should take this approach with all my gardening: total abandonment.  I know we mulched heavily this year and did nothing else, and guess what?  Everything thrived except the weeds.

We had this gardening "epiphany" a few years back with Mr. Rubber Plant.  A former boss at the Big Yellow Box gave everyone in the department a plant.  I don't even remember what my plant was, but a co-worker retired and didn't want her plants and I inherited them, including Mr. Rubber Plant.

Mr. Rubber Plant was not happy moving to Ivy Bend.  He sat in the dark dining room for a year or two and lost all but four leaves.  So we figured what the hell and one summer day tossed him out on the deck.  He THRIVED!  Right now Mr. Rubber Plant has about 100 leaves.  Once outside, he seems to think he's returned to his native land where it's hot, humid, and rains far too much. 

About the 4th of July, Mr. Rubber Plant notices he's back outside and says "Zowie!" and grows another 5-20 leaves.   When we bring him in for the winter, he becomes depressed.  Several leaves turn orange and he drops them on the rug for me to pick up.  He doesn't understand that winter would kill him, and he pines at the window as he reaches for the deck outside his wintry prison.

Kinda makes you want to shed a tear, doesn't it?

This Year's Crop

Despite my best intentions, this year's potato crop yield was about the same as last year's.  Last year I planted my seedlings in plain old dirt and that was it.  This year they were planted in Miracle Gro dirt.  Zowie! said the plants.  They liked that enriched dirt.  They liked it so much, they spent all their energy growing magnificent plants, some over three feet tall.

The biggest potato was 10 ounces (the total weight of the crop was 3.5 lbs).  We already ate the smallest ones roasted next to one of Frank's superb meatloafs.  (Yum!)

I haven't given up the idea of growing potatoes in a bin, and I'm doing it again next year, but I'm also just going to use plain old dirt.  Nothing fancy.

Last year's crop: 

This year's crop: 

Overwhelmed

Why is it that you nurture your plants for months and finally when it comes time to harvest -- you have far far too much?  Right now, we're drowning in plenty.

For a couple of weeks now I've had a tomato here and a tomato there.  Suddenly I've got six REALLY BIG tomatoes on my counter and more out on the vine ripening. 

Only about a third of the bean plants at the cottage survived the rabbits.  Those that did have been giving me one or two measly beans a week.  This weekend they were bursting with beans.  I picked a big bag.  Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated this and bought a bag of beans at the local farmers market.

The home bean plants are at least a month behind the cottage beans, but suddenly they're producing.  We should be picking by the end of the week.

I took the cottage beans and a BIG tomato down the street to my folks.  Only they already had a bowl full of ripe tomatoes and more nearly ready on the vines.  And while we were sitting on the patio chatting, their next-door neighbor gave them a BIG basket of green beans.  So I took my produce and walked home.  (Humph!)

Instead of crackers and cheese, I had a bowl of tomatoes for my happy hour snack.  I cooked the whole bag of farmers market green beans and plan on having the leftovers for lunch (with some curry sauce).  I imagine we'll be eating tomatoes for every meal for the foreseeable future.

All summer I've worried about the potatoes.  If they produce half of what I'm getting in beans and tomatoes, then I'm about to be inundated.  (At least they store better.)

Here's a shot of last year's crop.  I have a feeling there will be a lot more this year.

Crop Update

This summer I've grown used to looking up from my computer screen and gazing fondly out the window at my little tomato patch.  From here I can see at least seven tomatoes ranging in hues from green to bright red.  Every morning I go out and visit my little tomato patch.  When it's dry, I lovingly water them.  When it's wet, I just admire them.  And I love the smell of the leaves.  Ahhhhh....

So far I've picked two tomatoes and two have fallen off.  We haven't eaten any, because...well, perhaps I jumped the gun with my harvesting.  (Tonight for sure!)  I wish I could say they were all perfect specimens, but they're not.  In fact, they're all kinda butt ugly.  I mean that literally.  I don't know if it's blossom end rot or what, but one looks like it has three hind ends that never really formed.  (Boo hoo hoo--I'm the grower of deformed tomatoes.)  But I'm sure they'll taste just fine. 

Last year we grew potatoes in the same patch of earth.  I thought I did a pretty good glean, but apparently I didn't.  Frank yanked up one plant, and left another.  It has already shriveled up, but I don't want to dig up the bounty because one of the tomato plants is right next to it and is still producing.  So I don't know if A) I have anything to dig up, and B) what kind of potatoes they'll be.  (I'm hoping for red.)

Meanwhile my tub of potatoes may well be a crop failure.  I made the mistake of using Miracle Grow dirt.  Yowie! Said my seedlings, and they invested an awful lot of their energy making great BIG healthy plants.  Plants that put that much effort into leaves seldom produce much of a crop.  Oh well, live and learn.  They're not anywhere near done, so it'll probably be a month before I find out how few potatoes we'll actually get to eat.

At the cottage, the few spindly bean plants that survived the rabbits have started to produce, despite the fact the Japanese Beetles are decimating the leaves.  So far I think I've picked 30 beans.  The beans here at home are still growing; they're now over the top of the arbor and looking to latch onto the maple tree overhead.  They don't seem the least bit interested in flowering.  Oh well....  Beans are dirt cheap (as are potatoes) at the weekly farmer's market up at the Mall. 

Next to the tomato patch is the biggest stand of cosmos I've ever had.  I had such rotten luck growing them from seed last year that I bought big healthy plants from the nursery.  They, too, said "Yowie!  We're happy here!" and have invested a lot of effort into growing tall.  So far we've had four flowers out of seven plants.  (One, unfortunately died at a tender age.  I think it was murdered by its brothers.  It was, after all, in the back row and probably starved of light.)  One of the plants is as tall as me, and I'm 5' 7" (it's one that hasn't had a flower).  I'm hoping it'll have a lot of flowers during September.  They're in a sheltered space and may well live until late October.  It'll be nice to see some color out there.

Three weeks and the Big Blue Baggie goes over the money pit.  I always dread pool closing.  It means the end of summer.  Well, not really.  We usually have another 3-4 weeks of fine weather, but we don't want leaves in the pool, so we usually close up by September 9th. 

Sigh...the end of summer.  But I've got a lot on my plate for this fall.  And I hope I can tell you more about it next week.

Until then, my lips are sealed.