Post Season: First Snow

On Christmas Eve, we were out and about without coats.  By yesterday morning (Christmas Day)....BRRRR!  We woke up today to a couple of inches of show on the ground, and it's still falling. 

There's always breakfast at Nanny's house on Christmas morning:  home-made biscuits, country ham and sausage, sawmill gravy, eggs, potatoes, pies, and cakes.  Between the feasting and the present-opening, I took a quick stroll out to the garden to see how the "fall garden" was faring.

You might recall that I planted sugar snap peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, radishes, beets, and greens in October.  It appears that I planted them a little too late.  We've been eating greens and radishes for a few weeks now.  A couple of the broccoli plants have tennis ball heads on them, but they've been nipped by the few frosts that we've had and don't look very appetizing.  The brussels sprouts have formed promising-looking leaf cups in the center, but no stalks yet.  It will be interesting to see how they react to seriously cold weather.  I'm going to leave them in the ground and see if they'll kick into gear in the spring. 

I was hopeful that we would be eating snap peas this fall.  They grew and bloomed nicely, but I haven't seen a single pea pod.  Judging from the hoof prints up and down the row and the truncated vines, the deer apparently have seen them and have relieved me of the chore of picking and eating them. 

It looks like my outdoor gardening is officially over for 2012.  But, just think, it's only about 6 more weeks until it's time to break ground for the early spring crops, like potatoes and cabbages and broccoli.  I have seeds left over from the fall plants; it'll soon be time to start them indoors for the spring garden. 

Meanwhile, there's a quilt in the quilt frame that's demanding my attention, one in pieces on my work counter, and one more still in the fabric store sack that I haven't even cut out, yet.  I'd best get busy if they're to be finished by spring. 

Holiday decorating

This past weekend, The Husband and I went shopping for a birthday present for our grandson.  As we passed through the Christmas decorations section, he spotted a bin of plastic, lighted candy canes, the 2-ft. tall kind that people put along their driveways and sidewalks, and had to have some for our yard.

His vision was to line both sides of our driveway and front walk with them.

He intended to buy 8 of them, and to set them about 5 feet apart.

I said, "Eight is not going to do it.  If we're going to do both sides of the driveway and the front walk, we need at least 20."  We commenced picking through the bin, making sure that the ones we chose still had their plastic stakes attached, making sure that we had an equal number of red-striped canes and green-striped canes....

Since the birthday party wasn't until later in the afternoon, we came back home after our shopping trip and unloaded our purchases.  The Husband immediately started removing the plastic wrapping from the candy canes (a chore so onerous that it deserves its own blog entry).  Upon unwrapping the first cane, he discovered that its electrical cord was only about a foot long. 

Our 100 feet of lighting suddenly shrank to 20 feet.  Our options were to scale down our project, or buy 20 extension cords.

Ok, so maybe we'll do JUST the front walk, and just one side of it.

Since this was The Husband's idea, he assumed the task of setting up the canes.  Green/white, red/white, green/white, red/white...all perfectly upright in a perfectly straight row.  We lacked about 3 canes having enough to line one side of the front walk all the way to the porch.  I said I'd get more on Monday. 

While I was cleaning up the discarded plastic wrappings, The Husband dragged our other outdoor decorations from the attic:  5 light-and-ornament-laced pine garlands, and 5 pine wreaths with flattened red velvet bows.  Over the years, we've gotten the outdoor decorating business down pat.  We lay the garlands along the brick ledges on the front of our house and hang one across the porch.  The wreaths get suction-cupped to the front windows and front door, et voila!, decorating's done.  While I hung the wreaths, he rounded up the necessary extension cords.  We had just enough time to test the garland lights before it would be time to leave for the birthday party.  When the Husband plugged in the final strand, the entire first strand went out.  He checked the fuse; sure enough, it had blown.  He checked the other lights to see if any of them had a spare fuse in the compartment.  Nope.  He pocketed the blown fuse, and said we'd go in search of a replacement after the party. 

Neither the local hardware store nor the local dollar store had a replacement fuse, nor did they have a matching strand of lights that we could've used for spare parts.  We came home, vowing to continue our search in the coming week, and plugged in the all the lights - garlands and candy canes - to admire our handiwork in the darkness. 

It was then that we discovered that two of the red/white candy canes contained red lights, not white ones like all the rest.

This is the kind of occurrence that drives The Husband crazy.  He likes everything just so. We'd been careful, or so we'd thought, in choosing the canes, never noticing that some of them were stuffed with red lights.  Removing the two red-lit canes would've eliminated the offense, but it would also have upset the green/white-red/white order.  What's a person to do?  I said that I'd get 5 canes, instead of 3, when I went back to the store.  Meanwhile, we'd just have to live with the two anamolies.

Yesterday afternoon when I went to the grocery store, I ventured a little farther in search of a fuse for the garland lights, thinking I might also run across more of the same candy canes we'd bought from the other store.  I struck out at the local stores.  My 5-year-old grandson had accompanied me on this trip, and since he was whining that he was hungry and needed to pee, I gave up the search and came home. 

Not long after I got home, The Husband announced that the fuse problem was solved, as he had found a spare in the only strand of lights that he had not checked the previous day.  I went out to admire his work, and stood way back to take in the overall effect.

Four of the five wreaths had either slid all the way down the windows or had fallen to the ground....

(...likely to be continued....)

It's Fall, Y'all

We've had a few faintly frosty nights lately.  Yesterday, I went down to the garden to see what havoc they caused. 

The purple hull peas are goners.  It's a shame that I did not get the seeds in the ground a couple of weeks earlier; most of the pods did not have time to fully fill out. 

The pepper plants are wilty, but the peppers still hanging on them are fine, since we haven't had freezing temperatures yet.  Ditto for the tomatoes. 

Everything else - greens, radishes, broccoli, and brussels sprouts - stood up well to the frost.  The greens are pickin' size, finally.  Radishes are ready to eat.  The beets are still small, but doing well.  The broccoli and brussels sprouts look as though they're considering doing some work.  The sugar snap peas have bloomed, but I'm not finding any pods yet.  I wonder if the bees have been too cold and sluggish to do any pollenating.

I have decided that I like fall gardening better than summer gardening.

Fall Garden Check-Up

Yesterday afternoon, as soon as we returned from a camping trip (which you can read about at www.susanshappytrails.blogspot.com as soon as I get around to posting), I went to the garden to see how things were growing.

The broccoli and brussels sprouts are looking great!  The radishes have marble-sized roots.  Greens are coming along nicely. 

We have three volunteer plants that I thought were squash.  Never mind that I did not plant any squash where these things sprouted; they had the look of squash plants, and when they bloomed, they looked like squash blooms.  They are starting to fruit now, and I have no idea what they are.  They are shaped like yellow squash, but they are mint green. 

Last Monday, I planted more seeds - bok choy, cabbage, rainbow chard, and lettuce.  It may have been pure insanity to plant these things this late.  I've never even seen rainbow chard, but it looked pretty on the package, so I thought, "Why not?"  It has rained here since I planted this last batch of seeds, and I could not walk between the rows without sinking in the mud.  The whole garden has tiny little green things coming up everywhere, most of which are weeds, and from a distance I could not tell if the new seeds have sprouted.  But I put some of the lettuce seeds in a planter box on the patio, and they have sprouted, so hopefully there's lettuce in the garden, too.

The purple hull peas I planted several weeks ago are starting to mature.  Nanny said that she picked and shelled "a cup full" of peas, and that they may not be purple hull peas because their "eyes" are pink.  Pink eyes or not, we are hoping that the first frost holds off long enough to allow the rest of the crop to mature.

Cool-Weather Plants

Saturday I planted the broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started indoors a while  back.  They've been living on my front porch for a few weeks, where they've been getting serious afternoon sun.  I hope they like their new digs.

Today I planted turnips, mustard greens, kale, spinach, and collards.  The spinach seeds were left-overs from some previous year; time will tell if they're still viable.  I also planted radishes and beets.

It may be too late in the year for everything but the greens, but there's no harm in trying, right? 

Oh, and NEWSFLASH!  We have carrots!  Not just little matchstick-sized things, either, but full-fledged carrots.  It's a gardening first for me.

Blue Moons

The mailman left fall garden seeds in my mailbox this week - sugar snap peas, cabbage, beets, radishes, and carrots.  I decided this afternoon that I'd better get busy preparing the soil for planting. 

Right now, my garden is about halfway toward being a mess (or, for the glass-half-full folks, it's 1/2 clean).  The front 1/4 was recently plowed and disked and is ready for tilling.  At the far edge of this strip stands a double row of the scrawniest rattlesnake bean plants you ever saw, plants that have only made one pickin' of beans all summer.  I decided to let them stand, having had, in past years, sickly plants suddenly spring to life with the September rains and bear until frost.  My intention is to plant the sugar snap peas right beside them, so that the peas can use the existing string supports.  On the other side of the bean trellis are several rows of beans, peppers, and tomatoes.  It is all over-grown; the tomatoes have fallen over, cages and all.  Beyond these rows are three immaculately clean rows of purple hull peas that are just starting to grow, a grassy row of scraggly tomatoes, and three more clean rows of purple hull peas. 

The task I set for myself this afternoon was to (1) apply lime and fertilizer to the front 1/4 of the garden and till it into the soil, and (2) plant the sugar snap peas.  All I actually accomplished was applying the lime and fertilizer, and tilling the soil one row wide on either side of the bean trellis where the snap peas will go.  As I was tilling, it occurred to me that we're about to have a blue moon.  I think I shall wait until Friday to plant the blue-green, moon-shaped seeds.  ;)

The broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started from seeds a couple of weeks ago are ready to go in the garden.  They're going in the front 1/4, once I prepare the soil.  I planted the cabbage seeds indoors yesterday.  I don't know whether they'll grow in time to make heads before winter. 

I still haven't decided what to do about the carrots and beets.  I've not had much luck with root vegetables.  This clay soil is just too hard.  Fellow gardeners have suggested that I mix some sand into the soil, but online sources say that it takes a lot of sand - a truck load for a big garden - to help clay soil.  But I've had another idea.  I saw a 10-ft.-long livestrock feeding trough in a farm supply ad.  I could fill it with half soil and half sand and plant the seeds there, and it could happen in my very own yard (instead of across the road in Nanny's yard), where I can keep a watch on the plants.  I'll let you know if it works!

Fall Gardening

The summer garden is getting tired, and I am tired of fooling with it.  Yesterday, I decided that it was time to get rid of some of the most troublesome and least-producing areas.  I pulled up some tomatoes that weren't earning their keep.  The Husband cranked up the tractor and plowed and disked the front third of the garden, which was mostly sunflowers, scraggly tomatoes, and weeds.  So far, I've managed not to kill the broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started 3 weeks ago.  They have been transplanted into plastic drinking cups (just try and find peat pots or pellets around here this time of year) and are now living on my front porch.  In a couple of weeks, when this heat lets up, I'll move them to the garden.

Today, I made two more batches of pepper jelly.  I gave away at least half of the first batch.  It's kind of fun to make new pepper jelly converts.  Those who have never had it will crinkle up their noses and say, "Pepper jelly?"  But once I give them a jar and they try it, they're hooked.  Today's second batch also has onions in it (I was a tad short on peppers).  I haven't tasted it yet, but it smelled delicious while it was cooking.

Purple Hull Peas

This evening, The Husband and I planted six rows of purple hull peas.  We missed the almanac's planting window by a day, but maybe they'll make.

The broccoli and brussels sprouts that I planted last week have come up.  I could not believe how quickly they sprouted.  I planted them Friday afternoon.  By Saturday night, there was a white dot in one of the tray compartments on the broccoli side.  By Sunday morning, ALL of the broccoli side had sprouted.  By Monday afternoon, the brussels sprouts were up, too.

They're leggy, though.  They're in a south window, with a flourescent light shining on them, but they seem to need more light than they're getting.  I'm scared to put them outside - even in the shade - in this heat.  Cross your fingers that I can keep them alive until they can go outside.

Canning Frenzy

As soon as I can work up the energy to get up, I'm going to bed.

It was a long day in the kitchen. 

When I went to bed last night, my plan was to get up early this morning and go to the garden before it got so hot.  I didn't factor in that big old margarita I had with dinner last night.  It was almost 9 before my feet hit the floor.  I was slightly headache-y, slow and mean.  Before I'd even finished my first cup of coffee, Nanny called, wondering if I was planning on working in the garden.  I said I was, and that I'd be down there as soon as we finished breakfast. 

It was hot as blazes.  Nanny was already out there, and had picked the squash and eggplants and was working on the tomatoes.  All I really wanted was a few hot peppers and a few squash.  But the butterbeans needed picking - some of them had already dried up - and I knew that if I pick get them Nanny would, and she was already hot enough. 

I came home with a two buckets of tomatoes, a sack of squash, and a sack of hot peppers.  In addition, there were two grocery bags full of pears on my kitchen table.  I set to work peeling and chopping.  By 4 p.m., I'd canned four pints of pear butter, 5 pints of squash pickle, and 6 pints of pepper jelly. 

I made the pear butter a little differently this year.  These little pears were slightly under-ripe and hard as rockes.  Instead of peeling them then cooking them, I just washed them, put them in a roasting pan, and baked them in the oven at 350 for an hour.  They came out brown and wrinkly.  When they cooled, I quartered them and stuffed them through my Sauce Master, peelings, cores, and all, using the juice screen.  The ground pulp felt a little gritty, so I ran them through the squeezer again, using the berry screen (it has a finer mesh).  The second squeezing took out a lot of the "grit."  I put sugar, lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, and cloves in them and cooked them until they were hot and bubbly, then put them in the jars and water bathed them.  In retrospect, I wonder if I should have pressure canned them.  Maybe I'll research that tomorrow.

After the canning was done (which, as you will know if you've ever done any canning, involves washing a mountain of pots, pans, bowls, measuring cups, spoons....) I had to go to the grocery store, as we'd invited the kids over for dinner.  When I got home, the men-folk were doing stuff on the tractor.  It was 9 p.m. by the time we ate.

I'm going to bed.

Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli

Lately, I've been too busy gardening to blog about it.  Actually, the work has been in the kitchen instead of the garden.

The tomatoes are cranking out their fruit.  Last week was the first week that we had enough tomatoes at once to put some up.  Nanny canned 4 quarts of tomatoes one day, and a couple of days later I picked enough to can 4.5 quarts of plain old tomatoes, and 6 pints of chili sauce.  I made the chili sauce with the Lemon Boy tomatoes.  I used red onions, red and green bell peppers, and red and green hot peppers.  The cider vinegar and brown sugar turned the mixture a pretty golden color.  It's good!  It's a little on the hot side - I threw in a few of the tiny, hotter-than-firecrackers Thai peppers - but I like it that way.

Last night I made salsa - 6 pints - and mixed the yellow and red tomatoes together.  It is prettier in the jars than I anticipated.  I "stumped my toe" on the cumin.  While it may not be so great for just plain chip-dipping, it ought to be yummy for cheese dip.

We opened a jar of squash pickle last weekend.  It's good, too!  I had thought I was tired of squash and was contemplating yanking up the plants and putting something in their place, but I might let them crank out one more batch of squash pickle, first.

On the canning agenda for this afternoon:  hot pepper jelly.  The peppers are doing obscenely well this year, and we love hot pepper jelly on chicken, pork, or with cream cheese on crackers.

We started our garden too late this spring to fool with cabbages, broccoli, and brussels sprouts.  I've always wanted to try growing them in the fall, but the garden centers around here only carry those seedlings in the spring.  Today, I bought one of those 72-pellet tray greenhouses and planted half of it with broccoli and the other half with brussels sprouts.  Now, if I can just remember to keep it watered....

Glorious Corn!

Twenty-five ears of corn - corn I grew! - chillin' in my freezah.  Yeah. 

I wasn't planning on picking corn when I went to the garden to start the soaker hose in the green beans.  Truth is, I don't know when it's ripe enough.  I've just been letting it sit on the stalks.  Meanwhile the racoons have intensified their assault.  (Word must've gotten out in the 'coon community.)  My neat corn rows have a strip-mined look about them. 

This evening, The Husband stepped in and took charge.  He picked and shucked and silked, and we blanched them and put them in freezer bags.  Nice-looking corn.  Twenty-five ears that the racoons didn't get. 

The Husband thinks there may be that many more ears that will be ready in the next few days.  I figure we ought to be good for another dozen, assuming the racoons only get *half* of what's still out there.  They may step up their own harvest when they realize they've been raided.

Some Like It Hot

There were blackberries at the farmer's market today.  I couldn't remember how many pounds/quarts of blackberries it takes to make a batch of jelly, and I'd left my cell phone at the office and couldn't google it nor even call anybody who might have a box of Sure-Jell in the pantry.  So I guessed I needed 5 quarts.  Cost me $20, which is a bargain considering the misery I'd suffer by picking the little wild knobby ones rimming the field behind our house.

I came home and washed the berries.  Had to wash jars.  Had to climb up in the attic to get the Sauce Maker.  (Grabbed the pressure canner while I was up there - I'll be needing that soon.)  Had to wash the Sauce Maker, then figure out how its million pieces fit together.  It's all gaskets and wing nuts and augers and clamps, and everything has to fit together just right, or you'll squeeze juice all over your shoes while you're cranking it.  And you have to clamp it to the table really, really well - I know whereof I speak in this - or you'll send the whole business flying.  My kitchen table is round, and it's hard to clamp something to a round edge.  I had the idea of pulling the leaves apart and clamping it at the interior seam, but I couldn't get the table to come apart by myself. 

About that time, my daughter-in-law called and said they were coming over for a visit.  I told them that I was squeezing blackberries for jelly, but they could come anyway.  They were warned. 

I put my daughter-in-law to work stirring and skimming almost the minute they came through the door.  My 5 quarts of blackberries had yielded a big pitcher full of blackberry juice - enough for three cookings of jelly, 8 pints, altogether.  We ran just a tad short on juice for the third batch, and made up for it with orange liqueur.  (In retrospect, I wish we'd used chocolate liqueur, instead.  Maybe I should make one more trip to the farmer's market for one more batch of blackberries.)

After we finished the jelly, I started a batch of salsa.  We had to go to the garden to get peppers and onions.  The Thai pepper plant is loaded with tiny peppers.  They are hotter than firecrackers.  I picked a few of them for the salsa, and one to offer my son, who claims to have a thing for hot peppers.  I warned him it was hot.  He bit the end off his pepper and chewed.  One second later, he said, "Woo!"  Two seconds later, he said, "Woooooo!" and spat the pepper into the garbage can.  Heh.  At least I warned him.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Folks, it's a red letter day.

Sunday, July 1, 2012:  I pulled two ears of ripe corn today.

At least, I hope they are ripe.  Having never had corn to actually ripen before the racoons got it, I'm not altogether sure when to pick it.

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen.  We gathered a few yesterday, and I made spaghetti sauce with them.    I'm growing some different varieties this year, tomatoes that don't turn red when they're ripe - Lemon Boy and Mr. Stripey.  It's hard to tell when they're ready.  I picked one of the Lemon Boys Friday afternoon, and Nanny and I lit into it with a kitchen knife and the salt shaker to taste it, but it wasn't quite ripe.  The Husband picked a Mr. Stripey yesterday.  I wasn't sure it was ready, either, but today I sliced it, anyway, and it was delicious.  The flesh was...buttery.  It was so big that one slice covered an entire piece of bread. 

I squished the first tomato worm this afternoon while I was watering the garden.  Time for a dose of BT.

The squash is still coming strong, as are the cucumbers.  I put up six pints of squash relish yesterday, and still had a couple of pounds of squash left over.  The Husband will probably give them away at work tomorrow.

The zucchini are beginning to bloom.  Rattlesnake beans are running nicely up their supports. 

Pickling Woes

Nanny called yesterday afternoon and said that she'd picked a 5-gallon bucket full of cucumbers and a 3-gallon bucket of squash.  She said she was going to make another batch of relish with the biggest cucumbers, and that I should come get the rest.

I'd already made several jars of relish and several jars of pickles, and I decided that this time I would try to make those good, cinnamon-y cucumber rings that taste like apples, the ones you make with Red Hots.  I stopped by the grocery store for supplies, and found everything but the pickling lime.

That made the third time I've looked for pickling lime without finding any.  What's up with that?  All of the stores are carrying a product called "Pickle Crisp" instead of lime.  You don't soak your cucumbers in it; you sprinkle it on the cucumbers in the jars, pour the pickling brine in, and then seal up the jars.  I did this with the first batch of kosher pickles.

The Cinnamon Cucumber Rings recipe calls for soaking the cucumbers in lime overnight.  The next day, the cucumbers are rinsed and simmered in water and vinegar, then they're supposed to soak overnight in a mixture of vinegar, sugar, Red Hots, cinnamon, and water.  Since I couldn't find any lime, I skipped that step and went straight to the simmering. 

Big mistake.  I ended up with a pan of limp zeroes.  I went ahead and made the Red Hot brine to pour over them, but I will probably wind up throwing this batch away.

While the cucumbers were simmering, I opened up a jar of the pickles I'd made with the Pickle Crisp.  They are not mushy, but they are not crisp, either.  (I'm hoping that a few hours in the refrigerator will perk them up.)  I am not confident that the Pickle Crisp can revive the poor cucumber rings without divine intervention. 

I did a little research and discover that pickling lime is no longer recommended.  It seems that if you don't wash it off well enough, it can jack around with the acidity of your pickles, and botulism can grow.  That must be why the stores aren't carrying it.

Phooey on that.  Mrs. Wages is still selling pickling lime on her web site, and I have ordered four bags of it - enough to get me through the next couple of seasons, I bet!

But I'll be very careful to wash it off well. 

Intruder Alert!

I watered the garden yesterday, gave it a good soaking.  It took nearly all day.  As I was puttering around, I noticed that a couple of cornstalks were seriously leaning toward the ground.  The husks had been peeled back to expose the kernels, and a few bites were missing from the cobs.  Danged racoons!  Apparently, my high-tech sonic pest deterrent isn't working.  We need a more serious deterrent, something along the lines of a 12-gauge.

Otherwise, the garden is doing well.  The Ford Hook butterbeans have big pods on them, and they are beginning to fill out.  Tomatoes are loaded with fruit.  The butternut squash have baby butternuts on them.  The rattlesnake beans are beginning to put out runners.  The cucumbers and crookneck squash are still cranking out product.  The watering ought to send them into high gear.

It's going to be really hot (upper 90s) for the next few days, but the tropical storm in the Gulf is supposed to bring us some lower temperatures mid-week.  There are a lot of chores left to be done in the garden, but none that can't wait until Thursday evening, when it shouldn't be so hot.

* * * * * *

I had my second accupuncture appointment Saturday afternoon.  It might have been my last visit.

When I got out of the shower Saturday morning, there was black stuff oozing from my taped-up belly-button.  It was those Chinese herb beads melting.  I peeled off the tape, dug out the beads, and cleaned out the remaining goo.  Yuck.  The "beads" taped to my ear, belly, and arms were holding fast.  I did not mess with them, except to take one off my ear that was feeling sore.  Examining the tape, I found a tiny little black dot, about the size of a sesame seed, and I wondered how it could've made my ear sore.

On this second visit, the accupuncture doctor poked me in some different places - two in my cheek, one in my neck, more in my feet and on my stomach, and one on the back of each wrist.  Despite my protests, he insisted on giving me another B-12 shot.  They filled up my belly button with beads again, and said for me to come back on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week.  He said that if I continued to follow his instructions - no fried foods, no fat, no nuts, no meat - I should lose 3 - 5 pounds in the coming week.

Hell, I could lose 3 - 5 pounds without getting poked.

I did not make the appointments while I was standing at the counter, paying for this second visit.  The first visit had cost $175, herbs and all.  The second visit was $75, including the B-12 shot.  The thing was that I could not see many results from the first visit.  I might have had a little more flexibility in my hands, but the accupuncture treatments and the bead-pressing hadn't seemed to curb my appetite at all.  I wanted to think about it a bit before making any more appointments.

I went straight from the accupuncture office to my granddaughter's birthday party.  She noticed the little tape squares on my arms and started asking questions.  When I told her there were "beads" under the tape, she insisted on seeing one.  Thinking that I could re-stick the tape, I peeled one off to show her.  There wasn't a "bead" under the tape as there had been on the one I'd taken off my ear; there was a needle under it!  A tiny, 1/16" long needle!  Ohhhh, it gave me the creeps.  Then I thought about the tapes on my stomach.  They'd been "pricking" me all afternoon.  When I came home from the party, I peeled one of the stomach tapes off, and, sure enough, there was a needle in it, too. 

I went crazy peeling off tapes. 
I pulled off the remaining seven tape squares (every one of which contained a tiny needle). 
I pulled off the tape over my belly button and dug out the beads.  In doing so, I discovered another needle in my belly button. 
I dug the remaining "beads" out of my ears.

I think I've had enough accupuncture for this lifetime.

Human Pincushion

Today, I went to an accupuncturist.

Seriously.  Given my fear of needles, it's nothing short of a miracle.

I did this after a friend went to see this doctor for back problems.  For weeks, she'd been barely able to walk and was in constant pain.  A neurologist diagnosed a ruptured disk and a herniated disk in her lower back.  A friend of hers recommended this accupuncturist.  After two treatments, she is pain free.  She showed me the accupuncturist's brochure.  It listed treatment for all sorts of things.  I went to see him for weight loss and relief from carpal tunnel syndrome.

He came in, talked with me a bit, and gave me some herbs to swallow.  Then he had me strip down to my underwear, lie down on a table, and cover up with a paper sheet.  A few minutes later, he came back into the room and started pressing around on my body.  "Which is more tender, one, two or three?"  When I'd call out the number, he'd jab a needle there.  He worked on mostly on my legs and belly.  On the top side of each wrist he stuck one needle, and he stuck one right between my eyes.  The whole thing only took a few minutes, and it was not at all painful; I might have felt a tiny prick with the first needle in my leg, but not even a twinge after that.  Once I was all pierced, he left.  The nurse pulled a srong red light over to the table and shined it on my stomach.  She told me to rest for 15 minutes.  During this rest period, I opened my eyes and looked down my body.  "Pincushion" was the thought that came to mind.


When she came back, she took out the needles (also painless), taped my belly button full of some little black Chinese herb beads, taped more beads to my abdomen and left ear, and said we were done.  She said not to eat any meat, oil, nuts, or peanut butter for 24 hours.  I'm supposed to press these beads several times a day.

They also gave me an assortment of herbs to take at home, before and after meals.  I'm also supposed to drink a daily cup of green lotus tea. 

I'm going back tomorrow for another treatment.  We'll see what they recommend next.

I know one thing:  choosing to go to this doctor today has screwed up my Friday Night Margarita outing.  :-\

Picklin'

There are 6 quarts of kosher dill pickles, some with a hefty handful of jalapeno peppers thrown in, cooling in the canner right now.  And in the refrigerator is a big old bowl of chopped cucumbers, peppers, and onions soaking in salt water that will be cucumber relish in about 3 hours. 

I have a canning book called Putting Up More by Stephen Palmer Dowdney.  (I believe there was an original Putting Up, but I didn't run across it in the store the day I bought this book.)  It is just full of delicious-sounding recipes.  Among them is a recipe for "Summer Squash Pickle" that I'll be trying if the yellow squash is still producing when the zucchini starts to come in.  Here's the recipe in case you're interested:

Summer Squash Pickle (makes 7 pints)

7 cups cubed yellow squash (1-inch pieces)
3 cups sliced zucchini (no more than 1" thick)
1.5 cups diced red onion
2.5 cups diced red pepper
2 carrots, sliced into 1" pieces, then halved or quartered
7 cloves of garlic (1 for each jar)

Saltwater Solution:  1 quart water + 3/4 cup salt

Pickling Solution: 
2.5 cups cider vinegar (5% acidity)
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons whole celery seed
1 teaspoon dry mustard.

In a pot, glass baking dish, or other large container, spread out the squash and onion, sprinkle salt on top and leave for 2 hours minimum.  [Note:  this is evidently additional salt, not the salt for the "saltwater solution".  The recipe does not say how much salt is sprinkled on top.]

When ready to proceed, add saltwater solution, stir once, and drain well, but do not rinse.  Mix remaining vegetables together, except for the garlic.  Put 1 garlic clove in each sterile jar and fill with remaining vegetables.

Prepare the pickling solution by mixing all ingredients together in a non-reactive pot, place over heat, and bring to a boil.  ("Non-reactive" means something other than aluminum.) 

Place the jars in the canning rack, fill with pickling solution, and check the pH of the liquid.* Place the thermometer in the center jar with the special lid, loosely lid the other jars, and lower into the boiling [water] bath, ensuring the water level does not come higher than the fill line on the jars.**  As the water beings to return to a boil, lower heat slightly to prevent further boiling.

When canning temperature reaches 200 degrees F, wait 2 minutes before removing jars.  Tighten lids, replace center lid, and invert all jars for 2 minutes minimum.

* This pH check is supposed to be done with pH strips.  I don't have any of these.  The recipe says that the pH of the liquid should be below 4.3.  The author says that he has tested the all of the recipes in the book, and that they should all be at a safe pH level.

** These instructions are foreign to me.  I will be using the old-fashioned water bath method (where you put the lids on the jars, lower them into water that covers the jars by 1", and, once the water boils, start timing), and will be processing my jars for 15 minutes.  I'm typing the instructions from the book's preface in case you want to follow his method.

"The center jar, known as the cold jar because it is always filled first, will hold a thermometer inserted thru a temporary makeshift lid with a small hole in the center (a 1-minute homemade project).  The remaining jars, usually six, are loosely capped with sterile lids so air can flow out; once tightened, an excellent vacuum can be created as the jars cool.  The rack is lowered slowly and carefully into the boiling water bath.  The water level in the bath cannot go beyond the fill rings, or canning lines.  Again, this is critical when water bathing because one cannot allow water to enter the loosely sealed jars.  The water in the bath will stop boiling as the jars are lowered in.  At the first signs of boiling, lower the heat slightly to prevent the bubbling water from entering the loosely capped jars.  When the prescribed temperature is reached, wait 2 additional minutes before removing the rack.  Once out of the bath, tighten each jar's lid, replace the lid on the center jar, and finally invert all jars for a minimum of 2 minutes."

Squashed to Death

We've been on vacation all week, got home yesterday evening.  I was anxious to see how the garden was doing, but was too tired to aim myself in that direction.  The first thing after breakfast this morning, I went to have a look.

Gah!  I couldn't believe how much it has grown! 

When I left, the corn was barely shoulder-high; now, it is far above my head, and tasslin' and silkin'!  I set out some sonic pest inhibitors at the ends of the corn rows, aiming them toward the woods behind the garden, hoping to annoy the raccoons enough that they won't bother the corn.  As smart as 'coons are, they'll probably plug their ears and move on in.

The tomato plants are out of control.  When the plants were small, I put tomato cages over them to hold the main stalk upright, but I have not been stuffing the limbs up through the mesh, and the limbs are now trailing all over the ground.  There are no longer any "middles" in those rows.  We've picked a few ripe tomatoes, already.  So has the turtle. 

The squash and cucumbers are in high gear.  We can't give away one picking of squash before it needs picking again!  I'll be starting a batch of cucumber pickles tomorrow.

The little black tiller came home today.  He'd been at my son's house since early spring.  Seeing how much the garden has grown - it's now too "close" for the big tiller - I demanded Little Black's return.  The minute he came home, I took him to the garden and cranked him up.  He is such a good weeder.  I've missed him so!

I had to cut my tilling short when I noticed blight on one of the tomato plants and had to stop to spray fungicide.  Yeah, I hate the stuff, too, but what else can I do?  This property apparently hosts every strain of blight known to man, and probably a morphed strain or two that's not even in the textbooks. 

Mysteries Solved

I stopped by the dollar store on my way to work yesterday morning to buy a ball of jute string.  This store has a good greenhouse and other needful gardening stuff.  My friend D. works there as manager of the greenhouse and is an avid gardener, herself.  We got right down to the business of talking about our vegetable gardens.

She, too, has a load of volunteer tomatoes from last year's crop.  Her philosophy on these volunteers was the same as mine: if they're in the paths between the rows, they get chopped down; if they're out of the way of the hoe/tiller/feet, they can stay.  "I'm not tending to them, either," she said.  "I'm not staking them, or feeding them.  They're on their own.  They either make it, or they don't."  She said she has great clumps of them coming up under her green bean "teepees," and she is curious to see how well the beans and tomatoes will co-exist in the same space. 

She also said that she has thoroughly had it with weeding and has decided to mow the grass in the middles rather than remove it.  I'm kind of thinking that she might regret this decision next year, but we'll see.  If it works, I might try it next year, for I'm not too keen on weeding, myself.

The dollar store had only small balls of jute left in stock.  I bought three of them.  Yesterday evening, just after dinner, The Husband and I went to the garden to string the jute between the two rows of fence posts I'd set in the ground on the rattlesnake bean rows.  I'd strung baling wire between them, one strand 6" from the ground, and one strand across the tops of the posts.  The plan was to tie the jute strings vertically, top and bottom, so that the beans can run up them.  The Husband and I each took a ball of jute and set to work on our separate rows.  It took about 30 seconds for us to realize that undertaking a job that requires repetitive bending so soon after dinner was not a good idea. 

After we used up the jute (I hadn't bought enough to finish the job), I showed my husband some dime-sized animal tracks I'd seen while I was setting the fence posts.  There was a double row of them.  Each impression was only 1/2" away from the previous one, but the two rows were a full hand-breadth apart.  They looked like mini-bulldozer tracks, and I had not been able to imagine what kind of animal had made them.  "Turtle tracks," The Husband said, almost immediately.  Ah, yes.  Mystery solved.  Nothing else would've taken such small steps. 

We have entertained turtles in the garden in previous years.  They will nip the bottoms of the ripe tomatoes that they can reach - and they can reach surprisingly high - and they will help themselves to cucumbers and anything else that's low to the ground.  We told Nanny to add turtles to the list of things that The Nephew can shoot if he finds them in the garden.  I wonder if turtle soup can be made from just any old kind of turtle.  ;)

The Husband and I solved one other outdoor mystery this morning.

Near Easter, we bought four ducklings to put on the small pond beside our house.  The idea was that they would help thin out the mosquito population and perhaps rid the pond of the billions of perch that have taken over.  Our daughter-in-law raised the baby ducks in her chicken coop until we thought they had grown large enough to fend for themselves.  We brought them home about a month ago.  Two of the ducks disappeared - I mean COMPLETELY disappeared - before the week was out.  No signs of a struggle, no feathers laying about.  Just gone.  A week later, a third duck disappeared.  Same deal.  No feathers, no beaks or feet on the bank.  I did find a little bit of white fluff on the opposite side of the property, but couldn't be sure that it wasn't just fluff from the cottonwood trees.

Over the next month, the remaining duck survived to be a pretty good-sized duck.  It had learned to come when we'd go down to the pond with a cup of ground corn, calling "Ducky-duck?"  It would come waddling around the bank, whistling and quacking, ready to eat.  We wondered where we could find a full-grown duck to bring home so he/she wouldn't be so lonesome. 

Last week, Ducky-duck vanished.  

This morning, The Husband called, "Come here.  Hurry!"  I hustled to the living room.  He was standing at the window.  "Look on the swing set." 

There were two huge hawks perched on the swing set, and one hopping around in the yard, probably two parents and an offspring.  A bluejay was swooping the one on the ground. 

Last week, I'd heard screeching in the woods at that back corner of the yard, the very corner where I'd found the white fluff. 


The Husband and I said, at the same time, "That's what went with the ducks." 

I hope the bluejay is more successful at guarding her babies than we were. 

Seeds Up!

Thanks to the good rain, the rattlesnake beans, zucchini, and okra seeds shot out of the ground sometime between Sunday evening and Tuesday afternoon. 

Today, I hammered metal fence posts into the ground along the bean rows and strung wire between them, top and bottom.  As soon as I can find my roll of jute (or buy another one), I'm going to make a web between the two wires for the beans to climb. 

The garden is looking really good.  Corn is shoulder high, but isn't "tassling" yet.  Squash are producing.  Tomatoes are coming along.  Cucumbers are blooming, and here and there I'm seeing tiny little pickles.  The peppers are peppering.  The volunteer butterpeas are blooming.  Even the carrots are doing well!

No sign of any bugs today, except one squash bug.  I picked him off and crushed him with my shoe.  Tomorrow or the next day, I'll need to spray fungicide again to stay ahead of the blight.

More Rain

The chatter at work this morning was mostly about the creek-raising rain we got last night.

"Y'all can thank me for that," I said.  "I sprayed the garden yesterday morning."

From across the room, quiet-voiced Esther said, "Nope.  *I* did it."

I raised my eyebrows.  "What did you do?"

"I shot a snake," she said.  "And hung it, belly up, on the fence."

I had to concede that a snake-shooting trumps a garden-spraying.  Way to go, Esther!

Rain

It's raining right now.  Sort of.  It's an indecisive rain, one that falls intermittently between bouts of sunshine.  But it's rain, and we need it.  I heard the weatherman say that we're 12" behind for the year.  This should bring up the okra and rattlesnake beans I planted this week.

It's also going to wash off the fungicide and insecticide that I sprayed yesterday.  I'll have to do it all over again this weekend.  :-\ 

Actually, it's not a bad thing in terms of the squash.  After doing some reading, I'm not certain that the "BT" stuff I sprayed will kill squash bugs.  I bought a different kind of insecticide today, one that's supposed to be "eco-friendly" (though I'm not sure that the words "insecticide" and "eco-friendly" belong in the same sentence, unless there's a "not" between them).

Maintenance, Rattlesnake Beans, and Zucchini

Today was a beautiful day, so much cooler than the previous few days.  I was in the garden by 4 p.m., tilling up two rows for the rattlesnake beans that have been sitting on my kitchen table for weeks.  (I decided not to plant it with the corn, reasoning that if the raccoons take down the corn, they'll take down the beans with it.)  Just as I finished the tilling, I looked across the garden and noticed that two of my squash plants had wilted since yesterday.  I turned off the tiller and went for a closer look.  It appeared that both plants had been nicked with a hoe.  This was something of a relief, as I had feared the damage was from cutworms. 

But while I was inspecting the plant stems, I found bugs.  Many of them were copulating.  Some had already copulated, evidenced by little patches of brown eggs I saw on a few of the leaves.  I nearly had a stroke.

Luckily, I had stopped by the garden center for supplies - fungicide, insecticide, and fertilizer. 

Four hours later, the garden had been fungicided, BTd, and fertilized, and the beans had been planted.  We ought to be good to go for a week or more.

Before I sprayed, I picked about half a dozen squash, enough for our supper and Nanny's.  We sauteed ours with onions and ate it with Mexican cornbread.  Yum.

@!^%#

See the two vehicles in this picture?  My garden is between them and behind them about 100 feet. 

See the field?  A farmer rented this field from Nanny a few weeks ago.  Last Saturday, he planted soybeans using the "no-till" method.  The next day, he came back and sprayed broadleaf grass killer.  He told Nanny that he would spray low to the ground, and it would not damage anything in her yard.

The following Tuesday, this is how my corn looked:

The cucumbers and squash got a dose, too.

I was madder than a hornet.

Thankfully, the big shed and a smaller tool shed blocked the spray from most of the garden, but some of the chemical drifted through a gap between the tool shed and the tree line.  The entire rows of squash, cucumbers, and corn got it, all the way to the far end of the garden.  It looks like these plants are going to survive, but I'm still mad.  And the worst may be yet to come.  Once the beans sprout, he's planning to come back with Round-Up in his tank.  I don't know what to do to protect my garden, except to stretch black plastic across the "gap," and judging from how far the first herbicide drifted, this tactic may not be enough.

* * * * * *

"You're up mighty early," Nanny called from the back porch a few seconds after I walked past her kitchen window this morning. 

"I'm trying to hit the garden before the sun does," I said.  My plan was to chop around the plants, run the tiller up the middles, and then do some serious watering.  I went to the tool shed, grabbed my favorite hoe, and started chopping weeds on the pepper row.  A few minutes later, I looked up to find Nanny working among the cucumbers.  Together we made pretty short work of the squash and cucumber rows.  Nanny started on the corn rows while I went to drag the tiller out of the shed.

"How big does corn have to be before it can be laid by?" Nanny asked me as I was gassing up the tiller.

"I don't know," I said.  "What does 'laid by' mean?"

"It means we can quit chopping it."

"Oh.  Well, I think that corn can be laid by the day after Memorial Day," I told her.  Since today is Memorial Day, it brought us both a measure of relief.

About an hour later, The Husband showed up and offered to finish the tilling.  I let him, and started laying out the soaker hose among the cucumbers.  By the time I finished laying out the hoses and getting the water going, he'd finished the tilling and had picked up the hoe that I'd laid aside.  In a few minutes, I heard Nanny call to The Husband, "I see you over there, leaning on your hoe in the shade."  Before either of us could respond, she added, "Oh my goodness...I just heard my mama talking."

"You sounded just like her," The Husband said.

I did not know Grandmaw, so I wisely kept my mouth shut.

But I looked up a few minutes later, and caught them both leaning on their hoes in the shade.

It took me about two more hours to finish the watering.  During this time, I sank in the mud as I moved the soaker hoses from row to row.  It's a miracle I got out with my shoes.

Squash Blossoms

My boss turned me loose early today (bless her), and I've spent the afternoon running the tiller in the garden, working on my farmer tan. 

The oldest of the squash plants - the batch that came up from the first planting - have squash on them!  I bet we'll be eating them by next weekend.

The corn is a good foot tall.    As I was tilling  past it, I wondered if my idea about interplanting it with pole beans is a good idea.  It is almost a sure bet that the raccoons will eventually push the cornstalks over; when that happens, the beans will go down with the corn, and that will be one confounded mess.  

I've been trying to think of ways to foil the raccoons.  What I need is about three mean Dobermans.  ;)

Happy Carrot Day!

Guess what?  WE HAVE CARROTS!  Having never actually seen a growing carrot, I almost didn't recognize them and *almost* chopped them down when I was weeding today - had the hoe poised to decapitate them when it occurred to me what they were. 

I replanted the butterbeans today.  Only 1/3 of the original planting have come up.  As I was digging a drill between the skips, I uncovered a good many beans which had swollen and shot out a tap root.  Maybe I planted them too deep.  In any case, I planted about three times as many seeds as I needed to fill the gaps, hoping that enough will sprout to fill out the rows. 

Sunday, I discovered that one of my store-bought tomatoes was withering and had spots on the leaves.  I yanked him out and tossed him in the woods.  All the rest of the plants look healthy.  The "volunteers" have tomatoes on them, already, some almost big enough to fry.  Today, I sprayed fungicide again.

The corn is about a foot tall now.  I have packets of zucchini and rattlesnake beans that I intend to plant soon.  Before I plant the beans, I want to pick Uncle Jack's brain about their growing habits, as he grows them and will know how they act.  Maybe I'll see him at the softball field before the week is up, and we can talk a little gardening before our granddaughters' games.

Lastly, I'll send out a great big "thank-you" shout to whoever sharpened my hoe.  I sho'nuff appreciate it.

Rain and Refrigerator Repairmen

Mother Nature blessed us with a much-needed rain, a good "soaker," last Sunday night.  It brought up the squash seeds I'd planted earlier in the week, along with a gazillion morning glories and a right smart stand of grass.  The ground is still too wet to work.  Yesterday, Nanny said she went to the garden to chop the grass away from the volunteer tomatoes, lost both of her shoes in the mud, and nearly fell on her butt trying to heave them out.  I guess I forgot to show her the secret "paths" that I'd purposefully left un-tilled just to prevent such occurrences. 

Speaking of the volunteer tomatoes, watching them is amazing.  They sprang up from last year's crop of mostly heirloom tomatoes - Bradley, Roma, Arkansas Traveler, and maybe Juliette, which I believe is a hybrid.  They've been dug amongst and dislodged - that is, we've given away plants and pulled up plants to thin the row.  They took a hit from a light frost in March and got blasted with tiller exhaust last week.  They haven't been fertilized.  Yet, they sit there amongst the spring weeds, a little discolored and stunted, their stems thick and already bearing fruit, while the store-bought tomatoes on the other side of the garden spend their time primping their foliage instead of thinking about blooming.  More are coming up every day.  So far, I can tell only that they will be round tomatoes and oval tomatoes.  In a perfect world, the big, meaty Bradley will have made its way over to a cute little Roma to give us big, tasty, oval offspring.  ;)

Likewise, the volunteer butterpeas and cucumbers are established and tough.  The butterpeas are growing on a row of clumpy ground that was plowed and disked but was never finely tilled.  The crop is at least as thick as it would have been if I had done the planting, maybe even thicker.  Only one or two cucumbers sprang up, and they may turn out to be squash-cumbers since their former neighbors were zucchini, but I bet they will eat just fine. 

The red lettuce that came up last fall and survived the winter is now beginning to bolt.  The plants sit among low-growing weeds on ground that was neither plowed nor tilled this year.  I'm going to let them go to seed again and see what next year brings.

It seems like every summer our refrigerator wants to cause trouble.  It has already started this year.  Last Saturday, water squirted out of the ice dispenser, which led to the discovery that the refrigerator wasn't cooling.  The Husband called the Sears repair hotline right away (the first available appointment was Tuesday, "between the hours of 8 and 5"  Here we go again...), and then we began the process of emptying the contents of the refrigerator into coolers (which, naturally, necessitated a trip to a store to get ice).  Later that afternoon, the refrigerator decided to start working again and was still working fine come Tuesday.  At 4:45, we received a recorded phone call saying that the refrigerator repairman might be late (no kidding?).  About an hour after that, we got a call from the repairman, himself, saying he was on his way.  I asked him, "Can you fix it if it ain't broke?  'Cause for now, it's working just fine."  He seemed relieved not to have to make the call, but - get this, for this is the best part - he gave me his name and his cell phone number so that I can call him directly if the refrigerator wimps out again.  Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa....this may prove more valuable than gold. 

Fences

Last year, Pop-Pop had one of The Nephews sink some metal fence posts in the ground around the garden.  They then strung a series of wires between the posts, and electrified it, and sat back to watch the executions. 

The electric fence didn't last long, but the posts still stand, unwilling to come out of the ground for anyone interested in getting them out of the ground.  Yesterday, I looked at them and decided to put some hog wire between a couple of them and grow something on it.  I was torn between planting gourds and butternut squash.  The squash won.

Lately, every time I think about butternut squash, I think about my brother. 

My brother moved out of the boonies and into the city in his early 20s to pursue a law career.  Now that he's semi-retired, he has moved to the semi-boonies and, for the past few years, has been trying his hand at vegetable gardening.  Far be it from me to tease him about his gardening skills.  He's doing right well, in fact.  But last year, during a summer cookout, he complained that his yellow squash plants were producing faulty fruits.  "They're all turning brown before they mature," he said.  "I've had to throw away every one of them."  I asked him to show me.

Um-hmmm...you guessed it; he'd planted butternut squash, not yellow squash.

Isn't it fun when really smart people do really dumb sh*t?  ;)

Re-Planted the Squash

It appeared that those first few squash plants that sprouted were the only ones that intended to sprout, so today I re-planted the row.  As I was arranging the dirt, I uncovered a few swollen seeds that had run out a tap root.  I just dropped a few new seeds around them and re-covered them.

The butterbeans and cucumbers are coming up.  The corn is, too - it's about 3" tall.  The tomatoes have begun to bloom, even those "volunteer" tomatoes that shivered through the "blackberry winter" we had a couple of weeks ago. 

Nearly every chunk of the potatoes we planted has sprouted.  It's funny that in every year when we've "babied" the potato seedlings, cutting them just so, letting them heal, planting them with cottonseed meal to prevent rotting, we've had a pitiful showing, yet this year's crop, which we hacked up and stuffed in the ground without ceremony, is doing great (so far). 

Two blackberry bushes came in the mail today.  I'd be out there planting them, except that it looks like it's fixin' to rain (which figures, since I watered the garden really, really well two days ago), and I've got supper going on the stove.  Since the blackberry bushes were The Husband's idea, I may let him do the honors after we eat, if this cloud passes over without favoring us with a shower.

About that promise....

Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to plant any more tomatoes, but I couldn't help it.  Nanny and I went to the greenhouse yesterday to get more bell pepper plants.  We had to pass right by the tomatoes to get to the peppers.  I saw "Lemon Boy" tomatoes and had to have some.  But I only bought 4 plants, so my promise isn't too badly compromised.

The greenhouse where we were shopping is "Anthony's Herb Farm."  It's a fairly small operation, but they have wonderful things, and the owners are wonderful people.  I first visited Anthony's about fifteen years ago, when I went to get a few plants to put around a fish pond I was intending to build.  At the time, I'd hurt my back and couldn't work, and The Husband and I were as poor as church mice; I only had about $10 to spend.  I asked Ms. Jean for advice on plants that would multiply or spread quickly, since I couldn't afford many plants.  I'd already chosen my $10 worth when Ms. Jean suggested "monkey grass."  When I told Ms. Jean that I simply didn't have any more money, she grabbed a shovel, dug up two big clumps of monkey grass from her own garden, and gave them to me for free.  I don't even remember what plants I bought that day.  All I remember is Ms. Jean's act of kindness. 

Anyway....

I came home, planted the peppers and tomatoes, and did a bit of maintenance in the garden.  I learned last year that the best way to keep blight under control is to start spraying fungicide before the blight appears, so I mixed up a sprayer-full of fungicide and doused all of the plants.  For good measure, I spent some time sitting in a lawn chair at the end of the squash row, willing the squash seeds to sprout.  (If they don't come up soon, I'll need to re-plant.)

After working in the vegetable garden, I came home and mowed the lawn.  It was dusty, and the wind was blowing hard, and I was covered with dust, grass, and leaf debris by the time I finished the weed-eating.  I came in and showered, washed my hair, and shaved my atrociously-hairy legs, then looked for some lotion to put on my poor, sun-and-wind-dried skin.  There was a tube of Dove "Daily Moisture" stuff in the bathroom cabinet, and I squirted a big blob onto my palm and applied it to my legs.  That one big blob did both legs, both arms, and my face, with plenty to spare.  Oddly, it wouldn't "soak in," and I had to wipe some of it off with my towel.  As I was putting the tube back into the cabinet, the word "Conditioner" flashed through my brain.  A better look at the tube revealed that, yes, indeed, I had smeared hair conditioner, not lotion, all over myself. 

Shoot, if I'd done that prior to shaving, I might not have had to shave at all.  ;) 

Cucumbers and Bradley Tomatoes

When I went to bed last night, my old bones were aching so badly from yesterday's garden madness that I could not sleep.  Finally, some time after midnight, I swallowed two Alleve, and managed to fall asleep soon thereafter.  Today, I was none worse for the wear.

At lunch, I bought 4 more tomato plants - Bradley tomatoes - and planted them when I got home.  I also planted a whole row of cucumbers, enough to pickle the entire county if they all come up.

I had about given up on the potatoes and squash I planted Easter Sunday, but it looks like there'll be at least some showing.  A couple of squash have poked their heads up, and there's a potato peeking out of that hole! 

Last year, I let a red lettuce plant go to seed.  The sprouts survived the mild winter and are thriving.

I read up on "companion planting" last night.  The article said to let the corn get 6" tall, and then plant beans and squash around the stalks.  I ordered "rattlesnake beans" last night to plant with the corn.  If the squash I planted on Easter comes up and does well, I think I'll plant zucchini around the corn.

With the exception of the rattlesnake beans and zucchini, and assuming that the seeds I planted yesterday actually sprout, I think this year's garden is officially "in."

Corn, Butterbeans, Tomatoes, Peppers, Carrots...

Whoooooweeee, I'm tired.  Tilled up 6 rows (3 passes each) and planted corn, butterbeans, carrots and onions.  Yeah, I know the carrots and onions should have gone in two months ago, but I didn't get to it, okay?  I don't know why I bothered planting the carrots, since not one of the two million carrot seeds I have planted in my garden in the past few years has germinated.  I don't know why I bothered with the corn, either, since the raccoons push it over every year as soon as the cobs begin to grow kernels.  But one continues to hope....

I am not having a zillion tomato plants this year, like I usually do.  Today, I set out 4 Arkansas Travelers, 2 Mr. Stripeys, and one "Mortgage Lifters."  We do have a bunch of volunteer Roma tomatoes that I will probably transplant to finish filling out one tomato row.  But that's it.  No more.  I promise.

Peppers - cayenne, jalapeno, and a long, sweet pepper (can't recall the name).  Need a couple more.

I'm going to try companion planting this year - green beans and squash with the corn.  I suppose the corn will need to sprout, first, and get established, before the beans and squash go in.  The theory is that the beans can use the corn stalks for support, and the squash provides ground cover for weed and moisture control.  I'll let you know how it works.

First Planting 2012

I cut loose from work a little early today.  The sun was shining, and a nice breeze was blowing.  I came home, suited up for gardening, and went to the garden.  The big tiller cranked on the third pull.  I plowed up two long rows and planted radishes, lettuce, and sweet peas.  I left room for cabbages, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, and I'm going to plant some tomorrow, if I can find any.

My "son of another mother" called me over the weekend with the news that he has delivered a 2-row breaking plow down to Nanny's.  Sure enough, there it sat, not far from the shed, when I got to the garden.  If we can get the little Ford tractor to crank, I sense plowing lessons in my future.

And, yeah, I'm missing Pop-Pop.

Good Deeds

It's balmy here today.  My boss sprang me from work a little early.  If the ground weren't so wet, I'd be trying to crank a tiller right now.

On the way home from work, I passed a pick-up truck pulled to the side of the road with its flashers flashing.  I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a woman trying to load what I thought was a sheet of plywood onto the truck.  The wind was blowing so hard that she was struggling.  I turned around at the next driveway and went back, intending to help her. 

When I got there, I saw that it wasn't plywood; it was plastic-backed styrofoam, the stuff they use now-a-days to sheathe houses.  She had a big stack of it, probably a dozen or more pieces securely wrapped in plastic.  There were several more pieces laying in the ditch.  I helped her turn the sheet sideways so that it would not catch the wind.  Naturally, as soon as we slid it atop the stack and bent down to pick up the rest of the sheets, it blew away again.  She ran to grab it, and when she turned into the wind to come back, the wind snapped the sheet right in two.  All that was holding it together was the plastic backing.  We slid it in beside the stack, and, somehow, managed to pick up the rest of the styrofoam sheets without breaking them. 

We leaned them against the side of the truck, and I held them down while she rummaged around in the truck bed for some rope.  She came up empty-handed.  I asked her to hold the sheets while I checked my Jeep.  Sure enough, my knitting bag was in the back seat, and there was a ball of yarn in it.  I grabbed the yarn and went back to the truck. 

We caught a lull in the wind and were able to get all of the styrofoam sheets back onto the stack.  She held them down while I cut a long piece of yarn, doubled it over, and tied it through the holes in one side of the truck bed.  I ran to the other side of the truck and poked the yarn though the hole on that side.  When I gave it a firm pull to tighten the slack and tie a knot, the yarn cut through the top piece of styrofoam like a hot knife through butter.  About that time, another stiff wind hit, and both pieces flew out of the truck bed and sailed across the road like Frisbees.  The rest of the unwrapped sheets followed.  Some of them went over a fence into a pasture.  Others landed in a steep ditch. 

"I'm calling my son!" she said, and she got out her cell phone and told her son to get there, pronto, and bring some rope. 

I started trying to gather up the pieces that were strewn all over the roadside, but she said to leave it, and she would make her son get it.  

Geez, I felt kind of bad about cutting that sheet in two with my yarn.  She might have been better off without my help!