Rain!

It rained here yesterday afternoon, thank goodness.  The garden needed it something fierce.  I've been watering it, but somehow a watering is never as good as a rain. 

I scalded and peeled the first batch of tomatoes last night.  By the time I finished, it was a little too late to start cooking and canning them, so I put them in the refrigerator and will finish them tonight. 

Culinary Complications

Today is Nanny's birthday (not saying which one).  All of her young'uns decided to fix a birthday supper for her.  My assigned dishes were baked beans and a birthday cake.  I decided on a home-made coconut cake. 

Since most of my kitchen disasters have involved desserts, I figured I'd best get an early start so that I'd have time for a run to the grocery store bakery, if necessary.  While Nanny way to church, I was on my way to the store for cake ingredients.  I came home and went right to work, using an old-time recipe from a cookbook older than I am. 

The cake layers turned out great.  Substitution queen that I am, I used creme de coconut for part of the milk to add a little coconut flavor to the batter.  I was worried that this would screw up the recipe - make it too gummy, or something - but the layers came right out of their pans without mishap.  At that stage, I figured I was home free.

The frosting recipe called for making a sugar syrup to be drizzled into beaten egg whites.  I'd done this a time or two.  No biggie, I thought.  I mixed up the sugar and water and brought them to the recommended "gentle boil."  I set the timer, and turned my attention to chopping some tomatoes and peppers for some guacamole I intended to make.  A few minutes later, I smelled something burning and glanced over my shoulder to see smoke rising from my pan.  A glance at the timer revealed that, although I'd dialed in the correct number of minutes, I'd forgotten to push "start."  The syrup was - well, brown glass.  I hacked it into a tin can, filled the pan with water, and set it on another burner to try to cook the hardened syrup out of it while I started another batch.

This time, I gave my full attention to the syrup.  I let it boil without stirring it for the recommended time, then began to "stir frequently" as the recipe demanded.  It looked great for a minute, then, suddenly, as I stood there stirring it, the stuff seized up and turned back into granulated sugar.  Damn it!  I scooped it out of the pan into the trash can, filled that pan with water so soak out the clumps, scrubbed out the other pan that had been soaking.

As I stood there with the pan in my hand, I thought, Screw this recipe.  I got out another cookbook and my double-boiler and whipped up a seven minute frosting that I've made many times.  It turned out perfectly.  I slapped some coconut on it, et voila!

Finally, a cake!

Purple Hull Peas

We did our first purple hull pea-picking this evening and got a 5-gallon bucket full of peas.  The Grandmother has been complaining that she has nothing to do.  This ought to keep her occupied for at least part of the day tomorrow. 

I watered the butterbeans and was about to water the green beans when I noticed how grassy the green bean rows were.  While The Husband hammered metal posts in the ground for stringing support wires, I ran the tiller and tidied up those rows.  Hopefully, I can string the wire and set the bamboo canes this weekend.

The second crop of squash is beginning to sprout.  I hope these plants fare better than the first crop, which has collapsed in stringy heaps.

The tomato worms have hatched and have been munching away.  Boy, they can trim up a tomato plant in nothing flat.  Pop-Pop sprayed insecticide on the tomato plants in the big garden to keep the worms at bay, but I have been pulling the worms off the tomato plants in the early garden and squishing them in the dirt.  It TOTALLY grosses me out to touch those worms, and it's even worse the way they pop and squirt green goo when I step on them, but I'd rather pick and squish them than spray poison everywhere.

Phloxing

When I first started trying to grow flowers in my yard, we could not afford to spend money on store-bought plants, so I gratefully accepted cuttings from friends and scoured the fields and woods for wildflowers.  One day, as I was on my way home from work, I spied some tall phlox growing along the banks of a creek not far from my house.  I drove home, grabbed a shovel, went back to the creek to dig up a clump of the phlox, and planted it near my patio. 

I was over-joyed when that clump re-appeared the following spring.  Over the next few years I divided it, and moved the divisions to other places in my yard.

My flower beds are now choked with phlox.  They are everywhere.

In the front...

in the back...

...on the side.

At times, they almost seem menacing, as if they would choke ME if I would stand still long enough.  About the only plants that have withstood the phlox are the daylilies, and even some of those have succombed to the crowding.

For the past few years, just before the phlox bloom, when they're six feet tall and thick as a forest, I have threatened to get rid of them.  The deal is that I'm always too busy in the vegetable garden in the early spring and summer to fool with the flowers in the yard, and then the phlox begin to bloom, and I think, "I might as well wait until after they've bloomed...."  Of course, by then, something in the vegetable garden needs picking and preserving, and while I'm inside peeling and canning, the phlox are spewing their seeds all over the property.  And so the cycle begins again, with even more soldiers in the ranks the next year.

Resolution:  I'm going to do it next year.  No more pussy-footing around.  I'll pull them up by the roots, mow them down, shoot them with Round-Up, if necessary....

Except I might save a clump or two, for old time's sake.  ;)

* * * * *

As I was out taking pictures this morning, I saw something I've never seen before:  figs, on my fig tree!

This is one of two fig trees that I planted about 15 years ago.  Not knowing much about gardening, I planted them where there was too much shade, and they just sat there.  After about 10 years, when the plants were still only a foot tall and so scrawny that they were in constant danger of being lost in the grass, it occurred to me (duh!) that maybe I should move them to a place where there was more light.  I dug them up, and re-set them in the only sunny spot in the yard.  It was about three more years before they began to grow.  They're still only waist high, but they're beginning to bush out.  And now one has figs on it - maybe a dozen!  How lucky that, just last week, I saw a TV chef poaching figs in a syrup of port wine and sugar, and then slicing them on top of puff pastry rounds smeared with goat cheese.  I'll be trying that recipe, assuming I beat the raccoons to the fig tree when the figs ripen.

* * * * *

The vegetable garden is one sad-looking parcel of ground right now.

Temperatures for the past few days have neared 100.  It appears that the tomatoes may survive the blight and leaf spot and the squirrels (thanks to Pop-Pop's electric fence), but some of the fruit is scalding.  I'm hoping the later-planted tomatoes (which haven't even bloomed yet) will do better if the heat wave passes.  The squash plants that looked wonderful two weeks ago have now almost collapsed.  I've been watering them, but I'm not confident they'll pull through.  The garden, in general, needs weeding, but, jeez, it's so hot!  I hoed the beans last week, and even as late as 8 p.m., sweat poured off of me. 

Those crazy broad beans that I planted early in the spring have done strange things.  Since only a few of the plants survived, I decided to let the pods dry on the vines to make seeds for next year.  Something must have eaten them, for they are gone.  I found more seeds online and ordered enough to try a second planting, come August, with some left for next spring.  I'm on a mission to figure out how to grow these things! 

Second Squash

This evening, immediately after supper, I "suited up" in my gardening armour and went down to the big garden to do some maintenance.  I chopped the morning glories out of the beans and did a second planting of squash, this one on the back side of the garden.  The squash I planted two months ago is bearing, but a couple of the vines have wilted, and I'm worried that the rest will poop out.  Though I thought I had planted enough squash to feed the county, the kin-folks on (and off) the hill are keeping it picked clean.  I've never planted a second crop of squash, so I don't know how it will do.  There is plenty of summer left for it to mature, but there will be a bigger problem with bugs later in the season.  Wish me luck.

After planting the new squash seeds, I dragged out the waterhose and dampened the hills, hoping to encourage the seeds to sprout fast.  While I had the hose out, I watered the beans, the tomatoes, the peppers and eggplants, and the old squash vines.  Peppers of all descriptions love this soil for some reason.  We've been getting jalapenos for a few weeks now, and the bell pepper plants are loaded with baby peppers.  Tonight, when I watered the bell peppers, one was so heavy with fruit that it began to slowly keel over.  I'll have to prop it up with stakes tomorrow.

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen.  We're getting enough for sandwiches and salads, but not enough to put up in jars, yet.

I cut the first little batch of okra yesterday.

Black-eyed peas are blooming. 

Corn is a couple of inches tall.  The crows haven't discovered it, yet (knock on wood), but the raccoons are probably already planning their attack.

Plum Crazy

A Brother-in-Law called Wednesday night and asked if I wanted some plums from his tree.  As plum jelly is my hands-down favorite, I said, "Yes!"  He said he'd leave them in a bucket on his porch for me to pick up on my way to work the next morning.  On Thursday morning, I got in my Jeep and drove straight to work without even thinking about plums.  It was late in the day when I left work on Thursday, and I still didn't think about the plums.  They didn't cross my mind again until last night, when he showed up at my back door with the bucket.  He set it under the patio table, and then we all went out to dinner.  I had a couple of margaritas at dinner, and when we came home, all I thought about was putting on my jammies and crawling into bed.

This morning after The Husband came inside from feeding the cat, he said, "There was a party on our patio last night."  I gave him a perplexed look.  "'Coons or 'possums, most likely.  There are plum pits all over the patio."  I ran to the back door to see for myself.  Sure enough, the patio was littered with pits, and there were a bunch of half-eated plums in the bucket. 

I brought them inside, washed them, and tossed out the half-eaten ones.  Just as I was about to drag out a cookbook to see what to do with them, Nanny knocked on the front door.  "How do I do these plums?  Just cut them up, cook them, and juice them out?"  Nanny said she doesn't even cut them up.  "Just reach in the pan and squish them."  Easy enough.  I added a little water to get them going.  They're cooking right now.

Today will be a busy day.  By the time the plums finish cooking, we'll be leaving for the first of two birthday parties, so I won't have time to make the jelly today.  Besides that, I don't have enough sugar in the house to make jelly.  It looks like the juicing and jellying will have to wait until tomorrow.

* * * * *

As promised, Pop-Pop rigged up an electric fence around part of the big garden.  He strung two wires, low to the ground, to keep out the squirrels, raccoons, and rabbits.  He says he'll put up a third wire, higher on the posts, to keep out the deer when the peas and beans start to bloom.  I asked him if he'd electrocuted anything, yet.  He said a rabbit had run up to the wires, but the jolt sent it hopping back to the woods. 

Heh...way to go, Pop-Pop.  :)

Corn

It's been a long week of long days at work, and so I haven't done any work in the garden since Monday night, when I spayed some liquid copper fungicide on the tomatoes.  But this even when I came home, I needed a stretch and a breath of air, and so I walked across the road to check on the things in the early garden. 

I did not spray the tomatoes in the early garden with the copper fungicide.  I sprayed them with baking soda last Saturday and removed the diseased leaves.  There are more diseased leaves today, but there's nothing I can do about it, as more rain is coming over the hill.  It's supposed to rain for two more days.  I'll just have to wait until the rain stops to break out the fungicide for these plants.

The corn I planted last Friday is coming up!

Terrible Tomatoes

After work yesterday, I checked on the tomato plants in both gardens and was disappointed to find that the leaf spot had progressed in the big garden.  I cut off more leaves and then soaked the plants with liquid copper fungicide, but it was probably wasted effort.  We're supposed to get more rain this week, which will wash off the fungicide and encourage new fungus growth. 

I fear this year's tomato crop may be as dismal as last year's crop.

For the record, it appears that blight/leaf spot treatments should begin before the first signs of disease appear.  Evidently, the stuff doesn't kill fungus that's already inside the leaves.  The web sites I've visited unanimously advise removal of infected leaves before spraying.  I did that last year, to the point that my plants were left with only a few tufts of leaves at the tops.  This resulted in sun-scalded fruit, and still the fungus raged, despite repeated sprayings of fungicide.

I'm about ready to give up on growing tomatoes.  :(

We have gathered a handful of ripe Juliette tomatoes in the past few days and have been watching one big, fat Rutgers tomato begin to ripen.  Yesterday, I found the big one on the ground, half eaten, with tiny claw marks on it.  Mr. Squirrell is the culprit, I expect.  Pop-Pop says he's putting an electric fence around the garden today.  I wonder who'll get electrocuted first - me, or the beasties.

The beans and peas I planted around Memorial Day have sprouted nicely.  The purple hull peas are beginning to send out runners.  No sign, yet, of the gourds or cucumbers. 

Gloom, Despair, and Agony on me....

The dreaded leaf spot has found the tomato plants.

Having fought (and lost) the battle with that stuff last year, I know that it is imperative to jump right on the problem.  Yesterday morning after breakfast, I "suited up" for this year's first skirmish.

While I was gathering up my supplies and grousing to The Husband about how much I hate to spray fungicides on our food, he grabbed the laptop, did an internet search, and discovered a baking soda remedy for blight and leaf spot.  I did not think twice about trying it, figuring that it can fail to work just as well as the official store-bought garden chemicals failed to work last year, and without making me feel like I've poisoned the world. 

I grabbed the ancient box of baking soda from the depths of the refrigerator and went to work, spraying the plants in both gardens.  While doing so, I could not shake the feeling that I was spreading the fungus from the few infected plants to the rest of the plants.  But what's a person to do?

I was not very careful about the soda-to-water ratio recommended by the article.  The Husband and I converted the metric measurements and concluded, correctly or incorrectly, that the ratio was about 1/3 cup of baking soda to about 3-1/2 gallons of water.  My mixture was probably a bit stronger.  When I finished spraying, I came in and did my own internet search for ""leaf spot" and "baking soda,"" and found that some people mix the soda with milk (and a tad of oil) instead of water, and that the mixture ought to be sprayed roughly once a week throughout the season. 

On a happier note, we harvested our first yellow squash yesterday.  About half of the broccoli was also ready to cut.  I gave one head away, blanched and froze the rest.  I pinched the basil back, and washed, chopped, and froze the leaves in a Ziploc bag.  It was kind of nice that the house smelled like basil for a couple of hours afterward.

Oh, and I planted corn (two rows) Friday afternoon.  The ground in the early garden was damp, but not nearly as wet as I had expected - didn't lose my shoes to the mud even once. 

Bon appetit, crows.

Fit for Gardening

The other day, as I was coming up Nanny's driveway, red-faced and sweaty, and plumb near worn out from a hard-won wrestling match with the big red tiller, I met Gus, my brother-in-law, hoofing it down Nanny's driveway, full speed ahead.  "S'up, Gus?" I called as we got within earshot of one another.  "Where's the fire?"

"Aw, I'm just walking for exercise," he said, "since I didn't have time to go to the gym this evening."

"Well, carry on," I told him, rolling past him.

I saw him again last night on Nanny's back porch.  "You know, Gus, I need to apologize to you," I told him.

"What for?"

"Well, the other night, when you were out walking because you didn't have time to go to the gym, I should have offered you a turn behind the big red tiller any time you want it."

"Aw, now -  "

"Yep.  You could be doing cardio and strength training, for free, right here on the hill, instead of driving all the way to the gym and paying your hard-earned money for exercise.  It was just plain rude and thoughtless of me not to offer."

"Hey, I appreciate that," he said with spurious sincerity.  "Mighty nice of you.  I'll sure keep it in mind."

Heh...I expect it'll be a cold day, somewhere, before I catch him behind the tiller.

* * * *

I bought corn seeds this week, thinking I'd plant it in the empty rows in the early garden.  The package says it matures in 75 days.  There should be plenty growing season left for it to make.  Nevertheless, I'm not very confident that we'll actually eat any corn from these seeds. 

First, I've never grown corn,  except for that time, a couple of years ago, when I planted some old popcorn seeds that Pop-Pop had found in his cabinet.  I planted it on the back side of the garden, where there's more shade, because that's where I had an empty spot.  The corn came up, but it looked sickly.  It made skinny ears.  The raccoons promptly pushed over the stalks and ate the corn right off the cobs.  One couldn't really call that a successful crop.

Secondly, it will be a miracle if I get to it before the varmints (including the afore-mentioned raccoons) do.  Uncle B, across the road, grows corn every year.  He said that he's planted his corn three times, already - once because the crows pulled it up to get at the seed, and once because the rabbits ate it to the ground.  He's got a scarecrow; I think he uses the same one every year, so the crows may feel friendly toward it by now.  I could probably help him come up with a new one to deal with the crows, but, aside from staking out a double of Dobermans between the rows, I have no clue how to keep out the rabbits and 'coons.

Nanny said she saw a rabbit that she'd bet was "two foot tall, not counting his ears," sitting up on his haunches behind Pop-Pop's truck.  She said she ran in the house to look for the shotgun, but couldn't find it.  It's probably just as well; the blast would probably have knocked her out of her tiny little shoes, and it wouldn't have been so great for Pop-Pop's tail lights, either.  I hope the rabbit stays at her house, and doesn't venture up the driveway as far as the early garden.

Anyway, I haven't planted the corn, yet.  On the way home from the garden center, I picked up my grandson and brought him home with me.  When I asked him if he wanted to go to the garden, he jumped at the chance.  We walked across the road, but as we neared the gate, he said, "Grandmama, it's hot."  And it was.  I asked, "Do you want to go back to the house?"  "Um-hmmm!" he said, and did an immediate about-face.  We spent the rest of the day inside, where it was cool.  I was intending to plant the corn yesterday, but the bottom fell out of the sky on the way home from work.  The ground is too wet to dig, but my empty rows have just been tilled, and the dirt is loose enough for me to simply poke the seeds into the mud.  If you don't hear from me in a day or two, I'll be marred up in the early garden, so please call a tractor to come pull me out!  ;)

Butterbeans and Gourds

Yesterday in the big garden, I planted butterbeans and re-planted the skips in the okra row.  I also planted some dinosaur gourds along the fence near the early garden.  We still have a couple of empty rows in each garden.  Somewhere around here is a pack of butternut squash seeds that I could plant, but I can't decide where to put them, or whether I want to deal with the inevitable late-season rush of pumpkin bugs. 

Over the weekend, I noticed blight-like symptoms on two of the tomato plants in the big garden.  Logic tells me that I ought to go ahead and spray all of the tomato plants with fungicide, but, geez, I hate spraying that stuff on our food. 

None of the nine tomato plants in the early garden show signs of fungus (yet).  All of these plants received the "Miss Evelyn" treatment of (1) lime worked into the soil and (2) newspaper on the ground around the plants, pinned in place with wire tomato cages.  The recently-planted tomatoes in the big garden got the same treatment, but they were planted only a week ago, so it's too early to tell how they'll fare.