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!

A Tribute to Pop-Pop

Our Pop-Pop passed away on November 19th, after a long, hard struggle with more problems than I care to name.  Even though he was in and out of the hospital since early October, none of us believed that his time was up.  He left a wife, a mother, three children, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, all of whom loved him dearly.  We miss him, already.

Pop-Pop was a quiet man with a wicked wit that bubbled to the surface at the most unexpected times.  When my husband and I announced that we were expecting our first child (and his first grandchild), his response was to look at my husband and say, "Ain't that just like a woman?  You just want to poke a little fun at them, and they take you seriously."  But when that child was born, before leaving the hospital, he leaned over my bed, kissed my cheek, and said, "Thank you for my grandson."

He was crazy about all of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and delighted in acting as their accomplice in mischief.  When our boys got a go-kart, he put the blade on the tractor and scraped a dirt track all the way around the front field so they'd have a safe place to ride at top speed.  He taught his 3-year-old great-granddaughter how to drive his Rascal scooter, and let her take it up the long driveway to get his newspaper.  He teased them, and argued with them, and good-naturedly endured their jokes about his age and his turtle-paced gait. 

He let the kids tinker in the shop with him, and ride the tractor with him.  He let the girls stick bows on his bald spot at Christmas, and wrote a letter nearly every day to a home-sick granddaughter who went away to Army boot camp. 

His great-grandchildren remember him for the candy he always had stashed in his shirt pocket or in a bowl high on a kitchen shelf.  While the family was gathered at his house after his death, one of them, a six-year-old girl, led me out to the workshop and asked, "Has he got any Tootsie Rolls in here?"  The next day, I caught the 4-year old boy in the shop, climbing onto the workbench and peering into plastic coffee cans, looking for the one that held the stash. 

Pop-Pop and I had a system:  I'd bring the dull hoes to the shop and deposit them in a barrel; he'd sharpen them and put them in another barrel in the gardening shed.  My favorite hoe was almost always ready to be used when I was ready to use it.  He kept my ragged old tillers running, and always took time to fill up a small gas can with a gas/oil mixture that wouldn't make their motors smoke the way they did when I did the mixing. 

After his funeral, the pall-bearers - mostly grandsons - loaded into Pop-Pop's old red-and-white Ford pickup truck and followed the hearse to the cemetery.  They piled out of it, and sang "I'll Fly Away" in the rain at his graveside.  He would've loved it.

Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe

This stuff is lip-smackin' good.

Basic recipe:

3 c. mashed sweet potatoes (takes about 3 big ones) *
1/3 c. milk **
2 eggs
1 c. sugar ***
1 t. vanilla
1 stick of butter
pinch of salt
cinnamon, if you like it, however much you like ****

Mix above ingredients well with mixer or by hand.  Pour into large casserole dish. 

Topping:

1 c. brown sugar
2/3 stick butter
1 c. chopped pecans
1/3 c. flour

Melt butter.  Mix flour, sugar, and nuts.  Pour melted butter over mixture.  Mix well, and spread over potatoes.  Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.  Serve hot or cold.

* Do yourself a favor:  boil the sweet potatoes and THEN peel them.  It much easier than doing it the other way around.  ;)

** Half & Half makes it richer.

*** I only had 1/3 c. of sugar in the canister, so I supplemented with light brown sugar and some cane syrup.  Whatever works, eh?

**** The recipe in this church cookbook does not call for cinnamon, but we like it.   Taste the potatoes before you add it, though; they're really good without it.