Flora-cide

If plants could vocalize, I would be hearing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth all around me, for we wreaked havoc in our yard this weekend.

The builder was supposed to start working on our house today.  The exterior improvements include a new roof and a new deck built on top of an existing concrete patio.  The patio is at least 25 years old, and for most of that 25 years I have been planting perennials around it - daylilies, phlox, roses, daffodils, monkey grass, four-o-clocks.  As of yesterday morning, our patio beds were riots of color.  By noon, it was all gone, cut down in its prime so that the builder can actually get to the patio.  My granddaughter cheerfully helped with the plant slaughtering.  (I do not know why she felt the bicycle helmet was necessary to the task.) 

Two crape myrtles had to go, too.  One grew near the corner of the patio, and the other grew along the back wall of the house.  In both cases, the limbs over-hung places where the builder will need to work.  We committed "crape murder" and sawed off the limbs with a chain saw.  Those limbs were so straight and sturdy that I saved several of them.  No idea what we'll use them for, possibly tomato stakes, if nothing else.

The back yard looks shockingly bare, except for the heaps of wilting flowers and limbs piled around it.  Hopefully, most of it will be back next year.  I dug up my favorite rose bush and moved it, but I fear that I vandalized the roots so badly that it may not survive. 

And after all that worked, the builder called to report that he had hurt his back and would be going to the doctor today.  He called this afternoon and said that he would be here as soon as he is able. 

All the plants may grow back before he shows up to work!

In the vegetable garden, the peas and beans we planted last week shot out of the ground like they were on steroids, a much healthier-looking stand than the first planting, which may be ready to pick by the end of the week.

We are steadily picking cucumbers, squash, and zucchini.  Hopefully, by the time Nanny's church does the food pantry again, we will have some produce to contribute to it.

Tomato worms are out.  I saw their poop around one of the plants and found two of the little nasties nibbling away.  One other plant has clearly been eaten, but I could not find the culprit.  He may be the size of a hot dog before I find him.

We had some rain late last week.  We had run the tiller over most of the garden a few days earlier, and the rain soaked right in.  When the above-pictured granddaughter and her older sister came to visit on Saturday, they followed me out to the garden.  I saw the older granddaughter eyeing the mud, and before I could warn her, she stepped onto the dirt and promptly sank in past her ankles.  After a momentary panic, she yelled for her sister to join her, and together they tracked up the garden something awful.  I don't think the garden cared, though, and neither did I. 

On Married Men Left Home Alone

We are about to do a little refurbishing around here, part of which includes new floor covering in some of the rooms.  Unlike many of the projects we've undertaken, this one is being done by a professional.  He said that he would move the furniture out of the rooms, but that we should clean out closets and put away breakable things.  I tackled the closets a few weeks ago, and since the start date is approaching, I thought I'd better get busy on the breakables.

I started in the kitchen, where a hutch sits full of breakable things, things like my mother-in-law's tea cups, which she got as a wedding present 50-some-odd years ago.  As I was emptying the hutch, I found this:

 



 

That, my friend, is part of a wooden duck.  Or goose, maybe.  He used to hang on my kitchen wall, near the stove.  He used to have two wooden feet on two wooden dowels, pegged into those two empty holes that you see in the picture.  They stuck straight out at right angles to him and to the wall.  The space between that duck's body and his feet was the perfect size for holding my big hickory rolling pin that was too big to keep anywhere else.  That duck hung there for years, safely cradling my rolling pin.

When I found the above-mentioned duck fragment, I took his picture and texted it to The Husband.  Didn't say nothin', just sent him the picture.  Here's why:

One day last year, as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I tried to slide the cutting board into it's usual slot in the jelly cabinet, and the cutting board hung on something and wouldn't go in.  I bent over to see what the problem was, and encountered this beneath the shelf (it had my rolling pin in it at the time):



Yes, those would be the feet that belong to the duck.

I was positively aghast.  In disbelief, I glanced over at the wall where the duck once hung, and sure enough it was gone.  I said, "What the - ?"

The Husband was sitting in his chair in the living room.  He was smirking.  He'd been off work a few days earlier, while I had gone to work.  Home alone, piddling around.  Washed his truck.  Mowed the lawn.  And at some point during the day, he thought it would be a good idea to drill a couple of holes in the side of the jelly cabinet (note that his first attempt was too high), saw my duck's feet off, and re-mount them in the cabinet.

This is what happens when you leave a man home alone without a to-do list.

He said it had been like that for days.

I did not know whether to laugh or choke him. 

I have begged him many times not to move stuff in the kitchen unless he intends to take over the cooking.  This one took the cake.  Not only did he move something that had been *right there* for 30 years, he destroyed my heirloom duck, as well!

Okay, okay...it wasn't an heirloom.  It's a cheap piece of crap wooden duck, an 80s left-over, and it's beyond tacky.  And it sometimes fell of the wall when we opened the nearest cabinet door. 

And it was kind of funny.

But I pretended to be miffed and sad at the loss of my old duck.  So don't tell him.

I asked him where the REST of the duck was.  He would not tell me.  To this day, he has never told me.  I have not looked for it, beyond a glance around the kitchen the day of the duck murder. 

When I found it today, I took a picture of it with my cell phone and texted it to The Husband.  Didn't say a word.  Just sent the picture. 

A few minutes later, I get: 





 After I cleaned out the jelly cabinet and saw those goofy duck feet sticking out, all by their lonesome, I took a picture of the feet and sent that to The Husband as well.  Didn't say nothin'.  Just sent the picture.  He said:

I'm not exactly sure what that smurky face means.  He could be commiserating with my mourning of the heirloom duck.  Or he could be smirking at remembering the dismembering. 

Either way, I'm laughing.  ;)

The Trickster in the Shed

I am convinced that there is a trickster living in the garden shed.  He/She/It vandalizes power equipment and hides things, and sometimes it goes out to the garden and digs up seeds and plants grass and weeds.

Nanny's birthday was Saturday, and we had a fish fry to celebrate.  In addition to the normal crew that hangs out at her house from time to time, we invited her siblings and a few nieces and nephews that we could reach by phone, about 16 folks from ages 8 to 80.  Cake.  Ice cream.  It was fun.

While the fish was cooking, the relatives visited on the back porch and wandered around the yard.  I spied Uncle B checking out the vegetable garden, and later, when I had a minute to sit down beside him on the porch, he said, "Yo' garden is a little grassy, ain't it?"

Hmph. 

I said, "Yeah, it is.  We've had 'issues'." 

He noted that some of the rows were "skippy." 

Gee, I hadn't noticed.  :-\

Truth is that nothing but grass will grow in part of the garden, that low spot in the northwest corner that holds water forever.  And, believe you me, we've had plenty of water for it to hold this year.  It's a waste of time to plant anything there, but I do it, anyway, when I can catch it dry enough to plant.  Hope is eternal, I reckon.

Anyway, yesterday was a relatively cool day, and I spent half of it trying to remedy the grass situation and the "skippy" situation.   Ran the big tiller down the wide rows and chopped with the hoe where the tiller couldn't go.  Re-planted the skippy rows, and put in a couple more new rows of peas in hope of a later crop.  I'd done about a quarter of what I intended to do when the tire came off the tiller.  AGAIN.  It made me so mad that I just left the tiller where it sat and came back to the house to cool off.  Later in the day, I went back to the garden and pressed Gloria into service while The Husband worked on putting the tire back on the big tiller.

The tire attaches to the axle with a bolt and a nut that goes through the axle on the outside of the tire.   When the bolt comes out, the tire doesn't immediately fall off.  It lets me till a little while before the tire slips far enough up the axle that it no longer gets traction.  By the time I notice the problem, there's no telling where the bolt is.  I've already buried several of them in the garden this year.

I keep wondering why this happens.  The menfolk in the family are fixing that tire for me when it comes off.  I've seen them bearing down on the wrenches to tighten that nut.  They don't play.  Those bolts shouldn't fall out like they do.  My conclusion is that the trickster loosens the nuts while the tiller is parked in the shed.  That's the only thing it could be.  ;)

Fortunately, The Husband was able to find yet another bolt/nut that would fit.  I'm thinking a new solution is in order - one of those elongated, pinchy question-mark-shaped things (the proper word escapes me at the moment).  I shall go to the hardware store today and buy two of them.  (Hopefully, the word will come to me by then, so I won't have to use the term "elongated, pinchy question-mark-shaped thing" to the hardware professional.)  We'll see if the garden shed trickster can get THOSE off.

In other news....

I planted a short row of tiger beans yesterday.  These seeds are some that I saved two years ago, when The Grandson wanted to try tiger beans just because he liked the name.  By the time I got around to picking those beans, some had dried on the vine, and I saved those dry ones in the freezer.  I'm curious to see if they will sprout.

I ate this season's first home-grown tomato last night, standing at my kitchen counter with a salt shaker in my hand.  It was heavenly.  Earlier in the week, we made the season's first batch of cucumber-and-onions-in-vinegar.  Served them at the fish fry, along with white beans, French fries, slaw, and hush puppies.  Yum!  Tonight, we'll be having some home-grown, pesticide-free squash for dinner. 

Speaking of squash, the "church row" is looking fine.  God's zucchini plants are show-stoppers.  Hopefully, it won't be long until we can contribute some to the food pantry at Nanny's church.

We had a gentle rain this morning, which ought to swell those pea and bean seeds right out of the ground.

Late June Garden Report

We went camping last week and came home to a garden fuzzy with grass and dry as a bone.  Saturday afternoon, I got after it.  The dry ground seemed to be the most pressing problem, so I stretched the hoses from Nanny's faucet and turned it on.  Water spewed from every connection and from the several places that we'd patched with duct tape near the end of last season.  I tried to place the spews where they'd do the most good and made a note to pick up new water hoses the next day.

Sunday, armed with new water hoses and a new sprinkler, I got after it again.  The first problem was that I could not get the old hoses unscrewed from the hose cart.  The Husband came out to help and ended up twisting the connection in two in the middle; the old hose came off, but the new one couldn't be screwed into place because part of the old connector was still there.  I decided to deal with that problem after the weeding was done.  I started with Gloria, the little red tiller, digging out the grass in the narrow middles of the bean rows, then I pulled the grass out of the rows by hand.  The next job on my list was to run the lawnmower over the three empty rows and plant more purple hull peas in them.  While I was pulling grass from the bean rows, The Husband offered to mow, then he offered to run the breaking plow over those rows.  I said, "If you do that, you'll have to run the disc over it.  I think the big tiller will do okay."  But he insisted (I think that he really just wanted to drive the tractor), so I told him to have at it.

He put the breaking plow on the tractor and made quick work out of breaking up the ground, but the progress came to a halt when he tried to attach the disc.  He called me over to help.  We could get one side of the hitch attached, but not the other side.  We worked and worked and sweated and cussed.  My frustration level was getting pretty high (I was racing daylight) when Nanny came out to "help."  I am ashamed to admit that I bailed out of the disc-attaching at this point, figuring she could give orders as well as I could.   They finally got the thing attached, but about the time The Husband got back to the garden with the tractor, the hydraulic lifter-thing quit working.  He detached the disc where it sat and parked the tractor. 

While all of this was going on, I cranked Gloria back up to finish the weeding.  She ran out of gas after about 3 minutes.  We had gas in a can in the shop, but I was too lazy to go get it and heave it out to the garden, so I dragged the big black tiller out of the shop, intending to work in the wide rows between the tomatoes and the squash.  I made a couple of passes, and as I was turning around at the end of a row, I scrunched the tiller's right-hand tire right off the rim.    The Husband tried to put it back on, but the air wouldn't stay in it.  I told him to chunk it in the back seat of my Jeep, and I'd take it to the service station the next day. 

With all of the equipment out of commission, I tackled the hose problem again.  That broken connector piece appeared to have been WELDED onto the hose reel connector.  I by-passed the hose cart altogether and hooked the hose straight to the faucet.  I did, at least, manage to get most of the garden watered.  I came home muddy, wet, sweaty, and horsefly bitten.

Monday came.  The tiller tire was fixed.  I talked The Husband into putting it back on the tiller so that it would be ready to go when I was ready to go again.  But I wasn't ready.  Screw the garden.

Most everything looks fairly well, now that it's had a drink, except the pepper plants.  They died.  All but one.  I stopped at a garden center this afternoon, bought more peppers, and planted them after dinner tonight.

I picked about 10 nice-sized cucumbers.

The green beans have matchstick-sized beans on them. 

Squash will be ready in a few days.

Tomatoes hanging in there.

Okra is growing.  It's loving this monstrous heat.

Rain and Greens

Rogue showers are plastering us with rain this evening.  It rains hard for 5 minutes and quits, waits 10 minutes, then does it again.  The water is good to help melt the pelletized fertilizer I applied last week, but not so good for the fungicide I sprayed on the tomato plants. 

We've had about a week without any rain, and the plants have begun to "green up."  I hope these showers move on and don't set the plants back again.

The green tomatoes have a malady.  Some of them are a strange rust color.  It looks like buckeye rot, but I'm not sure that's what it is.  Most of the descriptions say it happens to tomatoes that are on or near the soil, but the affected tomatoes are fairly high on the stem. 

Could it be that I bought a strange variety of tomato that is more brown/purple than red when ripe?  I don't recall buying any, but it's possible they were mislabeled.  Wouldn't it be a shame if I'm throwing away perfectly good tomatoes because they're a funny color?  It reminds me of a few years ago, when my brother was throwing away what he thought was diseased yellow squash when, in fact, they were perfectly good butternut squash.

My garden has about three rows that were tilled at the beginning of the season but haven't been touched since.  I'd saved those rows to plant more purple hull peas.  They're full of grass right now.  Last week, I started to run the tiller over them, but I noticed a fair amount of turnip greens. mustard greens, and kale thriving in the grass.  This afternoon, I picked the biggest greens and cooked them for supper.  Yum!  And the best part was that they were "freebies" - volunteers from last year's crop that never did very well - no effort at all on my part.

The stout little Mascotte green beans are blooming.  I am anxious to see them make their crop, which is supposed to occur in the top of the plant, rather than underneath the foliage like ordinary green beans. 

Cannellini and Squash

My brother treated me to a trip to Italy a few years ago.  Our plane landed in Florence, where we rented a car and drove northwest, to the Cinque Terra region and then down into Tuscany.  One day, we were in a tiny little town where there was only one tiny little restaurant open for lunch.  There were maybe 5 tables inside, and a few more on the terrace.  We chose a table on the terrace and discovered a fabulous view - a little valley below, with olive trees and grape vines growing on the opposite hill.  The dish I ordered sounded all exotic in Italian, but it was a bowl of white kidney beans stewed with chopped tomatoes, probably some onions, and a sausage link.  Little sprig of sage for garnish.  It was one of the best things I've ever tasted.

In remembrance of that trip, I planted some cannellini beans today - two short rows of 'em.  They're running beans, so I'll have to come up with a staking system;  I already have a plan for that.  I planted sage a month ago, but it has nearly drowned several times and looks puny.  We're beginning to feel the summer heat here, which should bring those beans right up and perk up the sage, to boot.

I also planted a few more hills of squash today.  Rather, re-planted some hills that never sprouted.  The squash is disappointing me.  Remember that I planted a "church row" of squash, the fruits of which I'd planned to donate to the local church pantries.  It needs to get cracking.  It took those seeds FOREVER to germinate, and all the rain has made the plants small and pale and sickly.  But they're beginning to bloom, and yesterday I saw one little baby squash.  Maybe there's hope for them.

Beans a-runnin'

It's been a week since the vegetable garden has had my attention.  This negligence is the fault of Mother Nature, whose intent seems to be to drown everything I've planted.  Most everything is a shocking chartreuse color, except the weeds and grass, but even they look a little pale.

But we've had a few sunny days in a row, and maybe a couple more down the road.  This evening, parts of the garden were dry enough to work, so I got busy.

Pulled grass from around the tomatoes and squash.  Dug trenches around each plant to hold 6/12/12 fertilizer, which I subsequently applied and covered with dirt.  Sprayed the tomatoes for blight.  When The Husband came home, he helped by doing a little weeding with Gloria, the tiny new tiller.

I feel so accomplished.  :)

Except...

Some of my tomatoes appear to have blossom end rot.  I can't remember whether this is the result of a fungus or a mineral deficiency (fixing to look it up).  If it's a fungus, hopefully the blight treatment will nix it.

And lets not talk about the beans & peas rows.  They are wet and grassy and will probably remain so for a few more days.  The Ford Hook butterbeans are putting out runners, though, and the green beans look like they're thinking about doing the same.  I'm anxious to see how these green beans do - I think they're called "Mascotte" beans.  They're supposed to bear their crop in the top of the plant, rather than underneath like most bush beans, making them easier to pick.  The plants look kind of stout in the middle, stocky, like they're about to blow out sideways instead of up.

I planted spinach, radishes, and lettuce in the horse trough a week or two ago.  It is all coming up and looking healthy.  Need to thin the radishes.

On the far edge of the garden, where I haven't planted anything yet, turnip greens from last year's seeding have come up.  I walked that strip today and noted that there are enough greens for a meal, so Sunday, I'm going to pick a mess and have them for supper.