Category Archives: gardening

Family, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Objects of Fascination

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It happened again. Husband and I were weeding in the front yard veggie garden when a car pulled up and the driver got out. He introduced himself as a new neighbor from down the block. Then,  he asked the inevitable question “What are those”?

By “those” he was referring to our metal bean poles. We regularly  get questions about them, what is growing on them, and why we use them.  It surprises me that those poles and their beans are such objects of wonder for people.  I like answering the inquiries.  I told the 3 and 5 year old neighbor children that they are the beans from “Jack and the Beanstalk”,  and that they should keep  a eye out for giants. They tell me excitedly whenever I see them that they are. Sometimes I tell people we use them to communicate with aliens. Some realize I am joking. Others just give me an odd look. Keep them guessing, I say!

What do you wonder about your friends, neighbors, and relations that you are are afraid to ask?

Food, gardening, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized

Reaping the Bounty. Now What?

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I travel just enough to get some airline miles but usually I don’t hit that sweet spot where you can turn them in for airline tickets. Instead I have magazines.  Lots of magazines – most of them food related (imagine that).  At this time of year, food magazines are always filled with recipes using the bounty of summer gardens.  And just in time too!  I’ve harvested all my basil (10 jars of pesto) and the tomatoes have just started to turn.  The first handful of grape tomatoes didn’t make it into the house but the two Romas went into a pasta and green bean salad yesterday.  I’m guessing in about a week or so, I’ll be overloaded with tomatoes and trying as many of this month’s magazine recipes as possible.  I think this one will be first:

Tomato Salad w/ Charred Corn & Peppers

4 ears of corn, shucked
1 c. roasted red peppers (save liquid)
2 T. olive oil
2 T plus 2 tsp. wine vinegar
1 ¼ tsp Aleppo pepper
½ tsp chopped oregano
2 ¼ lbs. tomatoes
½ tsp salt
½ c. queso fresco

  1. Grill the corn on medium heat until nicely charred, 8-12 minutes
  2. Cut the kernals off the cobs and combine with red peppers, 2 tsp of the pepper liquid, oil, 2 T vinegar, 1 tsp Aleppo pepper and the oregano.
  3. Slice the tomatoes, tossing with the remaining salt and tsp vinegar. Arrange on a plate and cover with the corn mixture, queso fresco and the remaining ¼ tsp Aleppo pepper.

Note: If you don’t have Aleppo pepper you can make a good substitute using 4 parts paprika and 1 part cayenne.

What would you like to do with an overload of tomatoes this year?

100 Words, gardening, home, Nature, pets, The Future, Uncategorized, Weather

Strange Portents

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The cats and I noticed something alarming in the garden this morning-a large flock of Chipping Sparrows fluttering around the pea fences.  (Well, I was alarmed. The cats were merely curious.)

I usually see birds flocking around the time school starts in mid to late August. It is only mid to late July, and I certainly hope that this isn’t a portent for an early winter. Our garden is a couple of weeks behind as it is, and we will need as many frost-free days as we can get for a good harvest.

How good are you at predicting things?

Family, Food, gardening, Uncategorized, work

Got Out Of That One

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Husband and I used to erect three, 10 foot long, steel hog panels in the garden for the peas to grow up. We secured the panels  to thin, plastic coated metal poles using  wire. The panels worked great,  but they got too heavy to move and too bulky to store, so, the for past couple of years we have used plastic poultry netting stapled to wooden poles for the peas to grow up.

This year the wooden poles are tall, thin, and not very straight or stable. I put the fence up, and it looks very crooked and  has lots of  droopy gaps. The finicky, Dutch part of me cringes when I look at it.  It will do for the peas,  though, and I have every confidence that no rancher in his right mind will ever ask me to help him with fencing.  It is nice to think that is one responsibility I will never have.

What skill do you lack that you either wish you had or you are glad you don’t possess?

100 Words, Family, Food, gardening, Kids, Uncategorized

Bumper Crop

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Husband picked an enormous amount of strawberries yesterday. It is the third picking this year. The header photo is shows what he harvested. We figure we have one more big picking before strawberry season is over.

Our 14 month old  grandson ate about 2 cups strawberries yesterday. It was a pleasure to watch him savor the tart jewels from the garden. I will have to freeze a lot of berries this weekend.

What has been your most successful production?

Business, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

Saving Robins From Themselves

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Husband and I successfully placed netting on our strawberry bed a couple of weeks ago to prevent depredations by the robins. I didn’t think we had many robins around the neighborhood, but they seem to have hatched out and fled the nest this past week, as I see them all over the yard. They like to hang out in the main veggie garden, as there are tasty worms when the soaker hoses are on. Soon, the red currants will be ready, and they can eat as many of those as they want. I haven’t the patience to pick them.

I always feel a twinge of guilt when we put on the netting, as I worry that we will catch a hapless robin and not find it in time to free it from the netting. I am afraid of birds, but I am prepared when Husband isn’t home to put on a pair of gloves and gently hold a bird while I untangle its feet from the netting. I get the grues just thinking about it. I wish older robins would train the younger ones to avoid the netting. Don’t they say that squirrels and raccoons are getting smarter because we humans are putting more and more difficulties in their way to keep them out of our stuff, and they are learning from us? I don’t see robins getting any smarter.

How do you keep critters out of your garden? When have you had to rescue and animal?

Family, Games, gardening, Gatherings, home, Uncategorized

Ritual

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The neighbors across the street are a hard working, industrious couple who spends every weekend at a little, man made lake about 50 miles east of here. It is a murky hole in the ground that greens up quite soon after the temperature gets warm, but people from around here flock there, mainly for spots to park their campers and get away from the hectic bustle of city life. (Such as it is out here!)

Every Sunday afternoon they return home and we get to observe the ritual washing of the pickup. They have only been gone two nights, they travel mainly on paved roads, yet that pickup gets washed and vacuumed inside and out.  It never fails.It is as though they can’t settle down and relax until the pickup is spotless and back in the garage.

I suppose we all have rituals of some sort. Many rituals serve as declarations of the sacred, whether we are religious or not.  Other rituals serve to bring families together.  Many folks out here have a ritual of playing pinochle after extended family dinners, or rituals involving  sausage making during deer season. Some hunting families  out here have a communal shoot into the air before starting hunting to honor family members who have died. Morning coffee has become a ritual in our home, as the person who goes to work later makes the coffee for the person who goes to work earlier, and the quality of the coffee is always evaluated. The point is that we have coffee together before anyone goes to work.  We will attend the Twin Buttes Pow Wow this weekend, a celebration full of rituals.

What rituals do you observe and participate in? Did your family have rituals when you were growing up? Are you a creature of habit?  

Art, books, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

Pohjala’s Daughter

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About 15 years ago, we planted two rhododendrons named Pohjola’s Daughter. They were  Finnish cultivars said to be cold hardy. They were sort of root bound, and I remember thinking that I could have done a better job freeing the roots when I planted them.  Well, I was right, since they didn’t get appreciably bigger or bloom until this May, despite my constant fertilizing and fussing.  The flowers were so pretty.  It was a long wait, though, and I thought they were aptly named when I researched the story of Pohjola’s Daughter, and how she kept suitors away by giving them impossible tasks to complete before she would marry them. The story comes from the Finnish epic The Kalevala.  Sibelius used the story for a tone poem.  According to Wikipedia:

The tone poem depicts the “steadfast, old,” white-bearded Väinämöinen who spots the beautiful “daughter of the North (Pohjola)”, seated on a rainbow, weaving a cloth of gold while he is riding a sleigh through the dusky landscape. Väinämöinen asks her to join him, but she replies that she will only leave with a man who can perform a number of challenging tasks, such as tying an egg into invisible knots and, most notably, building a boat from fragments of her distaff. Väinämöinen attempts to fulfill these tasks through his own expertise in magic; in many of the tasks he succeeds but he is eventually thwarted by evil spirits when attempting to build the boat and injures himself with an axe. He gives up, abandons the tasks and continues on his journey alone.

I find  our translation of The Kalevala pretty tedious to read, and I think I need to find a new one, since the stories are so interesting. I also find it interesting when life imitates art the way our rhododendrons did.

What is your favorite epic poem or story to read?  When have you seen life imitate art?

Food, gardening, History, Uncategorized

George Washington Liked Ice cream

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Today is the anniversary of the first commercially produced Ice cream in the US in New York City in 1783.

Ice cream had been sold in ice cream parlors in New York since 1776. George Washington is said to have spent $200 on ice cream  ($4500 in current money) in the summer of 1790.  That was a lot of ice cream! Thomas Jefferson had an 18 step recipe for an ice cream dessert  similar to a baked Alaska. By 1800, insulated ice houses were invented, so that ice cream could be stored and sold to the masses. In 1945, the Navy provided a barge in the western Pacific that produced 5400 gallons of ice cream an hour for sailors.

I love ice cream.  We don’t make our own, although we have an electric ice cream churn. I see that our strawberry bed is flourishing, and perhaps there is some strawberry ice cream, or at least strawberries to put on top of ice cream, by the end of the month.

What is your favorite ice cream treat? Tell about ice cream from your childhood.  (Gelato, Froyo, and Sherbet count here, too).

gardening, Songs, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Reboot

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Our Microsoft Outlook went wonky last week, and wouldn’t send any emails, telling me that all our messages were rejected because of abusive behavior on our part.  This happened once before, and the tech guy who fixes our computer had to push some unknown button to correct the issue so that Outlook communicated with our internet provider.  When it happened again last week, I took a chance and just restarted the computer. It did a few upgrades and, voila, our emails were delivered.

I needed a reboot after a stressful late winter and early spring at work and with my regulatory board. Our travels kept me from rebooting in the way that is the best for me, which is pulling weeds and planting new plants and seeds. I finally got to do it last weekend, and, despite developing that weird eye virus, it greatly helped my spirit and made me very happy. It is hard for me to focus on work problems when I am weeding and laying down soaker hoses. It is good for me to worry about cut worms instead of paperwork deadlines. This year we only planted 21 perennials, a record low for us, but our garden beds are really shaping up. I can breathe deep and relax just looking out the windows.

How do you recharge and reboot? Any wonky computer issues vexing you?