Hot Summer Days

Well it's started...the hot summer days. When the garden here in southern Virginia is bathed in the fierce glare of the sun. The ground bakes so dry that it cracks. It looks like a clay pot left in the sun.

The Japanese beetles are out in full force. They seem to love to munch on flowers. So far they've taken out the flowers on one Sonia rose, my yellow hollyhocks, and some zinnias. We retaliated with traps and Neem spray and seem to be winning this skirmish.

The tomatoes have set fruit and I'm eagerly watching one tomato next to the garden gate. Today it's the size of a ping pong ball but just two days ago it was a tiny little marble. These are the big guys, the ones called "Mortgage Lifter" that the ads promised tomatoes of a pound or more each. We'll see!

The corn has petty purple tassels, the watermelon has completely taken over its bed, and the cantaloupe and strawberries are battling for dominance. They each sent runners out and the curving stalks met in the middle. Now the runners are intertwining and battling for space. They filled in all around the tiny blueberry bushes which love the gentle shade from the big cantaloupe leaves. The strawberries are remarkable. Each day I harvest handfuls. We gorge on fresh berries for breakfast.

The beet harvest is in full force and I dropped off some bags of them with our neighbors the Hertzlers today. I hope they enjoy them. The golden beets are my favorites. I have been eating so many I'm surprised my skin hasn't turned orange! I'm saving the rest of the red beets for my first attempt at canning. Maybe later this week I will get around to it.

The spinach set seed and now the lettuce follows suit. The first batch of basil is drying in an old roasting pan we inherited from John's chef great grandfather. I've got these giant roasters and they're wonderful for drying herbs. The onions are also out to dry today.

John's made me promise that the next batch of herbs will be the home grown catnip. Maybe it will distract Pierre from the baby birds. Yup, that's right...Mama bird on our ceiling fan is now an official Mama Bird! She has two babies. Today they poked their fuzzy little heads over the edge of the nest. They look prehistoric with the gray fuzz sticking up all over and the yellow sharp beaks opening and closing. I can watch them from inside the house.

Hot summer days...I wouldn't trade them for all the world!

RIP My Cauliflower

RIP cauliflower.

I beheld you for a few shining moments.

Three months of work yielded one head of cauliflower, a bumper crop of little green worms, and after the torrential rains last week - a stinking, rotting mess that used to be my cauliflower and broccoli. I pulled them all up on Saturday and composted the lot of them. (All the other veggies are thriving. The newest threat arrived thought - hordes of hungry Japanese beetles - but I'll worry about them later.)

The smell from the rotting cauliflower....ugh.

Such are the perils of gardening. We pray for rain; our prayers are answered, sometimes with abundance.

I've never lost an entire bed of vegetables, though, to too much rain. Last year we had drought. This year, too much rain. We heard from a neighbor that some of his corn washed away too, and some rotted.

I tell you, since moving to the country, I have gained such a profound respect for farmers. I've always respected them; but going from a 10 x 10 backyard garden to living among working farmers who till hundreds of acres has given me new respect for all the smarts a farmer has to have.

He must know science: agriculture, meteorology, botany, genetics, chemistry and probably a dozen other things.

He must know mathematics: calculating square foot, yield, ratios and proportion of fertilizer and feed.

He must have a strong back, a clear mind, and an amazing amount of hope and courage to last as a farmer.

Let's all hug a farmer today and give thanks for their hard work.

RIP, cauliflower. Your job is done. First I got a lesson in patience. Now I get a lesson in respect, all from a head of stinking cauliflower.

My Hollyhock Obsession

With each passing season, I grow obsessed with a different plant. In spring it was the iris, and I vowed to add more. Then came my peonies, and I considered adding even more plants to the flower garden.

Now it's the hollyhocks.

I've never grown hollyhocks before. Last year, we planted some from roots that came with the Spring Hill Gardens Sunny Perennial kits, but they sent up leaves and no flowers. I understand that they are biennials, so I had to be patient. I also bought seeds at the dime store and sowed a little patch of them.



This year - pure heaven. Majestic spires of pristine white mingling with deep blood rich crimson against my yellow daisies. Soaring double pompoms of pink backed by single pinks and yellows, and double yellows that look like cheerful carnations.

According to the book The Language of Flowers, hollyhocks stand for fruitfulness. And I'm not the first writer to become obsessed with them. Celia Thaxter wrote the following in her book about her garden hollyhocks: "One enormous hollyhock grew thirteen feet high! At night, the lights from one window illumined him as he swayed to and fro in the wind, a stately column of beauty and grace. A black-red comrade leaned against him and mingled its rich blossoms with his brighter color, and near him were rose, pink and cherry, and white spikes of bloom, lovely to behold."

My thoughts exactly.

Home Again

I'm so glad to be home again! I had a great long weekend at my sister's house on Long Island. It was my niece's college graduation, and next weekend another niece graduates high school. I am so proud of our "girls". They are all bright, intelligent and beautiful women who will make their mark on the world some day. The picture today is me and my niece, Melissa, who is also a writer and who was the party's honoree. She graduated from Ithaca College.

Taking the Amtrak up to New York City and stepping back into the swirling rush of people at New York's Penn Station I felt as if I'd never left. Ever the same on the Long Island Rail Road. I didn't get out into Manhattan as I had originally planned. I wish I'd had time to see my former coworkers and hit a few places I love, but that's life...another time.

Taking the railroad back into New York City to catch the return Amtrak train meant I was back amidst the New York City rush hour crowd. I looked around the 6 am train and knew I was on Long Island's "South Shore" compared to the train line I used to take on the "north shore." If you've ever read Nelson Demille's book, "The Gold Coast", that book is set on the North Shore of Long Island. The North Shore is old money, stock brokers and Manhattan business people. The South Shore has the gorgeous beaches and more working class neighborhoods. I grew up South Shore and moved to the North Shore when I married.

The 6 am train from my sister's South Shore working class Valley Stream neighborhood were mostly Hispanic and African American workers. A few Orthodox Jews in prayer shawls and yamulkes getting on in Queens. Construction workers, welders, electricians. Union patches on their jackets and lunch pails in hand and lots of friendly swear words floating on the morning air. A few office workers and women in hospital scrubs with medical ID's hanging from lanyards around their necks. Everyone clutching deli or Dunkin Donuts coffee cups.

My old train from Cold Spring Harbor....North Shore commuters...that same 6am train on another track. White men and a few women in their 40's and 50's with an occasional African American among the crowd. Clutching expensive brief cases, three-piece business suits, silk ties. Starbucks extra tall coffees in hand and reading the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times. Sleeping people and people on Blackberries and Treos checking email.

I love them all.

They are the face of New York. They are the faces of my childhood. They are my history and roots.

But my heart lifted when the train came back near Richmond, Virginia, and I saw woods, streams, and a pond with little turtles passing by the train window. Cattle fields and elderly ladies on the train dressed in their traveling finery. "Y'alls" and "Have a good day now, ya here" and lots of "Jesus be praised."

If Long Island and New York City are my roots, these people are now my branches and leaves and flowers.

I am home. Truly home.

Gardening posts resume this week!

Journey Into the Garden Through the Camera Lens

Today's update...journey into the garden through my camera lens.

Hollyhocks: took them two years but they were well worth it. Bought from Spring Hill Gardens (visit them using the link in the left side of the blog please).

The flower garden in June. One of my favorite places, and I hope it becomes one of your favorite places, too.






From one direction, the hollyhocks are highlighted by numerous yellow perennials, including varieties of daisies and Stella d'Oro daylilies....

Looking at them from another direction, the hollyhocks stand out against the salvia and nepeta in the butterfly and hummingbird garden behind them. I have white and yellow hollyhocks blooming now. A group I planted from seeds, mystery colors all, are about to bloom.






















Here is one of our daily visitors. At one point today, three hummingbirds took turns on the feeder. They perch on the trellis. Morning glories are slowly making their way up the sides of the trellis, volunteers growing from plants I had there last year.

The Sneaky Cauliflower

Cauliflower is a sneaky vegetable. Now don't get me wrong. It's a delicious vegetable...at least I think so.

This is the first time I have ever grown cauliflower. I bought plants at Lowe's instead of starting it from seed. It was one of the first vegetables I planted in the new raised garden beds.

It's a sneaky vegetable.

First, it grew leaves...HUGE leaves...enormous leaves. I'd carefully left the requisite amount of space between the plants as directed on the labels. Note to self: leave double that next year.

We watched in awe as the rain beaded on the waxy leaves. John looked it up in a book and found that scientists believe that some plants gained an evolutionary advantage by developing this ability. As we watched, the cauliflower leaves gently guided beads of water down into the thirsty heart of the plant.

But still...no cauliflower.

Just leaves.

Now REALLY big leaves.


Patience?

Um....no.

Total impatience. "C'mon cauliflower, I want to make dinner...grow!"

John spotted the cauliflower head first. "Come here and look - it's the size of a baseball!" Sure enough, there was a beautiful head forming on one of the plants.

Yesterday after all the rain I went into the vegetable garden to pick strawberries and I stopped by to check on the cauliflower. That sneak. The head is now the size of a volleyball. And now two others have little cauliflower heads the size of baseballs....

Sneaky thing. I almost pulled you up. Stealth vegetables growing in the night and hiding from me. Keep growing!

Tips to Grow Cauliflower

• Cool season vegetable that according to the Illinois Cooperative Extension website is "more difficult to grow than other members of the cabbage family" (now you tell me!)
• Best to start from transplants
• Start in spring or fall
• 71 days to maturity (just about right, although mine took a tiny bit longer)
• More sensitive to cold than other cabbage family members (Kathleen said they like it around 72 degrees; I would agree with her. The cold snap we got in May probably slowed it down, making it longer than 71 days to maturity)
• Space 18-21 inches apart (mine are about 12 inches apart)
• Self blanch by tying the leaves over the head so the edible part doesn't develop an off flavor (I didn't do this, but may today...they look okay so far...those huge leaves served a purpose and just by having so many leaves it appears it did self blanch)

The picture today is one that I took. It's my cauliflower leaves right after a rainstorm. I may frame this picture for my office. I have two garden photos I took hanging over my desk, a snap dragon and the mini hollyhock that looks like a weed.

Flower Gardening Update

I promised that once a month, I'd stand in the same spot (next to the piles of slate destined for the garden paths...trust me, they aren't moving anytime soon) and snap photos of the flower garden. I love flower gardening. I could spend all day out there. The butterflies are out in full force. On Tuesday we counted 20 butterflies alone at the front of the garden. This morning as I snapped these pictures, several hummingbirds swooped by to drink nectar from the feeder hanging on the arched trellis entrance, but I was too slow to capture them.

Here is the garden on May 4, 2009:













And here it is: the flower garden, today, June 4, 2009. This is the hot, sunny, sloping area next to the driveway that the guys building our house thought of as wasted space. They've told us they wondered what we'd do there. Even the UPS delivery man stops to look at the flowers when he drives up. The flowers make me so happy! Annuals, perennials, roses and a ton of weeds, all in happy, messy profusion.














The majority of the plants are from SpringHill Nursery. Remember my story about them? I bought two kits and they had a year guarantee. I called them to ask for a replacement on just six plants that had died. Each kit had at least 30 plants. They didn't just send me new plants - they sent me the WHOLE KIT! TWO KITS! So my flower gardening joy is complete. More plants to play with!

The Vegetables are Coming

The vegetables are coming! Thick and fast and organic and wonderful. I've frozen three gallons of chard and spinach and just dried a pint's worth of oregano. I have been cooking up vegetarian dinners of chard, garlic and olive oil topped pasta that are so heavenly I crave more. Raw salads are the order of the day for lunch.





Here's an update:

• The corn is knee high. Our friends the Hertzlers tell us that crows ate so many of their corn seed that they had to replant it and they lost a lot, but although I've seen crows studying the corn they didn't touch ours yet. (hope I didn't jinx myself here) (but I don't believe in jinxes!)
  
• The cauliflower has actually started producing heads! I had huge leaves and no cauliflower, but I've never grown it before and I thought I was doing something wrong. Nope. It just takes a long time to develop.
• The tomatoes are all about 10 inches tall. Peppers are thriving. The eggplants look terrible! Something is eating the leaves, plus the cold snap in May really stunted them. Cucumbers have revived.
  
• The basils, rosemary, parsley, dill, chamomile, sage, chives, thyme, peppermint, stevia and sweet woodruff are growing like weeds! I have another tray of oregano sun drying on the porch.
• Onions are almost ready!
• The blueberry bush that died LIVES! It came back to life and now sports four jaunty leaves.
• Watermelons, cantalopes, squashes...they have lovely little leaves. Did you know that Moon & Stars Watermelon has green leaves with yellow specks, just like the fruits do? I didn't know that. I thought mine was sick until a gardening friend reminded me that the fruit looks like that too!
• Beets are beeting...they're about the size of golf balls now! The Bulls Blood beets, a Victorian heirloom, is much more robust than the Golden Beets.
• Turnips are turniping...they're also about the size of marbles right now.
  
• We planted green bean seeds...not up yet.

Yes, I'll get out and take pictures this week. I'm late on my flower garden progress report too! But I've been swamped with work....trying to find more freelance work takes time too.

Happy Wednesday!

Smart Foxes and Silly Birds

Our wildlife update today focuses on one smart fox - and one very silly bird.

The red fox is back. He looks beautiful. Sleek and healthy, his red coat shining in the sun, he hunted field mice along the edge of the back woods this morning. We watched him for about 20 minutes until he gamboled back into the woods. He lies in wait, dark eyes fixed on a point among the tall grass in the wildflower meadow. Then - POUNCE! And, I imagine, a very satisfied red fox.

The bird is another story. She is one silly bird! She is a Phoebe, an insect-eating bird. Over the weekend we noticed Pierre attentively watching out the hall window on the second floor. A closer look revealed a Phoebe, the remnants of her nest washed away by the heavy rains. She was angrily swooping back and forth in front of the closed window, perhaps trying to chase Pierre away. Pierre wouldn't budge. After over an hour of this, the Phoebe flew away.


This morning John called me downstairs and pointed out the living room window towards our wrap around front porch. There on the ceiling fan was a new nest...and our friend Mrs. Phoebe. She was busily shuttling twigs back and forth to her new nest.

"Remind me not to put on the porch fan," I asked John as Pierre trilled with joy from his perch on the window sill. It's like kitty TV for him.

"She's going to lose the nest again," John said. "The wind blows the fan blades around. As soon as we get a strong wind, it's going to dislodge the nest."

I don't know whether our Phoebe is smart or very silly. She's smart because the front porch lights attract insects at night, which makes her job of catching food very easy. But she's a silly girl, building her nest in all the wrong places.