Wonderful

Posted on May 8, 2010 by Meredith

I’m in love with my Wonderful pomegranate. No, really — the variety is called Wonderful. And it’s gorgeous. I planted it bare-root and leafless back in January, and now it’s loaded with dark glossy leaves and bright tropical orange-red flowers –mega color. Love love love.

It’s just as well that the second pomegranate tree I planted at the same time did not leaf out — that would have been a lot of pomegranates! It’s interesting that I planted that second tree where my Mexican Anacacho Orchid was struggling, and the orchid tree I moved over near the same area as the Wonderful pomegranate. Well, the Mexican anacacho is doing better than ever in its new spot, and the place where it once struggled and the second pomegranate died has now been leveled and is (at least for now) considered the dead zone.

Also wonderful in my yard, this time with the lower-case “w,” is my new Yarrow. I want more.

And the Winecups are putting on their spectacular (dare I say, wonderful?) show before the heat gets unbearable.

The Winecups always threaten to take over the world before the sun forces them back to a manageable size. Right now they are encroaching on the Texas lantana, and I love the combination of colors.

It’s just… wonderful!

Oh, the Guilt

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Meredith

Back in July I posted this picture of a little creature on my fennel, hoping for an ID.

I was concerned it was a pest of some sort on my brand new veggie and herb seedlings, but I didn’t kill it. But I found a few more over the summer, and I admit that a couple might not have survived my panicky pest control moments (especially when my cantaloupe was under attack by aphids). Well, today I found out what they are — the rag mop larval stage of a kind of lady beetle, the mealybug destroyer (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri). Good guys!

I am so sorry, little larvae, those that I led to a premature demise. It will never, ever happen again, and I promise to watch out for all your cousins from now on!

It’s interesting how the little lady beetle larvae resemble one of their favorite meals, the mealybug, but they also are great devourers of aphids and scale insects, the aphids being what they probably feasted on in my yard. Before… cry.

Harvest Before the Freeze

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Meredith

Brrr! It’s cold out there! Whatever cold weather you northern folks in Canada and the U.S. are experiencing, somehow you’ve managed to send some our way. As I write this, it’s 32 degrees Fahrenheit (freezing!) with a 25-degree windchill, and it’s just early evening yet. That’s cold for these here parts! Looks like the low might be 16 degrees. Good weather for stew, tonight’s meal.

Yesterday the boys and I got out there and watered all the plants in the garden and also gave them a nice seaweed martini to give them an extra boost of nutrients to help protect them survive the freeze. I didn’t cover everything with sheets this time — just the citrus trees and a couple of tenders. I lost a few plants with the last freeze despite the fact that I covered them — I’m just going to have to trust that the hardy of the hardy will survive again.

The exciting news is that my veggie garden, neglected over the holidays, has been growing with a vengeance despite my absence.

The strawberry plants are all alive, yay. And the carrots, lettuce, spinach, and kohlrabi are massive! They’ve been loving their little bed, though I wish I’d managed to give them some organic fertilizer over the holidays, just because I’m learning that they like that. The lettuce heads are so big that I wonder whether the leaves will taste bitter — does lettuce do that? The spinach already is a little bitter, the leaves not being so “baby spinach” size as the seed package promised. It’s our fault for not harvesting them all when small, I suppose.

Tonight we picked a couple of kohlrabi, though I understand they are troopers in a freeze. Aren’t they beautiful? I left a little one back in the bed — I hope it doesn’t get lonely, but maybe the gigantic lettuce leaves will keep it company. And warm. *Edit: I was wrong, I left two in the bed, yay. And I plucked a bunch of lettuce and spinach to share with the neighbors before it all succumbed to the freeze.

Now all we need is for our kohlrabi-loving friends Stepan and Jen and their kids to come over and share our first kohlrabi harvest with us!

This fall I planted two varieties of carrots — one shorter, one longer (the varieties escape me at the moment). The shorter variety has done fairly well — but we gobbled the ones we picked before I got a decent picture. The one below was only mildly deformed and still tasty.

The “longer” variety has proven to be weird. Look at how short and fat this one is.

Unfortunately, it tasted rather bitter for a carrot. It sure has pretty color, though, doesn’t it? I wonder if it was a nutrient thing (remember, I didn’t fertilize over the holidays). The carrots certainly have plenty of depth to grow in, so that’s not the issue.

We gave the yucky ones we harvested to the dogs, who thought the food odd but edible enough.

I need to use some of these carrot tops in a fresh smoothie — yum! Did you know that the carrot greens are far more nutrient-rich than the orange part? It’s important to use organic ones, though — conventionally grown carrots are some of the top vegetables to expose people to pesticides.

Stay warm, all, unless you are in the southern hemisphere — then stay cool!

The New Trend in Pumpkin Carving

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Meredith

Don’t try this at home. Best to do so at your friend’s house, using HIS jigsaw.

The annual party at Stepan and Jennifer’s was a blast, and our three little pumpkins were big in spirit. They were small but mighty!

Sometimes size matters, but apparently not in pumpkins.

Here’s the before.

The small pumpkins had remarkably thick rinds, but scooping out the guts was quick and easy.

And here our little pumpkins are joined by all their pumpkin friends who are all clearly compensating for something.

Here’s where I should point out that Stepan’s pumpkin was the biggest, but that’s just not like me.

The boys like their pumpkins with ham.

I have to show off Stepan’s young garden. Like our family, his family just can’t keep their hands off the sugar snap peas. I noticed there weren’t any available for me to sneakily munch on.

The rampant sugar pumpkin vine attempted to escape to the other side of the fence. See the young pumpkin in the corner? Stepan got to do the hand pollination thing. It’s just so fun.

Thanks for another great party, Stepan and Jen! Oh, to follow up on the pumpkin cheesecake — it was yummy, and we returned home with only a single piece. I took a picture of it, and the next thing I knew it was consumed by one of our naughty dogs. ><

Headless Horseman Strikes the Garden

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Meredith

With Halloween around the corner, we all know that monsters might appear at any time of day or night, but the mere picking of our first orange sugar pumpkin brought to our garden…duhn Duhn DUHN… the Headless Horseman!

There it is, our first orange sugar baby.

I spent the evening creating this Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust using a fantastic recipe I found at The Hungry Mouse. It’s made with cognac. Enough said. Well, not enough — I want to add kudos to Jessie for her detailed photos and instructions on the making of this yummy and divine dessert.

But alas, I confess that I resorted to canned pumpkin to make it. Here’s what happened: When I cut open that little sugar pumpkin that passed all its tests on ripeness, I found that there was a fair amount of green mixed in with the orange inside. I honestly didn’t know whether a little green was okay, but as the pumpkin was already cut open, I went ahead and scooped out the seeds and pulp and baked it. I figured I’d give it a taste test after baking and decide then what to do, all the while feeling pretty much like a pumpkin murderer knowing that there was a good chance I wouldn’t use it.

Well, the baking went fine, but when I tasted it, my first sugar pumpkin, I couldn’t tell whether it tasted the way it was supposed to, so I erred on the side of safety and decided to open a can of pumpkin. Well, it turns out that the canned pumpkin tasted exactly the same, so I could have used my little sugar pumpkin, but it was too late!

But the good news is that I remembered that pumpkin is good in a variety of ways for dogs, so the little orange-greenish pumpkin will not go to waste. I’ve already given some to the dogs, and tomorrow I hope to try my hand at making pumpkin dog treats, perfect for the holidays. I might also try making some muffins or other yummy human treat.

The cheesecake is for today’s annual pumpkin carving party at our friends Stepan and Jennifer’s house. It’s our first year growing our own jack-o-lanterns, which have been behind schedule due to the hot summer and fall rains. But we chose three of our 10 growing pumpkins for early carving. Two are small, and one is still a bit green, but we grew these for carving, so carve them we will! The other seven pumpkins still on the vine will be for carving later in the week or for fall decorating.

My yard is going to look so empty after I have to remove all these pumpkin vines…

First Official Harvest

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Meredith

Tonight my family enjoyed our first ever salad from our garden. I didn’t pick enough, but I treaded through mud and rain with a flashlight to get what I did. Tonight we enjoyed mixed lettuce, two kinds of baby spinach, and sugar snap peas. Everything was delicious, but by far my favorites are the sugar snap peas. I look forward to more garden variety as the other veggies grow.

Allright, I confess. I’ve already been munching on the snap peas. Perhaps I should have called this the “first official harvest photograph.” But it is true that tonight was the first time the rest of my family tried them. It counts, right?

Reflections on the First Year

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Meredith

Has it really only been a year? So much progress has been made in our first year of gardening that it’s hard to believe it happened in a mere 365-ish days. Hey, I only about destroyed my back and my husband had to have knee surgery, but what does that matter when our yard is such a pleasant place to be now? (Ok, my husband just pointed out that we can’t really blame gardening for our failing bodies, but it sounded good.)

What started it all? The felling of one very dead hackberry that was dangerously leaning over our house.

When that tree fell, I had no idea that I was about to embark on a gardening endeavour of massive proportions. But I looked around my yard and hated what I saw. It was time, after 13 years of doing nothing, to do something. Even if I had no clue whatsoever about what to do.

But apparently I figured a few things out. The rest will come when I figure those out.

Here are a few tidbits of how our outdoor world has changed. Now be warned, the overgrown state has to do with all the rain we’ve finally been getting — I haven’t been able to clean anything up. At least things look more green…

The backyard, before and after:

The pond, before and after:

The back porch, before and after:

The front garden bed, before and after:

There’s a lot more to our yard than what you see here, and I invite you to see more. We have a long way to go, but it’s fun to take a look at how far we’ve come. You can also hear more about the story that got us on our gardening journey.

Corn Flakes

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Meredith

Don’t be fooled by good looks…

’cause this bud’s a dud.

I’m 0 for 2 on harvests so far. I’m hoping that I can blame it on bad luck rather than bad skill. Everything was going fine until the rains came — the winds kept blowing the pollen away from the corn, and with the heavy downpours the corn stopped growing tassels. And then there was the occasional worm, and toward the end the aphids hit the corn, too. Basically everything was great, and then corn just stopped doing anything. And yes, the kernels are supposed to be tri-colored. That part’s normal!

But I’m not giving up. One of these days I’ll get something pretty to eat.

And I’m kind of fond of this little deformed baby. There’s a movie in this somewhere, I’m sure.

So guess who is NOT entering the Bountiful Harvest photo contest over at Gardening Gone Wild this month? (But I’ll be cheering for those who do!)

O Alien Seedpod

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Meredith

O Alien Seedpod

© Great Stems, 2009

What creature lurks within this alien seedpod

That attached to the limb of this passerby

Have you tentacles or tendrils

Cloning slime or plasmic goo

Kind heartlight or superior intellect

With mal-intent, malevolent

Or cautious curiosity

Was it accident or enterprise

That those unearthly hooks grabbed hold

Not taken to my leader but to my home

My galaxy within our universe

The day this earthling then stood still

And kept you upon windowsill

Am I Bilbo to your Precious?

An unexpected foil

To the mission of your star trek

The light side to your dark side

Are you from twinkling star or battle star

What led you on your space odyssey

To our forbidden planet

Do you come in peace

Or were you lost in space

Or sent by evil empire

To make a deep impact

When our worlds collided

Does your presence herald an incoming invasion

A pending war of the worlds

A scout passing through the atmosphere of our sphere

To an obscure landing site in dusty field

Far from human occupation

Those claws the right stuff to hitchhike unobserved

Into the galactic center of our empire

And set the stage for Armageddon

Do you watch us, voyager, from within that protective shell

A wasteful race, a ravaged planet

A vengeful, violent species

Bent on destroying ourselves

Do you pity us or laugh at us? Or do you wait

While we do your work for you

Takeover is imminent, the countdown begins

Will we be assimilated? Or annihilated?

Or already absent when your star fleet lands

O Alien Seedpod

I ponder your existence

And then I ponder my own

Two strangers from distant planets meet

Whether it was fate or force or mul-ti-pass

You found me, and I gave you welcome

Whether that means that I’m ambassador

Or first to be devoured when at last you make contact

And I wonder if you can tell me, before my body is snatched:

Is the meaning of life really 42?

Background to my poem: This seedpod is from the Devil’s Claw plant of the genus Proboscidea (without the original plant I hesitate to try to identify the species). It hitched a ride on my shoe while I trekked through ranch land near Uvalde, Texas, some 14 years ago. Since then, my family has enjoyed referring to it as the alien seedpod and enjoyed talking about how it would snatch our bodies or our brains in the night and/or take over Earth. It wasn’t until yesterday that I decided that because I’m now a gardener I should actually find out the name of the plant it came from.

The plant itself, although I don’t have a picture of it, is a somewhat low-growing sprawling plant with beautiful yellow or pink orchid-like flowers. Apparently it’s stinky, too, due to its slimy leaves. The genus name Proboscidea is shared with the animal order which contains only one family, the elephants. In fact, Devil’s Claw is sometimes referred to as elephant tusks, as well as unicorn plant, ram’s horn, and even devil’s snot, depending on the species.

For you veggie gardeners out there, apparently Devil’s Claw works as an excellent trap for tomato hornworms!

Pumpkinball

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Meredith

Were you expecting Cinderella?

It’s almost October, little pumpkin. Leave the castle on time or you’ll turn back into… a pumpkin! Well, that’s not so bad I guess.

Remember the pumpkin growing in the dead tree? What’s wrong with this picture?

It really looks like this now.

The pumpkin totally took that tree down. The remaining root ball was pulled out of the ground.

I guess I’m back to calling this my pumpkin army!

And my husband and I are now grandparents. Our son has his first tiny bell peppers growing.

They are so cute and little! Do red and yellow ones start out green, or will this one stay green? Even so, I don’t think I’m ready to be a grandmother. It’s probably not polite to eat your grandchildren. Can I be a fairy godmother instead? I have pumpkins at the ready! I’d be Cinderella, but I already have my Prince Charming.