Vanilla Icing

I Was Going to Eat That

It is nearly the end of September and my garden is still going strong.  On the herb side of things I have Italian flat leaf parsley (too much of it!), oregano, rosemary, thyme and basil.  On the vegetable side of things there are some peppers valiantly fighting to give me just a few despite my choice of a not-so-great location for them.  I got a little lazy and let some romaine bolt and I neglected the cucumber plant.   The romaine is doing some funky things in return for my negligence but that cucumber plant was so thankful I tucked a stray seed found in the bottom of the envelope in the dirt late in the season that it's sprawling nicely all over the place and has already given me several plump juicy cucumbers with the promise of a good many more.

Then there's the right hand garden full of the Mafia Tomatoes.  All but one of the plants made it to adulthood and they are all giving me tomatoes.  Not as many as I'd like, but considering the overabundance of rain we had all summer that lead to many tomatoes getting a weird black spot on the bottom just as they started to ripen they seemed to have rebounded.  After the too much rain and the black spot crisis I got more vigilant in checking them over nearly every day and removing any leaves and/or baby tomatoes that just didn't look right.  It must have worked because every leaf on those plants are perfect and tomatoes are forming every day AND I've got a bowl of pretty ripe ones in my fridge.  Not too bad!

Despite all of this thriving goodness in my garden I've been wondering about this:

This is a leaf from one of my two broccoli plants.  (The other plant has been gnawed almost to the ground).  I've never grown broccoli before and this perplexed me because the other vegetables that are in the same bed as the broccoli are untouched.  The vegetable itself wasn't doing too well either.  Every time it looked as if it was starting to get bigger I'd check it again to see that it looked like someone had been nibbling on it. 

Tonight I found the culprit.  A-hem!  Culprits!  I plucked a dozen of these guys off my broccoli plant tonight and I will be looking for more of them tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the day after that.  'Cause you know, as a stay-at-home-mom whose children are in school I've got nothing better to do with my time.  Waging war against these green wormy-caterpillar-things is by far more important than things like laundry.  Or running the vacuum.  

Don't you little $#!+$ know there's perfectly good neglected romaine just a few feet away?  You really should leave the broccoli alone because I was going to eat that.

Saturdays in Summer

....are for cheering on Mafia Marzanos!!  Go guys! Go!

Saturdays in Summer

...are for discovering a tomato plant in the garden that you didn't put there.  A seed from last year crop perhaps?

No retreat. No surrender.

Around this time every year, I notice my roses and other plants are struggling and not at all lush in growth as they should be.  Closer inspection always shows an army of aphids that has moved in, intent on destroying my plants.

I put out a call to arms to MY army and in two days they are marshaled and ready to fight.  Then, just like last year I make lots of references to 300.  I'll try to spare you that this year. 

I do have a new Second-in-Command this year.

He is very hands on.

Very careful and diligent.

Patient, exacting...

and unafraid to send his men into enemy territory.  He shouts one thing as his army marches to do his bidding:   

"Pile those Persians Aphids high! For unless I miss my guess, we're in for one wild night."


Sorry, couldn't resist

Falling In Love

I'm really fussy about flowers.  I ADORE flowers but I have very particular and peculiar feelings about each and everyone I meet.  Let me give you some examples:

I hate daffodils.   In fact, I despise these flowers so much that it takes ALL of my willpower to NOT stomp down each and everyone I see.  Willpower and fear of my neighbors that is.

Petunias are beautiful...until I think of the name.   I never think of the name if I can help it.  I call them Fluttery Flowers in my head.

Pansies are smug.  I waver on these guys.

Tulips are divine.  They are one of my favorites unless it is dark purple.

Irises.  Ugh.  Don't like irises at all.  The white ones are somewhat bearable.

Salvia has the bonus of flowering all summer but rarely do I see it anywhere that it seems to fit.

I dislike most marigolds.  Something about them just really bothers me.  Especially those orange ones with red bits on them.  But I the yellow ones are okay and I like their spicy scent.

I could keep going...but I won't.  Maybe one more. 

Roses.  Pinks and Reds.  Tree, bush, or climbing.  I love them all so long as they have scent to them.   Or if they are yellow.   Nope, don't like yellow roses.  

And then.

I was at the hardware store yesterday looking at flowers.  In the midst of all these beautiful reds and pinks came a wonderful scent.  But it belonged to none of the red and pink roses and finally I identified its source.

In the center of all of the showy pinks and reds were three scraggly rose bushes with dried and dying yellow roses on them.  It couldn't be, I thought, but I leaned over to have a whiff.  It was.  There was nothing for it then but I buy one of these bushes with the ugly brown-yellow roses on them.  I had to have that scent no matter what the flower looked like.

I brought the pitiful thing home and planted it.  I trimmed off all the dead roses, leaving only a few buds left.  I hoped they would flower but I didn't have much hope because the plant looked rather sickly.

Then look what I found this morning:

I am in love.  With yellow roses.  How could I ever thought they were ugly before?  They are perfect bits of summer sunshine.  I want an entire garden of yellow roses.

I might have to make a trip to bring home her siblings.  =)

San Marzano

Hello.  I'm still here.  This week has been very busy and will get busier still.  Between yard work and errands, Rick and I have been getting ready for the Cheat Race which is a downriver kayaking race that Rick organizes and runs every year.  I help but don't do nearly as much as he does!  The race is tomorrow and then things should slow down around here.  This will be my third year helping out; here's 2007 and 2008.

But let's talk about something else today.

Look at this little guy.  He's a baby San Marzano tomato plant.  I've got a good many more too!

I have an 'interesting' story about how I got the seeds for these guys.

A few months ago, I decided if I was going to grow tomatoes this year I was going to grow the only ones that I like to use for sauce:  San Marzano Tomatoes.  It was a wise decision because a can of these imported tomatoes cost up to $5.00 and I thought if I can grow my own then perhaps--just maybe--I can grow enough for canning for the entire year?  Please?

I had no luck finding the seeds at any of the local nurseries and I turned to the Internet.  I found a place online that sells the imported canned tomatoes by the case AND the seeds.  The website was more than a little sketchy--it was downright suspicious!  I was hesitant to order online and I decided to call the number they had listed.

It was a strange number; it didn't seem at all like a telephone number that was in the U.S. but now that 1-800 numbers have branched out to other numbers I figured this was probably the same.  I called about 1 pm.   No one answered and I got a barely understandable recording.  They were closed, the heavily Italian accented voice informed me.  Ooops did I just call Italy?  I shuddered to think of the rates for that phone call.

I hung up the phone and poked around their website some more.  I found out that they were an import company located in New Jersey.  There was no reason they shouldn't be open!  Then, I started thinking of the Sopranos that Rick and I have just spent the last year watching the entire series watching and wondered if I had just phoned some Mafia front that wasn't really selling imported tomatoes and seeds at all. 

Suddenly the phone rang.  It was that number I had just called!  There was no way I was NOT going to answer a phone call from the Mafia.  It might make them even angrier!  Hesitatingly, I answered it.

'Hellooo?   Did you just call here?'  is what came over the line in accented English.

Agh!  It was the Mafia!  was all I could think.  Completely freaked out, I told the man why I had called.

And ordered the San Marzano tomato seeds.

And gave him my credit card information. 

And wondered if this was all a scam to get my credit card numbers.

And wished I still had my very Italian maiden name so that perhaps he wouldn't screw over 'one of his own.'

And then I waited and hoped for 10 days that mysterious charges wouldn't suddenly start appearing on my credit card.

They did not.

My San Marzano seeds arrived with a very  nice handwritten thank you note.  A few weeks later they were sprouting and now they are outside in my garden bed.   All of that silly concern for nothing!  If I haven't told you already, I'll tell you now.  I have a VERY overactive imagination.

I'm still watching my credit card statements.

Rampantly Impatient

I'm always a little sad when I notice my tulips opening their petals as wide as they can go.  This means that I only have a little more time to enjoy them before they are gone until next spring.

But maybe it's a good thing this year.

 

I have all these guys waiting their turn in the garden.   Rampantly impatient.

 And there are more waiting in the wings.  Lots more.

Spring Overboard

I may have been, a little, um...over ambitious.  Considering three quarters of my back yard is shade and the front has only one moderate sized flower bed and one tiny one.

But...that's why they made decks and front porches, right?

Cool As a Cucumber

And I will strive to remain so.  I will NOT focus on the intense micro bursts of sibling disharmony that have been occurring lately.  I HAVE taken a deep breath (or ten) and I will work on the solution.

Think of a solution, not the problem. 

Perplexing Potatoes

Having known nothing about potato growing other than remembering from the Little House on the Prairie Books that one could cut up a potato into several pieces to get several potato plants that is pretty much all I did.   The plants grew tall and proud and recently started tumbling over.   A little research later and I found you are actually supposed to cover most of them up with a hill of dirt.  Several times.

The containers I had my potato plants in where too small to hill the potatoes and I was left with no choice but to carefully move them to a bigger container.  Everyone seemed to survive the move.

Except this guy.  'Cause I ate him yesterday for lunch and he was delicious.