Garden Snapshots

One day last week, I loaded-up a real camera and took some not-with-a-cellphone photos at the garden. 

Marigolds are a great companion plant for nearly everything in the garden. These came up volunteer and are already blooming.

Barry's Crazy Cherry tomatoes were a favorite last summer, and we have several of them planted again this year.

The first sunflower bloom of the year.

Jack carried his camera to the garden, too. There he is behind our enormous pea vines.

Beets and carrots.

Jack among the sunflowers.

Onion blossoms are quite beautiful. 

Radish blossoms are also very beautiful. 

Leafy lettuce greens are planted to get afternoon shade so they will hopefully not bolt as quickly in the heat. 

 

A Quick Update: The Garden is Popping

SO much has been going on in life and the garden since March that I'm just going to jump right into things where we are now then backfill other details when those opportunities present themselves.

Before Jack and I ever planted a garden, I envisioned arranging a beautiful still-life of colorful vegetables on the tailgate of our truck and taking a picture to share here on the blog, and look what just happened a few days ago.

Pretty as a picture. 

Here's another.

This was YESTERDAY!! Look at that cabbage!!! Red AND golden beets. Kohlrabi. 

I've super excited because we've finally been able to grow snap peas!!

This variety is called Magnolia Blossom, and it's called a "tendril pea," because of the copious structure the vines build as they grow. The blooms are all a lovely shade of bright, cool pink, and they form bright, hot green snap peas with sweet, crisp edible pods. 

I'm in love with these peas.

They've quadrupled in size since mid-May.

The second week in May, the garden looked like this.

This was last week, June 16. 

Garden Ahoy!

Happy March, everybody!!

I'll jump right into the gardening portion of the program with the announcement that SPRING GARDEN 2023 is officially underway.

Last week, we loved-on last fall's spinach and lettuce, which survived ghastly sub-zero temperatures just before Christmas, and this week, we have fresh, delicious salad!! The spinach and butter lettuce are especially happy after the trifecta of fertilizer, rain, and warm sunshine, and earlier this week, we ate our first fresh salad since December. Since these greens have gotten their toes nipped by cold weather, they're especially sweet and flavorful.

Last week's gardening effort also included planting more spinach, arugula, radishes, and more lettuce. If nothing else, we'll have plenty of salads.

Today we planted peas, carrots, and beets in the garden, and I started cabbage, peppers, kohlrabi, and mountain mint in sprouting mix. With rain in the forecast for the next three days, we wanted to get some seeds scattered in the garden, and we got it done. 

Don't ask about the mountain mint. I ordered it from Baker Creek because I liked the picture and the description. 

Cool Cabbages

October's here, and I'm ready for it. I haven't always welcomed the arrival of cooler weather with open arms, but this year, fall has arrived like an old friend. I'm mostly ready to stop worrying about the cabbage and broccoli plants I've been helicopter parenting since the seeds went into the dirt back in July. 

The cabbage and broccoli in the spring garden were devoured first by deer then caterpillars, and we got nothing. The bok choys were beautiful, but the rest of the brassicas were literal worm food. I tried picking them off by hand on a daily basis, but they were too much, and yes, that task is absolutely as unpleasant as it sounds. 

After giving up on the spring crop, I learned about natural, non-poisonous ways to control cabbage cooties, and without jumping into a whole big thing, I'll just say, "they work." 

You have to stay on top of things, observe the plants everyday, and be ready to spray at the sight of the first worm, but they work. 

Here's where we currently sit:

Sunflowers

Inspired by the strong spirit of the Ukrainian people and friends planting sunflowers, I ordered seeds for four different varieties from Baker Creek Seed Company. Jack and I planted seeds on May 21st, and by late July, magnificent sunflowers were giving us a show.

Friend Matt visited the garden, and Mom helped us send him home with a bouquet.

Suddenly September

Yes, I know it's been awhile, y'all, but here we are in the second week of September, so I'm just going to jump right into it like I haven't been absent from this blog for nearly six months. 

To get the sad stuff out of the way first, Jack and I had to say goodbye to our favorite beagle and full-time sweetheart, JosieJo, earlier this month. She was diagnosed with liver failure a year ago after falling deathly and suddenly ill, so we knew our time with her was limited and treated every day like a gift. By our vet's estimation, she was maybe as old as fourteen, and we're confident that we gave her the best home and life possible in the ten years she was part of our family. 

She loved trips to the farm to roll in the grass, hunt for moles, get loved-on by Mom and Dad, watch cows, and patrol the garden, and she got to do those things in her last days. She was a great co-pilot for errands, insanely jealous of cute puppies, indifferent toward cats, and a wonderful friend and companion.

She became suddenly sick again two Fridays ago, and an x-ray at our vet's office late that afternoon revealed a large tumor on her liver and a smaller tumor in one of her lungs. Nothing could be done but love, respect, and say goodbye to her.

This is the first time since 1993 that I've been dog'less and nearly that long for Jack, so the house feels a little empty. We're going to wait until we make some little home and grounds improvements to make our situation as safe and secure as possible before bringing another dog or puppy into the family. 

Other aspects of life are chugging along quite nicely.

Like our garden, which has given us enough tomatoes to feed an army and almost that much okra. 

Big tomatoes? Yes. Big tomatoes like this monster!

Yes, that's a pound and a half!! And it was delicious. I've got photos of it all sliced-up and need to pull those off the camera to share, because it was a thing of beauty. I probably use the word "perfect" too much for the real world, but this tomato was absolutely perfect. 

I know that, because I'm now something I've always wanted to be: someone who loves to eat tomatoes.

No kidding.

Back in the winter when I planted tomato seeds, I told Jack and everybody else who'd listen that 2022 would be the year I overcame a lifetime being a tomato pariah. I've been shamed and picked-at since I was a little kid for not liking raw tomatoes, but those days are over, at least as far as the home-grown kind of tomatoes are concerned. 

Here's a picture of the first BLT I ever ate that had "T" on it -

It was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted in my life. The tomato makes it, and I now understand why people have always given me side-eye when I talk about eating BLTs without the T. I won't make that mistake again.

The cherry and grape tomatoes we grew were magic, and there's no other way to describe them. Bea even won a blue ribbon at the Williamson County Fair with tomatoes she raised from a plant I gave her. I'm still beaming with pride so hard it's ridiculous 

Our tomatoes are still producing like gangbusters, but we know the end is coming. Our first row of tomatoes, planted the day before Mother's Day, is almost finished. A few of the grape/cherry tomatoes are still hanging in there and will likely give us a few handfuls a day until our first frost, which is expected to happen around October 15th. The second row of tomatoes is productive, but they're showing signs of being tired. The peppers and most of the okra are doing the same. Daylight is shorter - Autumn Equinox is the day after tomorrow, and after that, we start the roll into winter. 

Lots and lots of okra.

Bea's Birthday and a Quick Garden Update

How did we get to the end of April already? It seems like "palindrome day" was just yesterday, but it was two whole months ago. More than two whole months ago!

While we're playing "where did the time go?" yesterday was Bea's tenth birthday. We had a sweet, fun family celebration at the baby house in Franklin. Bea requested spaghetti, and her NanNan came through with it. Sis brought what has become a regular thing when Bea's b'day rolls around, a strawberry cake from the Nothing Bundt Cakes store. I love that cake, too, and am always happy to co-celebrate April birthdays with Beatrice and a big slice of deliciousness.

Here are some photos I took:

In other happenings, Jack and I are back on the garden bandwagon and have several things underway already, including a new helper, Scarecrow Charlie, who will hopefully do a good job shooing away any deer that might have designs on our tender vegetable plants. 

Bounty from the Garden

These pictures are from a few weeks ago when the fall garden was living its best life. 

We grew a GREAT crop of broccoli and expected to just "eat some along" throughout colder weather until the temperatures really dipped, but our weather was amazingly warm - in the mid-70s for the stretch of days through Christmas - and crowns started rotting on the vine. Boom! In a matter of days, our nearly perfect broccoli overshot ideal ripeness and started getting soft and mushy in the middle. DOH! We picked every bit of it, sharing with Mom, Dad, the Vernons, and the neighbors and eating lots of it ourselves. 

Steamed. Soup. Sheet pan dinner. 

We'd hoped we'd get another picking or two of sideshoots, but as quickly as the temperatures rose to the 70s, it plunged to less than 15, and the broccoli was finito. 

The bok choy was a slightly different scenario and tolerated both warm and cold better than other things in our garden, and was cold hearty even through a dusting of snow. We did finally pick the remaining dozen or so heads last week before the super-cold weather and still have a handful in the fridge. 

Our "regular cabbage" never grew that well but is hanging in through whatever weather we have in heads ranging in size from tennis ball to softball. They're mild and tender and taste great quartered and roasted on a sheetpan. 

Pea Porn

 

Y'all are probably going to get tired of hearing about these peas before I get tired of talking about them. 

Or eating them.

Or taking pictures of them. 

Garden Update, Up a Ladder, Other Stuff

Is everybody surviving pumpkin spice and decorative gourd season? 

Have you worn a sweater because it's October and we're supposed to? Are y'all OK? 😅

God help me, I've used an emoji in a blog post, but so what? Traffic through this joint is so sluggish that stooping to smilie use probably isn't going to kill my monthly visitor count of "about 5." 

I would put another one here, but no - too much.

Fall rolls on, but my sweaters are still in the closet. 

The garden is coming along nicely, if I do say so myself. This is what it looked after Jack and I finished prepping for the rain we got early last week.

From left to right, we've got purple-top turnips, broccoli, early wonder beets, French breakfast radishes/Nantes carrots/white icicle radishes (interplanted into layered row), bok choy, three kinds of branching broccoli, Georgia collards, cabbage, and cherry belle radishes/Detroit beets interplanted.

Dad said to plant enough to share with the critters - there's a den with at least three generations of groundhogs less than 50 yards from where I stood to take this picture - so I did. Especially if they like radishes.

So far, knock on wood, we haven't had problems with pests other than weeds. 

Two days after the Hurricane Ida rains passed, morning glories, wild violets, and all manner of grass came for us, but I threw down like a rug on fire with our little electric tiller, Jack muscled a hoe until damn-near-dark, and we got everything in order before the last batch of rain moved through.

The pea patch I talked about last time is still plugging along and will hopefully give us some goodies in just a couple more weeks. Blooms are here.

We've also got a bed for a gazillion turnip greens, a bed of spinach and (crossed-fingers) artichokes come spring, and a bed for bulb fennel, because fennel has no friends and needs its own private space. 

Now we wait. And weed and wait some more. And weed some more. And wait.

What else has been going on?

Carpentry and power tools is what!

Dad's been wanting to complete the finish-work on the back porch he and Mom had built this time last year and hit me up to help him out with it. He helped me craft a bread peel from red oak in the spring, and I demonstrated appropriate safety and basic competence in using the power tools, so I got invited back for another round. 

I don't have any pictures of that, but I should add some, because we did AWESOME, and the finished product is A+. I got checked off on the mitre saw and demonstrated my competence with the nail gun. We worked hard for two days, and I had to <gasp> climb the ladder, and some of y'all know how I feel about climbing more than a step stool. It's all good, though, but wow! 

"MY FEET FEEL BROKEN!" I chatted to my friend Matt. 

"You were up a ladder, silly," he immediately countered, like I completely failed to put two and two together.

Well, duh.

Anyway, I dealt with my fear of falling from a ladder and breaking my bones into pieces, got more experience using a nail gun (which is fun and you need to try it), and hung with two of my favorite people. PLUS, the porch looks GREAT!!

Sunset at the farm

10/07/2021

Fall Garden, Dr. Jason Martin, and Everything is Fine

Happy fall, y'all! 

It's here, too. I stepped outside with Josie a little bit ago, and it's downright chipper. The harvest moon from earlier in the week still looks mostly full, and I had a hard time getting back to sleep at 3:00 this morning because so much moonlight was streaming into our bedroom. There were moonshadows on the wall! Aside from the insomnia and the cats all-hours playfulness, it's a cool experience. 

Since the last time I wrote anything here, Jack and I have jumped head and ears into planting a fall garden. For years now, October comes around, and I'm sad that we have no snap peas planted. This year I got on the stick and planted a BUNCH of peas the last week in August. Four varieties. Some are doing better than others, but all-in-all, I'm pleased with the outcome of the ones that are making it and determined to have make the best of the situation. I ordered seeds from two different sources and am pleasantly surprised to have almost 100% germination of the seeds we purchased from Botanical Interests, a newish company in Colorado. If you need seeds, check them out.

In addition to peas, we have turnips and beets, radishes, broccoli, cabbage (we think - it may have been mislabeled), carrots, collards, bok choy, more broccoli, turnips for greens, fennel, and all kinds of salad greens.

Ambitious, yes. Hopeful, yes. Vulnerable, yes. To weeds, which are growing like freaking gangbusters and maybe rabbits, because half of the beets are MIA already, and the first round of radishes look spindly. Dad says we may not have used enough fertilizer, so inexperience is another weak spot, but before the next rain, I plan on getting some close consultation from him about fertilizing specifics for  whatever is still kicking when the garden dries out enough for us to at least walk across it.

I tried to do some assessment and planning today, but yikes, the earth stuck to my hoe and I nearly got the truck stuck in the earth. 

It's fine, though, I tell myself. Everything is fine. 

I also tell myself that same stuff about the COVID pandemic, which continues to rage, especially in red states like Tennessee with governors like Bill Lee who are fine with letting their people die, because they know they can use it against Democrats in the mid-term elections of 2022, but again, 

it's fine. 

On Wednesday of last week, I joined some DeKalb County friends and neighbors in welcoming Dr. Jason Martin to town. He's an ICU physician from Hendersonville who's announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Tennessee governor next year. His main priority is moving us past the pandemic into solid economic territory for the benefit of middle, working class folks and families with children. He supports Medicaid expansion and is outraged that since Bill Lee was elected in 2018, fourteen rural Tennessee hospitals have closed leaving thousands of people without a place to go for emergencies in their home communities. He and his wife have three school-age children, daughters, so both strong public education and abortion rights are important to him. He talked about the importance of rural broadband and providing infrastructure services to people in counties like DeKalb and talked knowledgeably and respectfully about the effectiveness of rural phone and electric cooperatives. 

The only thing I didn't like about him were his pants.