Spring planting...

6 May 2021: Took a trip to Sunny Meadows Nursery and got my plants for the season. I will plant them over the next few days, but got a start today on the porch flowers. (A few are actually annuals from last season that I took inside and made it through the winter.)

Makes me happy...

"The Garden We Share"

30 November 2019: “… a joyless world is one in which we do not acknowledge or engage each other’s pain, you know?” –Ross Gay

I listened to this episode of the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast today while doing some late fall/early winter yard work. Honestly, this is one of my least favorite chores every year—cold and depressing. But listening to this episode which is about, among other things, gardening, joy, and human connection, made the work go faster.

The "Gnome Home" Meets the Undead

20 May 2016: Ever since I bought my house, I have affectionately referred to it as the "Gnome Home" because of its very steep roof. So I was delighted/amused by the Christmas gift I got from my brother and his family this year. Finally got to put them out on Friday, after I finished my spring garden clean-up and planting.

There six of them total. They are pretty tiny, which is better than being regular sized, I think. More likely to "sneak" up on you.

Rainy day planting

9 May 2016: It is still raining every freakin' day here (Sunday was the only exception), but I finally got into some spring flower planting on Monday. It was extra muddy and I didn't make a ton of progress, but it still felt good to get started.

Time to garden...

6 May 2014: I spent much of Tuesday finally cleaning up the flower beds, spreading mulch, and generally getting the yard ready for summer. It was tiring (and sometimes gross) work, but I am grateful for the time and energy to have done it.

More garden drama...

So today I found one of these in my tomatoes.

If you haven't seen one of these before, they are HUGE (like 3 inches long and the thickness of a cigar) and totally "ick!"-provoking. When I killed it, a substance that looked like lime jello gushed out. It was like something from a science fiction movie. Ugh. Ick. Gross.

Here's a helpful informative Youtube about the little buggers:



(The bit about the parasitic wasps is both cool and absolutely disgusting.)

I had a long conversation with my friend Vogel today about how I might not be cut out for this veggie gardening thing. (Flowers, shrubs, etc. I am pretty darn good at...) I am just too emotional and the constant vigilance is a bit wearying. It's like, just when you think you've handled one crisis (squash borers, for instance, or deer nibbling on the leaves, or collapsing tomato plants, or drought-like conditions that have been here all summer), you find a HUGE FREAKIN' WORM THAT SHOOTS BRIGHT GREEN LIQUID AND HAS A RED HORN ON ITS BUTT! (Sorry but the all-caps seem necessary here.)

Quick gardening tip...

When out in the veggie garden and in need of a free hand, don't (even temporarily) put a tomato in your pocket. If you get even the least bit distracted, it might not end well for the tomato--or your shorts.

Sad news from the garden...

Well folks, it's all over for the once-thriving and ultra-prolific zuchinni and never-quite-took-off yellow squash. The amateur gardener in me was no match for the one-two punch of squash bugs and squash borers. Both are incredibly ugly little buggers--enough to make one's skin crawl.

Interestingly, this is bugging (ha!) me more than I thought it would. Kind of depressing to watch something you were once so excited about just wilt away and die. I am not sure if I'll try growing these specific vegetables again next year. Maybe at least the zuchinni, because I love it so much.

On a happier note, the tomatoes are still thriving, the peppers are still (slowly) producing, and that last cucumber plant is hanging on.

Homemade Tomato Sauce...

Since I am up to my elbows in tomatoes, I took a stab at making sauce from scratch. I used this recipe as a base. I made just a few modifications, but more or less stuck to it. At the end of the four hours of simmering, I thought it was still too watery, so I added more tomato paste and then pureed the whole batch in the blender. Overall, it was pretty good, but a bit bland. I'll have to think of how to spice it up a bit next time. More garlic, more pepper...

For tonight, I made some homemade meatballs, too. I have enough meatballs and sauce leftover for about three more meals. And I also froze two quart-sized bags of just the plain sauce. So all in all, a good first endeavor! Maybe I should try pizza sauce next...

Garden Pics...

I've got this much produce coming in every day or so. It's almost too much...

The cucumbers are making a comeback! Yay!

Tomatoes ripening on the windowsill.

I love the way this pepper is changing color--so pretty.

Roasted Yellow Pear Tomatoes

Made these last night and they were pretty darn good--worth using the oven on a super-hot day. Surprisingly sweet and so very simple!

Gift to myself...

Check out what I just bought myself. With my garden producing dozens of tomatoes (especially yellow pear tomatoes) and the (now recovering) zucchini and peppers coming along nicely, too, I am anticipating continuing to have more fresh produce than I know what to do with. And in the past, every time I've looked at recipes that call for intense chopping or a food processor, I just move on, since I don't have the equipment. Now I'll be in business, baby! Feel free to share any recipes for lots of tomatoes...

P.S. I'm also contemplating taking up canning. Lord help me!

Temporary Tomato Disaster!

Sometime soon, I'll post some pictures from my un-freakin' believable vegetable garden. Seriously--it's amazing (but I can't take much credit...more about that later).

But just a short story for now: my tomato plants, which are now taller than me in places, collapsed! They were in cages, but the cages got pulled out of the ground...it was like a domino effect. The big one took the other two down with him. So picture me out there, in the 90+ degree heat, sun beating down, desperately trying to get them back up! After lots of twine, several expletives, and some prayers (funny how those last two can go together), things seem to be under control. Fortunately, I could just tie the cages and some of the really big stalks to the fence. There were some casualties--lots of snapped branches, lost teeny-tiny baby tomatoes--but I think, all in all, it could have been much worse.

Ahh, the stresses and joys of gardening!

Lit links...

1) Coming soon: Mark Twain's autobiography, which has been in a vault for the past 100 years. This is an interesting article, but I'm not sure I agree with the woman who says, "Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian." Really?

2) Jane's amazing mom passed this link onto me yesterday: "Emily Dickinson's Poetry Blooms at New York Botanical Gardens Exhibit." Another incentive to try to get up to NY sometime soon!

3) To Kill a Mockingbird turns 50.

4) Sarah Palin's spoken word poetry.