Backyard Bliss

The radishes are coming, the radishes are coming!

2009-04-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

Glory be! The seedlings are starting to pop. Pop up, I mean. I've got baby tomatoes, baby radishes, and already two cucumbers, one pumpkin and two squashes stargint to sprout. We did a family garden day about two weeks ago and The Boy did the honors of planting seeds in 4-inch pots, and kindly labeling them. Last year I labeled everything but when it rained, the names washed off the labels so I wasn't sure what I had until they produced fruit.

Not this year. I am Mistress of the Universe, of my wee garden, and I know what's growing.

Leftover from winter, I still have some struggling kale, chard and arugula. They didn't much like being moved around while I added more dirt. They are angry with me and wilting. Get over it, greens. Enjoy spring weather. Pretty soon it will get hot and then you'll have something to cry about.

There is a small planter with carrots still bumbling along. I pull them out when I'm in the mood for a carrot that tastes earthy and carroty. If I want orange starch, I eat a store-bought one instead.

I'm dreaming of a green summer, with feathery carrot tops, crispy scallions, cool cuckes and zukes, lemon cucumbers to be eaten out of hand, tomatoes cursting onto bread and cheese, and pear and cherry tomatoes warm from the sun, popped into the mouth. Strawberries fresh for breakfast. My own plums. The first blackberry pie.

I can't wait to hang up the hammock. Summer is almost here.

Doing the Can-Can

2008-08-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

When my grandmother, Ruth Bailey, was alive, she’d sometimes say what the Montana farmers say: “We eat what we can, and what we can’t, we can.” That still makes me smile.

It’s canning time again on the old farm – I mean, Casa Blanca, our house out on the Point. Canning is the new knitting, which is to say, it’s not new at all, just the latest return-to-your-roots fad for allmanner of hipsters.

And yet, I’ve been canning jams and other foods since I was 12. Yes, that’s right – boiling the jars, melting paraffin in a coffee can on the stovetop, ensuring that no one dies of botulism, whipping out the old Seal-a-Meal – the whole shebang. (I’ve also been knitting since I was 6 – because that’s just the kind of trendsetter I am.)

So I’m no stranger to canning. Last year, you may recall, I was enslaved by the overproduction of a very fertile zucchini patch, and its nefarious cousins in the cucumber plot. I made pickles and giardiniera and zucchini bread and the like, til we were all green in the face.

This year, thanks to crappy weather, smoky skies and general June gloom that hasn’t yet gone away, I have little to nothing growing in the squash department. I have had maybe 5 cucumbers from three bushes. The only one that is edible size right now is a freak of gigantic proportions that chose to grow against the patio, but behind a conduit pipe. Thus, it is pinched in two like a fat balloon about to be turned into a wiener dog toy. I was going to pick it, because I deserve to eat everything I have sweated over for four months, but it is so peculiar just growing there, unable to push or pull itself out of limbo. I think I will leave it there as an object lesson to other cucumber blossoms that wish to escape their natural fates.

So no ice-box pickles. No zucchini relish. Not much in the pickle department at all this year. Instead, it’s been the year of the plum. I have been given plums by many, many kind Alameda folk as well as my mother in Sonoma County and my friend Cathy in El Sobrante. I’ve made fruit roll, a.k.a. fruit leather, a.k.a. Fruit Fly Heaven. I’ve dried bowl after bowl of them, and can look forward to lots of dried plums for snacks and baking. We will be eating (and gifting) plum jam til kingdom come. Yellow plums, red plums, cherry plums, Satsuma and Santa Rosa – they’re all good.

But wait -- there’s more. I’ve already helped clean up a neighbor’s windfall apples, and canned several pints of applesauce. Those were Jonagold. But the Gravenstiens are just coming in – so here comes more applesauce, plus my daughter’s favorite – apple pie, and jars of pie filling canned for the next year. Dried apples? The kids love ‘em.

Did you realize how much fruit just falls to the ground in Alameda? Look around – you’ll see lemons, oranges, apples, plums, and more. Take a walk through just about any deserted lot – along the Estuary, the back of your neighborhood park or school – there are blackberries everywhere right now, and yes, indeed, I have canned (local) blackberry jam, frozen the berries and made a blackberry galette to die for already. This weekend: more of the same.

What else? I’ve got a batch of lemon liqueur steeping next to some plum brandy in a couple of gallon jars. In a dark place in the laundry room I have some quarts of preserved lemons, the translucent skin salty and fragrant, for pastas and Mediterranean dinners.

The tomatoes are proliferating with abandon, so we’ve started on a parade of tomato treats: pasta sauces, chunky hot salsa, green tomato pickles, fried green tomatoes, Caprese salad, or a fat slab of juicy red tomato on sourdough bread with a sprinkle of sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Are you hungry yet? So am I. I wish I could capture the flavor of those tomatoes to use year-round, but they change when they’re cooked, and though delicious, it’s never the same. And a store-bought tomato, even a hothouse-grown, organic on-the-vine tomato will never match up with the flavor of one you grew yourself.

My weeknights and weekends are full while I bring in the harvest. How about yours?

for today's post...

2008-04-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

see www.modernmuse.blogspot.com. About Earth Day. It was a way to steward the earth in a hands-on way. I feel good. If exhausted...

strawberries & cream

2008-04-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

today I had a handful of our strawberries on cereal. Oh. My. God. So delicious. I feel triumphant that I actually planted and grew something that I could eat, and love.

Now if only I could plant a chocolate tree.

curly fries

2008-04-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

That's what I think of when I look at the tentrils growing on the peas. They are curling upward and reaching toward the trellis. Peas. Growing. In my backyard. Yum.

What else is growing? The trumpet vine has sprouted. So have the poppies, and a large orangey-brown daisy-like flower has sprung up very tall. So have some cosmos and I think zinnias, and possibly some violas. But I can't really tell because I didn't label them. So we'll see what they are when they're a little bigger.

The veggies are officially in, though. I planted the zuchinni and cucumbers all along the trellis, as well as gourds, pumpkins, and two types of melon: canteloupe and watermelon. Also planted loofah gourds from seeds a long-distance friend sent me. Two kinds of peas, just springing up. Green beans, yum. And also the cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts are coming up. Green onions. Carrots, plus radishes, beets, three kinds of lettuce, chard, and all the herbs I ever imagined: mint, cilantrol, basil, English mint, lavender, cat grass (oats for the cats to eat), dill and I also have shamrocks, but not edible! I haven't yet seen oregano, any kinds of peppers, or the catnip. Chamomile, neither. I haven't planted corn yet.

But strawberries! I tasted my first home-grown strawberry on Saturday. YUM! It was so sweet-sour-fresh and delicious. There are many more ripening now. I'll pick some for cereal in a day or so.

The grape twigs are becoming shoots that will eventually become vines. The plum and apricot trees have finished blooming and are now leafing out. So are some shrubs I planted -- not edible, but woo hoo! Hibiscus (can be used for tea?) and also the cape mallow my mom gave me to plant.

Nasturtiums are up all over. I should make them into a salad.

Everything is coming up, all over. Sunflowers outside the fence, among the strawberries, and on the other fence, a whole row of sunflowers, for seed. I plan to eat some and feed the birds with the rest.

The birds are happy. So are the bees. So are the ladybugs and the earthworms. And the kittens, too. So far so good.

crop circles

2008-04-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've been planting. It's that time, obviously. Planting stuff and waiting for it to come up.Trying to keep the kittens and the raccoons out of the dirt. Winning, but only slightly. Notice my elaborate contraptions for keeping kitten-kind out of the Big Outdoor Litter Boxes, aka my veggie garden.
Note the curiousity that may kill this kitten (the plump and lovely Norma Jean). Window screen protects spinach and chard...for now.
Spring peas are a-poppin' but must be protected from kitten poo with sideways tomato cage.

The Boy's carrots and pumpkins are also protected by window screens. The carrots are just coming up. One pumpkin (a Wee Jack) is coming up. The other one is a watermelon -- not likely to produce this year with cool summer forecast.
Here's Delilah walking across the flowers seeds I planted. I used sections of wire fencing across the top -- the kitties don't dig here because it bothers their feet. When these flowers are growing properly, I won't need the fence there.
This one's a bit hard to see because of the shadows, but it's the long planter box and there are cukes planted here. I have laid bamboo poles across the box to semi-guard the dirt areas. When the plants are bigger I will move the poles out.
Last green things here are the beans, popping up like crazy. I have them screened in with old screens as well (flipped out for the photo). Just to keep the cats out. It's working well so far. It doesn't keep the snails and slugs out, though. Beer does that.

It works for me, too.

tired lil tailor

2008-03-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

...that's me. I spent the day moving plants and planters about. [heaving big sigh...] But it looks great back there. I am very proud.

The first year in a garden you don't necessarily know where the sun will fall, or the shadows. I thought it was clever to put the planters around the perimeter of the garden area, with a center raised bed, but as it happened, the one planter was in shadow all but for a few hours in the morning. I tried to plant shady stuff there, or winter veggies, but still no luck. So today I moved the planter box -- which meant digging out all the dirt, moving the box, then putting all the dirt back in. Ack! Hard work, that.

It is now the new tomato planter -- very sunny and full of dirt that I enriched with compost and worms and also some marigold seeds, in hopes of getting some inter-planted insect-deterring action going. I transplanted three cherry tomatoes and a mystery red tomato (not sure if it is cherry or beefsteak or early girl...we shall see...)

I moved the herbs to the other side of the garden (they are in black pots) and the winter veggies (cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale) to a spot that won't get quite as much sun (they are in white painter buckets).

The Boy also planted his favorites in his own planter space: carrots, watermelon and baby-sized "Wee Jacks" pumpkins. I hope they grow. He is very proud of himself.

The green beans and spring peas are popping up, and so are the rest of the herbs, except cilantro (dud seeds, I think). Even the rainbow Swiss chard is coming up.

We dug out a corner of the lawn as well, and got rid of the crabby grass, ha ha, as if, and then I sprinkled a bunch of various seeds for flowers: cosmos, johnny jump up (violas), daisies, poppies, and also forget-me-nots. It should be a sweet corner if anything blooms.

In the meantime we had coffee and read the Sunday paper and hung clothes on the line to dry and chatted and visited with Cousin Colin and made sun-tea. The kittens enjoyed the sun and scritching their backs on the asphalt, and watching me water everything. Delilah the Kitten tried to catch a honey bee. Not very bright, that one.

I also attained a nice shade of red -- including that little tender strip beneath my shirt tail but above my jeans in the back. Ow. At least I wore a hat. And drank plenty of water. I could go for a nice long soak. A glass of red wine and Easter dinner with the family is on deck for now.

Happy day, O friends!

shamrock sighting!

2008-03-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable! Amazing news! The shamrocks are sprouting! No herbs -- not the chamomile, the dill, the cilantro, the onions. But the shamrocks -- yes! I feel like a new mother, I'm so proud. If they live another day (which they will), I'll snap a photo. So far they look like alfalfa sprouts.

O happy day!

how bout them lavenders?

2008-03-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

I showed you the blossoms the other day -- turns out they are ornamental pear -- what a waste of good earth and water. No real pears at all. Ornamental anything should be outlawed. In my humble opinion.

ABove are some ground-kissing shots of the lavender in bloom in my front yard -- the spot that was crabby grass-slash-lawn that I dug out and made into my lavender patch. It's blooming beautifully.

The other photo is of the lonely daffodil (sounds like a Little Golden Book, doesn't it? "The Lonely Daffodil and the Very Big Rainstorm." This is Husband's favorite flower and he says he loves them because they remind him of home. I planted many bulbs this year but no daffodils. I planted a bunch at his old house but we had just one year there to enjoy them. So it was a nice surprise to see that we had even one daffodil. It came up in a container in the front yard.

Made the Man smile.

shamrock shake

2008-03-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

Used to be you could get a nasty green froth at McD's on March 17 and call it lucky. I planted shamrocks about a week ago and nothing so far. It had a rather elaborate procedure to germinate, including freezing the seed packet, refrigerating, soaking, clicking heels together three times and spelling shillelagh correctly without checking www.dictionary.com.

This particular seed packet came directly from Ireland, when the lovely Mia (our eldest) went to Dublin for St P's Day a few years ago. Perhaps the seeds are too old. Perhaps they won't grow in our "dry" climate, compared to the "soft" climate of Ireland. 'Tis a soft day, they say, meaning a bit of rain.

Well, I may not be in the right Zone, as per Sunset Magazine and the Western Garden Book. But I'm willing to grow anything.

In other news, the gardeners started watering the grass again, which is nice because I don't have to do it but I fear they are going overboard, so to speak. I've been thinking about a gray-water system for our veggies, and have been cutting back more and more on the laundry soap so that we're at half-concentration of Eco laundry liquid, and I'll probably cut that even more. As well, hanging the towels and linens out to dry, plus the heavy jeans and sweatshirts, to take advantage of the sun and wind. It's free, after all.

That gray-water project may be a bit down the line for me. We have our hands full just getting the girls to stop taking hour-long showers (well, ONE girl) and getting them to turn off the faucet all the way. All the way! Don't get me started...

But it's nice to have goals.

great outdoors

2008-03-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

hey zowee! my seedlings are starting to pop up! So far, what look like cukes, watermelon? pumpkin? and tomatoes from seeds are poking out, plus a slew of volunteer green beans. The reason I'm not sure it that I very diligently made labels for everything, and left it outside, only to discover that I had stupidly used water-soluble marker (damn you, Crayola!). Very little is legible after the rain we've just had. If I can make out one or two letters, it's a pretty sure thing. Otherwise, who knows?

We may have lots of mystery veggies this year, until harvest time.

I found a pile of big black pots in a lovely junque-pile by the street and have added them to my garden -- planting veggies that may not be popular with everyone, and therefore do not "deserve" space in the "real" garden. I've got cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, plus collard greens in four separate pots.

Tomato plants were a gift this year, from new-found gardener friend Vickie and her son Harry. We did a swap of a bunch of stuff for his shade garden and they kindly traded back some beefsteak and cherry tomatoes. So far so good (they are double in size since last week).

I have done a good bit of swapping with my Freecycle friends lately: got a load of used bricks from Jane, and I used them to perform a little eminent domain outside our fence. With a chain gang of family members, we built a brick planter all along the western fence, perfect for tomatoes. Half of it is planted with strawberries (thanks to Iris at Thomsen's Nursery, and also Erin around the corner for sharing her wild strawberries that she dug up to make room for her hops crop) and also sunflowers, and the rest will be corn and tomatoes. All afternoon sunlight, all summer long -- yay! Many of the seeds were a gift from Freecycle friend Alana, who also shared some beautiful iris bulbs, lamb's ears, lychee seeds, morning glory and many more spares from her stash.

I've also planted some herbs: dill, cilantro, chamomile, shamrocks (Mr Husband is Irish) and also some green scallions. These are in yet more black pots. I feel like an herbivore...

There are more little 4-inch pots to plant -- with who knows what just yet. We're looking for an artichoke to plant in a big (found) tub for Mr Husband, who insists that is what we must grow. I'm also thinking that catnip might be good. Anyone out there have any catnip I could have a little bit of?

More to come in this blustery spring weather.

it might as well be spring

2008-03-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how gorgeous it is outside. I took some photos of an apple tree in bloom right down the street from us and this is what it looks like:

It's so beautiful I want to eat it. I wish I could paint in watercolor or oil...maybe someday. Aren't these amazing? And they smell so sweet...

More spring flowers to come.

Spring springs eternal

2008-03-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

yep. it's that time again.

housekeeping

2008-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

I waited till it was almost too late to clean up the yard and do the fall housekeeping. In fact, it was not only deep winter, but the new year when I got started. There's only one best time to prune and move roses, and that's when they're dormant. Since time is ticking away, and spring on its merry way here, I had to do it.

Last weekend was my hot date with the green waste bin.

I started out the day by dressing in layers, because sometimes these midwinter sunny days can get warmer than expected -- especially if you're working. I put on sunscreen and had Mr. Husband get my knee-high rubber boots out of the shed, where they have been waiting for me since last spring. Doubtless, spiders and beetles have moved in, so I asked him to please shake them for me first. I don't want to put my foot into a black widow's nest.

I don't bother spiders, by the way, and hope they don't bother me. Black widows are aggressive -- don't mess with them unless you want a very painful bite. I've had a healthy respect for them since I grew up on a farm with lots of woodpiles and old barns where black widows held cookouts and summer camp.

We began our clean-up by pulling weeds throughout the vegetable garden area -- not from the raised beds, but weeds that had grown though the black plastic liner and 4 inches of mulch, just popping in as if to say hello and where's the party? Our friends the gophers and moles were not helpful, rooting in from underneath and nudging aside black plastic liner, and helpfully leaving their calling card: fresh mounds of earth. The only ones who appreciate gophers are our cats, and they are welcome to them.

(Note to cats: I do not eat skinned gopher heads so please stop leaving them for me at the back door. I also do not eat the spleen or whatever that weird gray organ is -- next time please eat it yourself. But thank you -- I'm very flattered anyway.)

We cleared out the rest of the dried-up bean and sticker-y zucchini vines, and the straggling leftover yellow pear tomatoes that refused to stop producing. I pulled out the recently sprouted grains that had fallen from the bird-feeders, too.

I don't have a lot of seeds on hand at the moment, but I thought I'd try my hand at some cool-weather crops. I planted some potato chunks in a raised bed, to see if we could grow those (raccoons have already eaten one of the chunks; I've covered the rest with tomato cages in hopes of letting them sprout). I also sowed some turnip greens and radishes, anticipating some fresh greens and baby radishes to eat soon (Note to self: buy pumpernickle and unsalted butter when radishes ripen).

Then I covered that raised planter with some bird netting, not for the birds, but to keep the kittens out of the box. They have been roaming outside and think the Big Kitty Litter Boxes full of dirt are great places to, um, take a break. At least with the bird netting they can't dig anything up or actually touch the dirt.

Next was the annual Pruning of the Roses. This didn't take much time since I have just four bushes planted in front. But then I saw a pinkish straggler that I've been trying to grow in a pot. What if I planted it in a sunnier location along the fence? It might grow more than three inches this year and have more than one bloom. I dug a hole and moved the rose to the sunny spot.

Then I remembered the climbing pink rose that is being suffocated by out-of-control-oleanders along the shady side of the house (north side). Mr. Husband got the saw, I got the shovel and the pitchfork, and we went to work. We cut the bedraggled yet vastly overgrown monster down to the strongest canes, as one should do when pruning roses. Alas, this beast was so overgrown that it has about 15 strong canes, which means the rootstock and the upper growth have co-mingled in shameless miscegenation. The two of us managed to uproot the beastly bush, but it broke in two upon leaving the earth.

I dug another hole on the sunny side of the house (southern exposure) and planted half the rose-beast there, and the other half went into a hole outside the garden fence, with a western exposure, a view of the O Club and a nice white fence to climb as a bonus attraction.

Who knows if either of these halves will survive? But I'm counting on them flourishing in the sun, which I doubt it ever got on the shady side of the house, except in a random solar flare or something.

You'd think we were done, but no, when one gets going in the garden, one can't stop for naps and lunch breaks. I paused now and again for water or an apple or granola bar, but pressed on while I was feeling the urge. The last trip to Costco had netted us two fruit trees - an apricot and a Satsuma plum, both self-pollinating and "heavy bearers," according to the colorful tag. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Both went into the earth outside the garden fence, which will eventually make that part of the side-yard a pleasant, fruity alley.

Before the sun began to set, we raked and swept up the vast amount of fir-tree needles and mini-cone-thingies from the front walkway and patio and hauled the refuse in buckets around to the back. There, we patched the gaps in the mulch around the raised beds where gophers and weeds had come through. A five-gallon bucket of fir-needles-and-other-sweepings in each spot did the trick neatly and, best of all, for free.

We ended the day by Rochambeau-ing for who would haul the green waste bin back to the front and then headed indoors for a lemon drop.

I call that a green day in the garden.

new year's day

2008-01-03T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this amid the gloom and drip of rain, the Big Three January rainstorms that are pummeling the West Coast. My driver's side window got stuck in the down position on the first day of rain. My roof leaked on the second. It begins to feel like "A Partridge in a Pear Tree," does it not, or "My Great Aunt Lives in Tours"?

I think back a week or so to Christmas Day, chill but sunny, and I sat outside to watch the kittens play. The three, adopted from the Alameda Animal Shelter in mid-November, are all (spayed) girls, named Delilah, Ophelia and Norma Jean. I call them the Dreamgirls. Our other cat, Elvis, a tough and burly tom, is not impressed with them. He enjoys battering them around for fun and pleasure. Sometimes the kittens go hog-wild in the house so they have to go outside and run their ya-yas off. But Elvis and the Dreamgirls are our cat family.

We sat outside, the kitties and I, and the sun felt so warm, inside the fence and the enclosure of the house walls. After a little while I got up and walked around into the veggie garden, watching the kittens gallop through the brittle pumpkin vines and rattling dried bean pods still clinging to the poles. In rain and cold I haven't felt much like working in the garden. But on that morning, the sun warmed me, and I started to pick at some weeds. And I noticed the yellow mini-pear tomatoes still growing in untethered abandon, sprawling across the pathway. "Still getting tomatoes in December," my Husband marveled. "Now that's a garden."

While I think of the potager as dead, it isn't. There are purple petunias trailing over the edge of a planter. The basil is flourishing. The rosemary topiaries are green. The europs are full shrubs, except for that scraggly one down at the end; these I planted as snips from neighboring bushes and planted across the yard to make a hedgerow. And it looks like I have, indeed, a hedgerow of feathery dark green europs now, bright with its yellow daisy-like flowers.

The pink penstemon is quadruple the size of the original planting. The Shasta daisies in the front yard are doing well, too -- lush and deep in green.

We're still getting night visits from our friends the raccoons, and as many birds as it takes to empty three feeders in two days.

It's funny what a little sunshine, the benevolence of the weather, or perhaps just a full belly and the worst of the holidays behind one can do. I looked around my garden, that I think of as dying, dead, moribund this time of year, and instead I see signs of life, of vigor, and it feels like my own sap is rising. I want to get out there on hands and knees and start to dig. I want to see green shoots and leaves appear. I want to smell the first blossoms of spring.

It may be the deep midwinter outdoors, but it already feels like spring inside.

Pickles [From September]

2007-12-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

A Pretty Pickle, or, It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here

A pretty pickle indeed. So many cucumbers, so little time. Why I thought I had that kind of time is beyond me. We were planning to get away on vacation to lovely Lake Tahoe for a week or so and these cucumbers just wouldn’t go away. In fact, they multiplied. I had to do something about it, and fast.

You may not know that it’s pretty simple to freeze some fruits and veggies. Tomatoes, for example: Just rinse and bag them and toss in the freezer whole. They are perfect for a fresh-like tomato sauce or soup in midwinter. Fresh berries, same thing: Just rinse and freeze them spread out on a cookie sheet, unless you don’t mind one giant lump of blackberries or strawberries in a bag.
We had a ton of strawberries left over from our wedding reception and though my eldest daughter (who is of legal age) and her pals tried to make margaritas out of the leftovers, it still wasn’t enough to deplete the stock. Despite several family members also taking home the fruit, I ended up with almost a whole flat of berries left. I rinsed and bagged them, in a lump, of course, but that’s fine because I plan to make jam out of them anyway. So lump that!

Our bean crop and zucchini and crooknecks are out of control, as you know; but I tamed them with a quick blanch over steam, then a cold rinse, and into the freezer bags they went. Ha ha!

But cucumbers do not freeze well. They don’t dry, either. (I have a dehydrator and am not afraid to use it – bring me your apples!) Cukies need one of two things – either some sour cream with a bit of dill, or a nice hot bath in vinegar to keep them happy.

So on the eve of our vacation departure, I roped in one of my daughters to assist in the production, and away we went. Mason jars (yes, Freecyclers and wedding guests, the very same ones that graced our wedding tabletops. We are thrifty!) went through the dishwasher, lids got a quick hot rinse, and a big pot of water started heating on the stovetop. Daughter started peeling cucumbers, and I became Mistress of Spices, using my superior strength to open bottles of mixed red, yellow, green and black peppercorns; celery seed, dill, mustard seed, and the lid to the minced garlic that always sticks.

The cucumbers were huge (naturally we’d picked them late) so we had to cut them into quarters – pickles should be uniform in size, not merely for appearance, but so they cook evenly when in the hot water bath. When you’re processing anything in a Mason jar, it has to cook evenly or the contents may spoil. And a case of botulism may be good for your frown lines but not your future.

I started out thinking I was making refrigerator pickles, and wasn’t going to peel or boil anything, but one thing led to another, and next thing you know I was parboiling pearl onions to skin for the giardiniera I hadn’t known I was gonna make.

Daughter helped peel, slice, add spices to jars and fill the jars while I made the brine and prepped other veggies for the giardiniera that no one will eat. We used the pearl onions, radishes, cucumber slices, carrots and celery as well as celery leaves for garnish. It was very colorful to begin with, but when the jars went into the water bath (a.k.a. giant pot of boiling water on the stove), the radishes bled all over everything inside the jar and turned it all pink. Pretty on the shelf, if not in a dish. Oh well. No one will eat it anyway, like I said.

So here we are, a big vat of water boiling for the quart-sized jars, another one with boiling vinegar brine, and another smaller one that I used for the onions, and then for bailing out the big pot when our science project demonstrated the reality of water displacement. By then I had to take off my glasses because it was all steamy, and the vent went on, and all the windows steamed up, and we took off sweatshirts and stood about fanning ourselves. Good thing it was a foggy-cold August night in Alameda, not a humid country afternoon on the prairie.

Now I’m sitting here admiring our work. We ended up with two quarts of giardiniera, one of which sealed properly and the other which will live in the fridge till no one eats it and I throw it away. We also have seven quarts of dill pickles, two of which did not seal, so they will get eaten in a few weeks. The others will move into the pantry cupboard and live happily in the dark till winter. It takes at least a few weeks for the flavors to marry, and longer won’t hurt a thing, as long as we eat them within a year. That shouldn’t be a problem.
Except for the giardiniera. Because, you know. Nobody likes that stuff (except me, once in a blue-green moon).

How does your garden grow? Thrifty minds want to know. Write in to homeandgarden@alamedasun.com, visit us online at http://www.backyardbliss.blogspot.com/, or just come on over. I could use some help out here.

Up on the Housetop

2007-12-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

You’d think I was smarter than a raccoon, but five of them? Clearly they have out-brained me. Apparently I missed the listing in the Raccoon Real Estate Guide: Charming rooftop-access penthouse, Bay views, near all-night buffet, no dogs, no down payment. Large families encouraged to apply. Move in today!

Indeed, this is our house, in the overhang above the front door. There’s a nice blue-tiled entryway, a planter box for flowers, a mailbox, and, oh yes, a family of raccoons living in the roof. The same fine family of masked bandits enjoys the cafeteria at my compost pile (they know how to open the lid) and the fresh greens in the water garden (crunch, crunch), not to mention the mosquito fish, if they can grab them (because who doesn’t like sushi?).

Last winter we had a leak in the garage, so we called the roofer to fix the hole, which was surely draining over to the garage in wet weather. Roofers came again last summer and tarred over the spot. A few weeks later, I was coming up the front walk and noticed wood chunks and gravel and bits of tar paper on the sidewalk. Hmm. I eventually looked out the upstairs window and saw that someone had kindly dug us a rooftop planter. Or a new skylight. We called the roofer again.

The roofers came back. They patched the hole. The garage didn’t leak. Then the wood chunks and tar paper appeared again. And the roofers returned.

This time, they patched every possible hole and also laid out thick plastic and covered it with gravel. No leaks, no holes, no critters. Or so we thought.

Guess who came for Thanksgiving? Oh, yeah. Family of five, table by the window. Digging holes in the roof, and watching the rain come in. It’s a beautiful thing, unless it’s your stuff getting leaked on, and the roofers are annoyed and this isn’t exactly a free service, you know. Somebody’s gotta pay.

I’m starting to think we’ll need a trap, or a bunch of traps, or a dog, which we’re not going to get, or some flashing lights and stinky mothballs. Some sticky paper. Crinkled aluminum foil. Bubble wrap. We’ve got to do something because the rains haven’t half-started yet and it seems to be all my stuff that’s getting soaked. And that’s just not OK.

So here we are, sitting in our family room, a former sunroom, all windows that look onto the garden, and we’re watching television together, when we hear a scratching noise and a couple of growls. We flip on the outside light, and there’s the raccoon family, bemasked and chewing some stale garlic bread from last night’s dinner, an apple core, what looks like leftover lasagna in someone’s paws. Dinnertime for everyone. The Husband hates raccoons and dashes outside to scare them away, the Boy at his heels. One of our daughters is terrified by raccoons, the way some people are scared of clowns or spiders.

The raccoons clamber up out of the compost bin without wiping their paws, using napkins or shutting the lid behind them. They look in through the windows and go over the fence, still chewing with their mouths open.

Table manners: not a strong suit for raccoons. The menfolk in the family feel victorious and give each other high-fives. The traumatized daughter cowers under a fleece blanket, away from the windows. “I hate raccoons, I hate them,” she says from under the blankie.

But you know what? I don’t hate them. I think they’re pretty neat: with gray-brown fur suited to hide them in the bushes, thick enough to keep them warm in cool weather; with clever hands and feet and opposable thumbs, they are smart enough to steal cars and jimmy locks, and out of respect for our property, they just haven’t done so – yet.

I must admit: I like the raccoons. They are intelligent and beautiful and doing what comes naturally. Who am I to harsh their high? We’ll get the roof fixed. We’ll try to keep the lid locked on the compost bin. But out on the wide-open former Navy base, there’s plenty of room to live and let live, if you ask me.

Winter White

2007-12-03T23:37:00.000-08:00

There's ivy growing all over the place around my yard, and I keep resisting the urge to whack it. Ivy is a trial and a scourge, a vile intruder, an unwelcome guest, according the the Husband, but it makes a lovely holiday decoration. You've heard the Christmas song, "The Holly and the Ivy," I presume? It's part of my traditional decor at the holidays: ivy vines draped across the mantle, entwined up the stair railings or around the chandelier, and on the table at the holiday party: delicately wrapped around punch bowls and centerpieces.

Sprigs of holly stuck into the ivy make it traditional, and bunches of pyracantha berries add the touch of color we want. I also like to support my local Girl or Boy Scouts by purchasing mistletoe from them and adding that to the garland. (Note, however, that some of these plants are semi-or very poisonous, so don't decorate food with them or leave them in a place where small children, naughty pets or rebellious teens will eat them; i.e. not in the salad bowl, and not if the chandelier is hanging right over the food table.)

I love to decorate for the holidays because it feels so festive -- a trite truism if there ever was one. But I rather enjoy bringing the festive mood to the house. Soon enough it will be dreary old January, with fog, rain, clouds and a long stretch of weeks with no holidays or parties or anything fun to enjoy. So making the most of the December holiday season is a given rather than an option for us.

Not that I'm a cheapskate, because I'm not (I'm as spendy as the next gal), but I don't like to waste things and I do like a natural look (versus the fake white flocked tree-look and a full complement of Precious Moments statuettes). Using natural items from my garden feels right, and organic, in holiday decorating. Besides the garlands, we also have a living Christmas tree -- a small blue spruce -- that we'll bring inside for a week or so, string with lights and use to brighten the dining room.

Poinsettias in pots are not something I've had success with after the holidays, so I find that I must buy new ones every year. I will keep these on the front porch this year rather than in the house because we have new kittens and they eat anything they can. This year I may try to plant the poinsettias into the ground; I have seen a number of houses in the East Bay with fully grown poinsettia shrubs. They are beautiful in the winter. If not, there's always the green waste bin.

But I also have a Christmas cactus and some cyclamen that are coming into bloom now. Raspberry-colored cyclamen in a pot with white specimens are very pretty together and perhaps more festive because they are a bit less expected. In fact, if you want to skip the poinsettia deal altogether, run down to the nursery and pick up a selection of red and white annuals or perennials -- geraniums, impatiens, carnations, mini-rosebushes or even simple alyssum -- and pot them together prettily with a big red bow. It's a nice change from the typical holiday front-porch decor.

I always like to put out a basket of pine cones, although this year the squirrels are having their way with my newest batch. I brought home a dozen or so sugar pine cones -- the very large, long spikey cones -- from Lake Tahoe over summer. I had planned to use then for porch decor but some little rascals have been pulling the cones apart for what, seeds or something? I will use them indoors instead, and will probably have to scope out a new source of cones from neighborhood trees.

If you don't have any evergreen trees or shrubs, your neighbors probably do, so ask nicely if you can cut some greenery, and then do cut from the back-side of the bush or tree, or an otherwise unobtrusive spot. Your neighbor will be annoyed if you chop down a branch from the front and center. I plan to use some cypress and small fir snippets, as well as juniper with its waxy white-blue berries, for a centerpiece. I have some walnuts that I spray painted metallic gold last year, and they look very nice among the greenery. So do plain brown mixed nuts from the grocery store, if you prefer a less adorned look.

Another grocery store item I was planning to try this year is dried chile pods. My Aunt Barbara has red chile ristras in her kitchen because she lives in Albuquerque. I am inspired by that to consider stringing my own ristras or wreaths, or just adding red chiles to the holiday centerpiece. Last year I also used long sticks of cinnamon in a basket of greenery to add scent to the room.

If you have a lemon tree, the citrus always looks lovely in a pretty bowl or mixed in among evergreen branches on the mantle. So do oranges, tangerines, limes, a pineapple, or lady apples -- the tiny apples you can sometimes find at the produce markets or farmers' markets. If you have flowers still growing -- a last few roses? Some rusty-red or lemon-yellow chrysanthemums, perhaps? White mums or candytuft in bloom? Tuck those into the arrangement as well, or spring for a bunch of white or red baby roses at the farmers' market or flower shop. Baby roses are a sweet addition to a decorated mantle, wreath, garland or even your holiday tree.

You can go for an Advent theme with purple and white; you can go softer with more pinks than reds; you can make the fruit additions more tropical (add some local seashells, too); you can use blue flowers along with the white if you are enjoying your Hanukkah celebration this week. Pretty much all you need is a basket and a bow for any of these ideas; skip the basket and decorate the top of a table, a shelf or a railing.

It's a good month to be indoors and celebrate. Why not bring some of your garden, the fruits of your labors, inside to enjoy in this festive time?

Winding Down

2007-11-11T18:14:00.000-08:00

We had our first real rain -- well, not the first first rain, but a pretty god soaking over the weekend. It was enough to remind us that it's time to take down the tiki decor and the outdoor speakers and put the rolling tiki bar away. Some yard furniture, like the Weber barbecue, gets a plastic cover and lives outside all year long. The picnic table, too -- it seems to enjoy the rain and the sun equally. But the tiki-bar: not so much. The redwood doesn't appreciate being left outside in all weather. It's for summer fun, darn it, and if summer fun is over, then please put me away, it seems to indicate.

So this weekend was the annual de-tiki-fication of the back yard. Down came the stereo speakers that were hanging in the tree. Down came the tiki posters and the stuffed parrot that lives in the tree (it's a bean-bag parrot, not a taxidermied one).

The umbrella that looks like a grass hut came down and was stowed in the garage, and the bamboo chaise lounges were folded up and put away. The tablecloth with the tiki-faces all over it is in a laundry basket awaiting its purification before being folded away till spring.

The bamboo fencing stays up all year, though -- it's fastened to the ugly chain-link fence we have around the yard. The tropical plants that are brave enough to survive here also stay in the ground: bird of paradise and canna lilies, papyrus and curly fern.

It's kind of satisfying; we moved here a year and some months ago to an empty yard (we don't count the crab grass) and since then, I've planted a number of shrubs and vines. By spring, the star jasmine, several varieties of honeysuckle and the europs will be thriving. They are just hitting their stride now after their first summer in the ground.

So while we're putting away and cleaning up and getting ready for winter, some of these plants are just gearing up to grow like mad, with the right amount of rain and when the soil begins to warm again.

It's good that most things are dormant, or starting to go to sleep now. Because we're so busy these days. Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is just days away and then it's Christmas and New Year's and Valentine's and then -- then it will be time to plan for spring and summer and next fall.

Where does the time go? Around and around, season after season: we cycle through as we are meant to, and count our blessings each time around.

Crimson & Clover, I Saw a Plover

2007-11-09T17:01:00.000-08:00

Don't get your knickers in a knot. The preferred pronunciation is plover (pluvver), as in, rhymes with lover. But the song title is funnier. And the dictionary says plover as in clover is second-best. But clearly, I digress.

We've been hearing this bird-call at night for more than a year now, from our house at Alameda Point. I wondered sometimes if it was a mockingbird in mourning (they mate for life) or perhaps some kind of whistling mammal. Maybe a bat? But no, too loud. On occasion, like after an earthquake or a visit from a raccoon, the birds in one bush or another go mad and make lots of noise at night. Maybe it's one of those birds. It goes ka-koo-ka, once or twice in a row.

I wondered idly, and then moved on, because how would a rational person go about defining a funny noise she heard in the night without sounding, well, a little obsessed? Or slightly insane?

I am many things but slightly insane I am not. Mostly I'm just busy, and this has been a busy week or two, what with Halloween and changing jobs and carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns and then having the squirrels come on the porch to gnaw on the Jack. Part of the story about the jack-o-lantern is that it was carved by a Boy, and lesson recently learned: Boys can make anything into a gun, a sword or vomit. This jack-o-lantern had most of its insides hanging out the mouth, because nothing says Happy Halloween like a vomiting pumpkin, right? <<<

The squirrels thought so. They had fun chewing on Jack's head and pulling even more pumpkin guts out and then cracking the seeds all over the front porch. The spectacle ended when black mold swept through and destroyed the artwork that was Vomiting Jack. And so ends Halloween 2007.

Meanwhile, back to my busy schedule. I went to my Monday night class this week, a standing commitment, and when I pulled up at about 11p.m., there was a little gray and white bird with black throat stripes pecking at the ground. It was about the size of a mourning dove, and looked very alert. It pecked at the grass, then pulled out something to eat — something buggy or wormy. Then it looked at me — at least I think it was looking at me; it was dark out — and it made that noise. Ka-koo-ka.

It's the bird-noisemaking thing! And I looked again, and by golly if I wasn't absolutely sure it was one of the least terns eating bugs off my lawn. Then it flew away, saying ka-koo-ka again.

A real least tern. Then I looked it up online to confirm and guess what? Least terns aren't even around this time of year, and they don't come out at night, and they don't eat worms. They eat fish and live nearer the water.

The Least Tern ^

But killdeer breed in open fields or lawns, often quite far from water, and nest on open ground, often on gravel. And they say ka-koo-ka (or something like that). Maybe it's I killed a deer because that's how they got their name — onomatopoeia, from the sound they make. The killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) is a medium-sized plover with brown back and wings, a white belly, and a white breast with two black bands. The face and cap are brown with a white forehead.

According to the Audubon Society, killdeer will frequently use the "broken-wing act" to distract predators from their nests. This involves the bird walking away from its nesting area holding its wing in a position that simulates an injury and then flapping around on the ground emitting a distress call. The predators then think they have easy prey and are attracted to this seemingly injured bird and away from the nest.

<<>

That sounds like my house when it's time for teens to do the dishes. But now that I know about the killdeer, I won't be fooled by the "broken-wing act" anymore.

Celebrating El Dia de Los Muertos

2007-10-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

With a name like Day of the Dead, you’d think this holiday was about my vegetable garden. And in a way, it is.

El Dia de los Muertos is the Spanish was to say All Souls Day, a traditional Catholic holiday celebrating – or rather, remembering – those who have gone before us into the afterlife or wherever they go, on Nov. 2. We’re much more familiar with Halloween, a contraction for All Hallow’s Eve, which in turn refers to All Saints Day, Nov. 1. On All Saints Day, to finish up this little religious history lesson, we celebrate those saintly people – all the saints, from Martha and Mary to Christopher, Jude and Lazarus. Then we immediately turn to celebrate All Souls Day the next day, for the repose of the souls of our family members and friends.

Some cultures just know how to celebrate, and as it happens, the Mexican culture, which combines heritage of both European-Spanish and the indigenous native tribes, really knows how to celebrate El Dia de los Muertos.

According to Wikipedia, which usually gets it pretty right, “Though the subject matter may be considered morbid from the perspective of some other cultures, celebrants typically approach the Day of the Dead joyfully, and though it occurs roughly at the same time as Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day, the traditional mood is much brighter with emphasis on celebrating and honoring the lives of the deceased, and celebrating the continuation of life; the belief is not that death is the end, but rather the beginning of a new stage in life.”

Amen to that. (Do some Web surfing if you want to know more about this holiday.)

Although my garden has reached that pretty typical stage of late fall where most of the vines are dead, but I haven’t yet cleared space for planting my cool crops, perhaps I could raid what’s left to decorate for the fall, in particular, to make an altar for All Souls.

I did a little bit of research and found that a Dia de los Muertos altar often has a skull, made of sugar, or small toy skeletons on it. Luckily the Halloween stuff is out, so that’s no problem. Then the altar should have some fruit and candles, religious icons and marigolds, among other flowers.

I happen to have lots of marigolds, and it was this lasting bounty that gave me the idea for the altar. We recently picked the two basketball-sized pumpkins (they are just going under the knife for jack-o-lanterns now). And there are a few squash and tomatoes left. The corn and sunflowers are mere dried husks. But the marigolds are still blooming striped red, orange and yellow.

I went into the garden with scissors and cut some marigolds of all colors, and it was refreshing to smell that peppery scent that keeps the bugs off the tomatoes and other plants during the summer months. I snipped some tawny golden chrysanthemums and yellow europs daisies, and one of the last few sunflowers. I gathered up a few warty crookneck squashes and a last little red tomato.

Then I arranged them all on a tabletop in the front hall, with some sea shells, some prayer beads I’d made, a little religious statue that was my grandmother’s, and photos of our departed grandparents. I even added two little stuffed kitten ornaments that I made one year from felt, remembering our cats, Willie and Tommy, who died.

And thus, from the bounty of the garden, or the surplus of the dying garden, I found a way to remember loved ones and add a gesture of gratitude to this hectic week.

Coupla Things

2007-10-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

It's been raining all day. I moved my potted plants out into the rain, which alleviates the need to water them. I don't know for certain, but I imagine that there is more nutrition or natural goodness in rain than in regular old hose water. I am probably right. There may also be acid in the rain, but that's another issue.

But winter is coming, and autumn is full upon us. A wonderful thing this time of year is planning for the next spring and summer garden. Rainy days and nights make for a cozy time to sit and daydream about what to plant next season. In my side yard, for example, more sweet peas. The string beans need to be against a wall or trellis rather than so close to the corn in the vegetable garden. The tomatoes need to be closer to water. And I would like to try peppers again. I have a keen desire to try and make some chile ristras (strings or wreaths of chiles like you see in Santa Fe). But first, must plant chiles, successfully. Must buy plants instead of trying to get little scraggly seedlings to thrive.

If you're one of those organized people, you might have a notebook, a file folder or a whole system of keeping track of what you do in the garden. If you're less organized, perhaps you forget from year to year. Perhaps you just wing it. No judgment here. I'm just saying "perhaps." But perhaps this is the year to get more organized.

Many local retailers have some quite lovely folders and journals and filing systems that you may find conducive to garden planning. One of my favorite places to buy such folders or journals is at St. Vincent de Paul (Lincoln Avenue at Oak Street in Alameda), where members of their corps have "re-purposed" old books and papers and notebooks, in effect, recycling books and papers into usable notebooks and portfolio covers (just slip in a blank notebook). These cost less than $5 and the money goes to a very good cause. If you're in the market for a new journal, notebook or other way to organize your garden thoughts and plans, why not make it a positive-karma-inducing purchase like this one?

Next favorite way to get organized and daydream with a purpose: The Friends of the Alameda Free Library are holding another of their used book sales Oct 19-21 at the Al DeWitt O Club, Alameda Point (641 West Red Line Ave.). This, my friends, is a wonderful way to build your home-improvement and gardening library. Cookbooks are abundant, too, and, in fact, when I was a homeschooling mom (with a daughter and a niece for two years), the used book sale was my semi-annual curriculum-buying event. Cheap fun for the whole family!

The preview sale is Friday night from 7-9:30 p.m. and has a $5 entry. Saturday is free, all day, to buy whatever books you like at the low, low cost of about a buck, or maybe less. (Doors open 9 a.m.-4 p.m.) Sunday is the best day, in my opinion -- from noon to 4 p.m. it's the clearance sale -- bring a box or a bag and fill it up for about $3. This is when you can really get serious about your gardening reference library.

Still don't see what you want? Get thee to one of our local bookstores and check out the gardening department. (Nick Petrulakis at Books, Inc. will be glad to help you out.)

In the meantime, find your rubber boots (mine are in the shed, with a few spiders living in them), keep turning the compost (even in the rain) and keep your potting soil and tools dry.

***

Note: Marie Dean from Homestead Harvest has designed a very handy garden journal that you can download for free. The journal has pages for jotting down notes on the seeds you start, your new plantings, when you fertilized and even a graph to plot a new garden. Download yours at www.northerngardening.com/gardenjournal.htm (See picture below!)

At Last, Indian Summer

2007-09-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

Irony, I tell my children, is what you get when you least expect it. Like selling your beautiful hair to buy a watch chain for a beloved man who has sold his precious watch to buy you a hairbrush. You know. Irony.

Irony is the cusp of autumn, Sept. 21, the last day of summer, the first day of fall, and you have a barbecue planned and all the friends are invited, and the potluck prep is underway, when wham, you get sick, and the rain comes in and literally, quite literally rains on your picnic. The wind howls and knocks over tables, potted plants and the umbrella of the tiki bar. The bamboo fencing comes unstuck and your carefully arranged tiki-decor is flung around the yard like so much confetti.

Harumph.

So you call and e-mail your friends and neighbors and cancel the barbecue, and nurse your cold and order Everett and Jones amazing and fantabulous barbecue for dinner just because it's in town now and you can, dad-gummit. And you take your cold medicine and find some comfort in the lulling sound of rain and wind, until you open the garage door and find that the work the roofers did, ha ha ha, didn't work at all! The cement floor is soaking, puddly wet, and those precious boxes of articles you've written and stowed in the garage are now so much pulpy muck, and the computer parts you were gonna dump at the most recent electronic-waste-dump-a-thon last weekend but missed because you were sick and it was raining, are now really and truly junque, because they also got soaked. So much for passing on the wonder of the Internet to starving orphans. Now it's just mercury and lead and other nefarious chemicals to be broken down and melted and further poison the earth. Not to be pessimistic or anything.

However, the weekend passes and suddenly, suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, there is a clear blue sky! As blue as the glass of a Skyy vodka bottle, almost. And the waters of the Estuary have calmed and stopped whitecapping, and though sailboats continue to float past as if it were summer, suddenly it is summer again. Huzzah and glory be! Except you have a cold. And now, one by one like little toy soldiers or a house of cards or a set of dominoes or a pile of magazines laid out accordion-style on the coffee table, your kids, one by one, fall prey to the first nasty bug of the season. Yes, they whoop, as in cough; they whine (nothing new there); they sniffle, as opposed to snivel, and generally use up all the Kleenex.

And outside, the sun shines, oh Lord, how it shines, taunting us with its pseudo-midsummer warmth, its teasing lure of "Oh what a night for a barbecue," its siren song of "What fun it is outdoors, you sick, sick, sickies!" Alas and alack, feverish folk can't venture forth whilst sneezing, hacking and spewing. There is an unwritten law somewhere, in the Mother's Handbook of Knowledge, I think, that forbids any such forth-venturing.

Irony, my friends, is rain on your barbecue picnic, and sun on a sick-day from school.

So with a fleecy blanket draped around my shoulders, I putter weakly with my watering can, its neon-yellow a cheerful reminder of all the fun I'm not having, and give my poor houseplants a little drink. I brave the perils of my front porch (oh, the sun! oh, the breeze!) and give a few potted plants a little sustenance as well. I contemplate the mechanics of turning on the sprinkler. I am wearied by the imagined scenario. I pour more tea. It is nap time, and the sun shines, and we reach for our Kleenex and sigh.

Winding Down

2007-09-17T18:37:00.001-07:00

Seems like the summer garden is already winding down. I'm watching pumpkins get bigger and more orange every day, and the zucchini are still sneaking up on us. Foot-long squashes just laugh at my attempt to tame them.

I left some over-done yellow crookneck squashes on the garden bench as a kind of Indian Ssummer still life, when the squirrels said "Ha!" and pretty much demolished the whole pile. I'm talking about six hard-as-rocks squashes, just chomped through and seeds spit everywhere. The lovel raccoons have also made mincemeat out of the last few sunflowes. I think out of 30, we have about 4 or 5 left standing, and they are the scraggliest ones. But beggars can't be choosers, so I'm determined to appreciate them to the bitter end.

We're finally getting fat red tomatoes, and my mother also gave me some from her garden -- a few of them with odd ougrowths like noses or fingers. Strange in shape but delicious -- so much better than the old grocery store variety. There is nothing like a ripe red tomato with a little salt and pepper, or olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or -- I could go on. You know what I mean -- nothing quite so delicious as a ripe tomato still warm from the sun.

According to www.foodreference.com, the Aztecs developed the tomato as we know it. When the first conquistadors arrived in Mexico, the red fruit attracted their attention and intrigued their tastebuds. In the 1600s, they shipped some to Europe, but at first the tomato failed to enthuse the palates of Europeans.

A New World species, the first tomatoes grown in Europe were called "love apples" because they were related botanically to the mandrake, or "love plant," which was noted in the Bible for its reputed aphrodisiac qualities. In 1553, Swiss naturalist Konrad Gessner depicted the small-fruited "love apple" in a watercolor, and identified it in Latin as "poma amoris."

The French in turn called it pomme d’amour, the apple of love. Of course the tomato became very popular -- except for early American Puritans, who thought tomatoes to be poisonous because of the plant’s relation to the deadly nightshade family. And that sexy association didn't help its reputation, either.

There are more then 300 varieties of tomatoes grown commercially, and many more heirloom tomatoes that have now become the darling of specialty growers and high-end restaurants in California and elsewhere in North America. In my yard I have Early Girl (ha! they're just ripening now) and yellow pear-tomatoes (like cherry tomatoes but pear-shaped).

They're all delicious, despite the nasty interference of the tomato worm (bad worm! bad!). I'm hoping their season will last longer than the sunflowers'.

Weekend Blitz

2007-09-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Trying to keep up with a garden in full bloom is a challenging task. I won't say impossible. But pretty darn near. Dandelions sprout in the lawn, then bloom, die and spread their seeds before I can do a durn thing about it. Then more dandelions. And more. Maybe if I blow on a dandelion and make a wish, I could wish for fewer dandelions.

The beans are still growing in madly. Still have zukes and cukes galore. Gotta make a cucumber salad for dinner and freeze some more squash. For some reason -- probably erratic watering {beating self}...

{later} I made some succotash -- not the kind with lima beans (YUK) but the kind I could make from my own pickin's -- corn (off the cob), green beans and squash, blanched and bagged and into the freezer. I am loking forward to eating all this produce in wintertime. As for now, I am still facing a countertop full of large zukes. I'm thinking I should shred them and make zucchini relish in the next few days. Maybe I will, if I can get the time. (<-- ha ha ha ha ha)

We just picked our first red tomatoes, which are totally wormy -- but can be cut up for tacos (it's taco night tonight). I'm thinking of making some fried green tomatoes later this week, to catch the fruit before the tomato worms do (man, are those things ugly!). I live in fear of squashing one with my thumb when picking tomatoes. Ew.

Other than that, the summer garden is winding down. The cornstalks are drying out, the beans getting tough, the sunflowers crisping, and the squashes going gangly in the garden. The pumpkins are getting bigger all the time -- I am looking forward to a grand harvest of two mighty pumpkins in October sometime.

I am going to look for an artichoke plant to put in for winter, and perhaps some greens and broccoli, other cold weather veggies and such. If I leave the garden fallow all winter, I'll have wasted a whole season of life in my little potager.

That's the scoop here in the late summer garden. Tomatoes and mozzarella salad, on the way.

Still Life for a Song

2007-09-03T20:43:00.001-07:00

In a quiet corner of the backyard, in my Secret Garden, dragonflies and butterflies stop to rest their wings. They perch like orange and blue-green jewels against the bright rounded leaves of water hyacinth. Under the leaves, in the cool shadows of the water-hyacinth bulbs and black mossy roots, mosquito fish and black goldfish dart, seeking the larvae of mosquitoes, water bugs, flies, the occasional goldfish flake that I sprinkle in. They lounge in the shade, then flick and splash, with a glint of bright iridescent scales, then down into the safety of the pond bottom.

The water hyacinth have flourished. In fact, they have taken charge, quite literally, of the water garden. This restful corner of the garden is one of my little success stories. Created for less than $15, this little treasure is a poster child for Craigslist.

Craigslist.org, if you haven’t visited the site, is an online community of people in cities and regions all over the world, as general as Europe or as specific as Alameda Island itself, where people of all stripes can get together and buy and sell their stuff, rent apartments, offload junk, look for jobs, etc. It’s the classified pages multiplied by the vastness of the Internet, and one of its best-kept, or maybe best-known, secrets is the “free stuff” category on Craigslist.

Somehow while looking for free stuff on the site, I came across a posting that had a bunch of mostly free stuff that included half wine-barrels for just $10. Most posts have the half-barrels for $20, and if you go to Home Depot or elsewhere, you’re gonna pay more, pretty much guaranteed. We looked at our garden budget and decided we had about $50, plus gas and Starbucks money, and drove up to Napa on a fine August morning last year for our half wine-barrels. They were so delightful that we bought six, and brought them all home in our SUV, a little light-headed from the scent of sour wine that emanated from the old oak.

We drilled holes in a few of the barrels for drainage, then added soil and plants (voilà – instant gratification in a half-barrel). But one half-barrel was designated as “The Water Garden,” and duly filled with hose-water instead. I returned to Craigslist to see what else I could find, and there again on the free list were water hyacinth and duckweed and water lilies, available to whomever wanted them. (Trust me – if you really want it, be a little patient and it will show up on Craigslist for free – anything from hot tubs and sailboats to bird cages, antique books and children’s clothing).

One morning’s drive to Lafayette got me a nice conversation with my daughter and a bucket full of water hyacinth. Passing through Oakland, we picked up duckweed at another house, and then stopped at Petco for a bottle of chemicals to de-chlorinate the tap water I’d used to fill the barrel (other stores also carry this product). Amortized and prorated over the span of the next few years, the bottle of chemical juice known as AmQuel Plus ($5.99 for 4 oz.) costs very little per use, maybe 20 cents or so for a few drops, which I use about once a month. I feel like I have a lifetime supply, actually.

My next stop was the Alameda County Mosquito Abatement Web site (http://www.mosquitoes.org/) where one may request a batch of mosquito fish to keep one’s pond free from those pests – and the little fish are delivered for free. The only requirement is that you have to treat the water with AmQuel or other brand to eliminate the chlorine first, or the fish will die post haste.

The next time I went to Petco, I bought five feeder goldfish for a dollar, and thus found myself with the thrill of a fishpond for about $13.

Of course, the raccoons soon discovered the goldfish, so I learned to buy black ones instead of gold ones, and sometimes the fish live quite a long time, and sometimes not long at all. The more water hyacinth that cover the pond, the better their chances of survival, it seems.

* * *

I’m not the only one who ever discovered the joys of a water garden. “I have started on an entire series of landscapes which, I believe, may be of some interest to you,” French artist Claude Monet wrote in August 1919 to his art dealers. “I dare not say that I am pleased with the paintings, but I am working on them passionately.” This was the first news of 11 canvases that Monet undertook; throughout the Great War, Monet worked on his vast water lily pictures at his home at Giverny, and during that time he refused to part with any in progress (see http://www.metmuseum.org/ for more).

It’s not that the water garden provides me with any tangible benefit – I don’t eat from it, drink from it or cut parts of it for my table decorations. In fact, without the mosquito fish it could be a damned nuisance (we recently restocked the mosquito fish when West Nile-bearing mosquitoes hit the vicinity). But in a quiet corner of the garden, in the shapes and shadows of the fishpond, a whole world exists beneath the curves and ridges of the water hyacinth, and sometime this fall I expect them to bloom again.

Whether it cost me much or not, this little treasure is the pearl with great price.

Blissfully Wed in Backyard Paradise

2007-08-24T22:37:00.001-07:00

Well, it’s true now – we did the deed, right in our own side-yard. And it was lovely. Despite fears of foggy weather, dastardly winds or wedding crashers of all stripes, the day went off beautifully Aug. 11, on the green-mown crabgrass, with potted flowers and twining vines making a grand house-side appearance, almost as lovely as the bridesmaids themselves.

The raccoons behaved themselves, for one or two nights, mostly because we put things out of reach. The grass was green(ish) and when set upon with 200 chairs or so, and numerous more smiling guests, our boring side-yard became a lovely setting. Despite my many (many, many) fears and worries, it was indeed a day to remember.

Then we went away for a few days, to sunny, toasty, lovely Chico, ate good food, roasted by the pool, drank good wine and strolled in the park. Then we came home to a garden that, like naughty teenagers, saw that Mom and Dad were gone and decided to have a wild party.

All sorts of vile behaviors had ensued – crookneck squash grew horny and warty as they passed ripeness and degenerated into a state of sinful gourd-like existence. The green beans threw sticky, seductive tendrils around the cornstalks, pulled hard and brought down three-quarters of our crop just by the mere force of their charm. Then the beans went even wilder, erupting into long-fingered embraces featuring dozens and dozens of ripe bean pods. The cucumbers, espying their cousins in such unbecoming estate, went madly phallic and reproduced at an alarming rate.

One of my tasks later today involves flash-freezing string beans. And as you can see by the photos, it’s time to make pickles, a little green and yellow squash-relish, followed by perhaps some giardiniera.

First, we’ll take a trip to the store for a few jugs of vinegar and some peppercorns, and it’s always nice to add some heads of dill and grape leaves for a briny, almost winy flavor. Some celery stalks are a nice touch to these veggie relishes, especially the leafy inner stalks. (Anyone who throws away celery leaves for any reason ought to be stood in the corner and told not to touch the stove for a very long time. Save these treasures in a plastic bag in the back of the fridge and add to soups, sauces, stuffing, or anytime you need fresh herby flavor. Seriously.)

I worry about the garden, I really do. It has taken on a life of its own – and I’m a good parent, I tell you – but the minute I turn my back…well, you know what happens. If it isn’t the raccoons or the badly behaving zukes, it the lascivious string beans. And our friends the tomatoes seem to be getting busy over in their respective corners. So make way for salsa, friends. Summer ain’t over yet.

Backyard Bandits

2007-08-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

OK, I’m getting a little fed up. You know why. It’s the raccoons. I have been working my fingers to the very boniest bone, trying to get the yard fixed up for the couple of hundred guests set to arrive any day now, and do the raccoons care? No, they do not.

I’ve spent months nurturing these lovely sunflowers which the Boy’s class grew last year in the school garden; they packaged the seeds and I received a packet for Christmas. I duly planted them and, despite nearly killing them with lack of water, they are now a lovely four feet tall. The first one even bloomed about a week ago, huzzah!

But along comes a raccoon and tears down the first sunny blossom, rips it into shreds in an apparent love-me-loves-me-not kind of mammal game, and tries to climb the others. I’ve had to string up twine to keep the rest of the sunflowers upright.

The senseless digging of holes continues, as they search for grubs that don’t exist in my mulch and toxic soil. The compost bin is now known as The Buffet. The fishpond is known as The Sushi Bar (it’s also known as The Mosquito Hatchery, but that’s another story).

But now I’m really getting mad. I planted a bunch of pots to place strategically in bare spots around the yard during nuptial festivities, and what has been happening at night? Raccoon-me-lad rips out the plants and throws them on the ground. I left my tool basket out and the tools get scattered around the yard. Pots and planters are overturned with no regard for propriety, every night the birdbath gets dumped, and little muddy handprints tell me just who did it – no CSI badge required.

Recently the fishpond, with its succulent water lilies, seems to be turning into The Salad Bar, as the juicy leaves and roots get pulled out and crunched, then just thrown on the ground.

I’m starting to worry about the state of the backyard – will it survive another two weeks of night marauding? I put out mothballs to dissuade the digging and planter-dumping – so far, they don’t mind the smell at all (but I do –all my flowers stink now). We then laid out mousetraps under newspaper, to snap underneath the critters and frighten them away. I quote the raccoons: “Ha ha ha, you can’t scare me.”

Sigh. Just two more weeks and then it really won’t matter so much.

Me vs. the raccoons. Who will triumph?

Weekend Warrior

2007-07-23T12:33:00.001-07:00

I am fried to a crisp from working outside in the sun this past weekend. I sunscreened my face and wore a big hat, but didn't count on my shirt riding up in back, leaving me with a bright red strip across my back. Ow. My shoulders -- another place I forget about. I mean, they're just sitting there. I forgot to annoint them and they are talking back now: Sunburn City.

But it was a good weekend of many outdoor activities in the front, side and backyards. I went to the nursery as planned and walked away with $100 worth of bedding plants, some unlabeled so who knows what they are. I brought home lobelia and alyssum, dahlias, snapdragons, verbena, cosmos, dianthus (Sweet Wiliam), pink carnations, daisies, and a couple of other items -- something vinelike that drapes over the edge of a pot, and some old-fashioned garden flowers whose names I can't recall right now to look stately and Victorian in the side yard.

Last week we had that little earthquake (though it felt big - 4.2); Friday I went outside and a big branch had fallen out of the fir tree in front (it might be a blue spruce -- I am not quite sure about that). I did my best to cut it up with hand-clippers but when it came to sawing up the branch, I gave up and called the gardener guys to come fetch the rest of it. I wasn't sure if it was the earthquake that had shaken the branch loose, or maybe some dry rot, the bouncing of exuberant squirrels, an excessive weight from pigeons who like to roost there, or perhaps the release of the new Harry Potter book. The convergence of the planets? I don't know. I'm glad I wasn't taking tea in the patio when the branch fell, or you'd be reading nothing right now.

But oh, my little patio! I am very very excited about this. The patio has been my planting area, and all the extra plastic pots and empty terra cotta planters, etc., just sat and collected fir needles and spiderwebs and muck. The extra lattice was leaning there against the house, and just a strange assemblage of plants in pots waiting to be set into the ground. You know what I mean -- you probably have such a space in your own yard, a corner where you do the dirty work. But this is right in front of the house, and as our wedding fiesta approaches, I figured I had better clean it up.

Cleaning up is the easy part -- recycle the plastic stuff, compost the fallen leaves and such. But I was a bit stumped as to how to "do" the space, how to make it work as a garden "room." Insipration struck -- I remembered an old-fashioned ironing board made of wood and metal in the garage. I brought that out, and set a few flower pots on top. Looking around the garage again with a fresh eye inspired me to grab an old wooden toolbox, an antique butter churn that is frozen-rusted solid (I've been meaning to fix it for about 10 years) and a couple of cute little handpainted garden signs that I used to have hanging on my porch, um, maybe two houses ago.

I planted only purple and white in all the little pots -- violets in a white basket, alyssum, dianthus, lobelia and verbena in different little containers, so it's kind of color-thematic in the corner here. A little elbow grease on the cafe table and one leftover bit of bamboo fencing rolled out, and voila: a little patio garden with the theme of "Violets," decked out in kitchen or house antiques. Cute as a bug's ear, as we used to say.

Now I keep wandering out the side door to gaze fondly at the project and am looking forward to showing it off. There's definitely something to using old items in new ways, and recasting items into new roles (I am using a slightly damaged bamboo dish rack to hold garden gloves and hand tools in this little patio garden, for example).

It's nice when our little schemes work out even better than we imagined. Put that in the plus column this week.

Backsliding

2007-07-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

I turn my back for one minute and all the garden goes to hell.

All right. It was for more than one minute. It was for a couple of days. I wasn't feeling well over the past weekend and didn't do the usual maintenance. Then I was still not feeling well for the first few days of the week, and when I finally staggered out to blink at the sun about Wednesday midday, I was aghast at what I saw.

The sunflowers had shriveled to limp, bedraggled stalks. A creature had plowed holes in the mulch, as if looking for buried treasure. Anything growing in a flowerpot was hanging forlornly over the edge with wan, curled leaves and withered blooms. And the squash plants have utterly taken over the vegetable plot.

It's hard to imagine that just a few days' neglect could bring about such imminent ruin. Especially given the forgiving nature of plant life. Many times I've brought plants that look almost dead back from the brink of afterlife-on-the-compost-heap to lush, blooming plants again. But I was afraid that, after the few days of warm weather, I was too late.

Luckily, the sunflowers have forgiven me. I turned on the sprinkler and gave them a gentle shower, and within a few hours they were erect and smiling again. The potted plants, not so much. These are the spring annuals that could be perennials if planted in the earth: lobelia, snapdragons, nemisia and pansies. They look bedraggled, even if slightly revived by a cool shower. Blossoms are falling off and it's about that time anyway: time to repot for maximum visual effect. That's on the chore list for the upcoming weekend. We'll just have to see what's in stock at the local nurseries (I'm thinking it'll be petunias, marigolds, cosmos and Iceland poppies, but I could be wrong.)

As for the burrowing creature, not sure who or what that is. I think it's the raccoons. I have a whole spiel about them but suffice it to say that I don't appreciate the helpful random digging. There is nothing under the mulch. Just plastic and then toxic soil. As my father would say, "Don't help."

And then we come to the behemoths in full torpor under the spiked leaves of the squash. Growing with an uncomfortable curvature of the spine, these creatures seem to double in length and girth every two days. I asked the Man to take the axe outside to kill one or two fur supper, but he was late coming home from work, so they're still out there. We're gonna need a chainsaw in a few days.

Forget the caterers. When it's time for the wedding feast, we're just gonna eat zucchini: steamed, sauteed, baked, sliced, stuffed, au gratin, whatever we can do. Forget living in the dorms. When our next eldest gets ready to move to college, we're gonna send her in a hollowed-out squash (shades of Peter-Peter-Pumpkin Eater). And the next eldest is chafing for a car of her own. How about we put some wheels on one of these puppies and see how fast it can drive? Everyone knows that Alameda Point is the place to learn how to drive. Just watch out for my baby's zucchini car. Those things don't grow on trees, you know. Oh, wait. Never mind.

Is there a lesson in all of this? Yes and no. Nothing new to be learned, because we know it as a truism already. If Mom doesn't do it, it probably won't get done. That's the brutal reality. And though the family is a helpful crew when asked, or pressed into service, they just don't have the gardener's passion, they just don't get the thrill of seeing the first tomato blossom, of watching something take root and blossom the way I do. And I can't expect them to. (After all, I don't give two figs about MySpace or X-Box or Scutaro's batting average or the latest Cute Is What We Aim For song.)

The lesson here is Don't Get Sick. Stay healthy so you can take care of the veggies and the flowerpots and the herb garden and the hanging baskets and the fuchsia and all the little green-beings in your care. God gets the seventh day to rest but He doesn't get sick. And as the god or goddess of your garden, you can't either. So take your vitamins and drink your water and get some rest. You've got a lot of work to do.

Hum-Vee

2007-06-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

I saw a hummingbird in the garden yesterday -- the first "real" visit from a hummingbird since we hung the hummingbird feeders. Huzzah! The funny thing is, it (he?) wasn't visiting the two feeders we got for free (one from Freecycle and the other left at an empty house in the neighborhood). Where was he? Visiting the hammock.

We have a couple of delicious or colorful items in the Secret Garden that a hummer might like to taste or visit. One is the triple hummingbird-feeder-mobile that has three glass balls filled with delicious red nectar. The other is the flower-shaped feeder hanging from the eaves -- it's red, yellow and green blown glass, very pretty (and who would leave behind such an item, anyway? Their loss is our gain.) In the back refrigerator is a pitcher of red juice that the Man labeled with a skull and crossbones so no kids mistake it for Koolaid. So far, so good.

I also planted some pink penstemon, which is a tall, spiky plant with bell-like flowers that hummers love. They are in the same planter with some red, pink and purple petunias, which are also attractive to the wee ones. Hummingbirds tend to like those kind of open flowers and bright red colors, but I imagine they'll taste anything that is sweet.

But it took about two weeks from hanging the feeders to get any visitors, at least that we could see. I was sitting in the backyard by the firepit Monday, taking a few minutes off of parenting-writing-scrubbing something to flip through the latest Real Simple magazine, when a motion caught my eye. It was a hummingbird, flitting around and around the new red-orange striped hammock we hung in the back. Up and down, around it flew. It poked its beak at the fabric. It zipped over it and under it, sniffing it or looking more closely. A giant flower! But it doesn't smell right! It smells like Small Boy! Harumph!

The little bird then came to rest on the chain that hooks the hammock to the stand and scraped its beak along the links, itching it? Cleaning it? Filing it? I don't know enough avian behavior to know. Maybe it just wanted to rest on the hammock. Lord knows I do.

A few minutes later the bird flew away -- right over to the new honeysuckle with bright red flowers that I planted two weeks ago. Then to the trio-mobile feeder. Then away.

It brought a smile to my face. We have a new friend.

Margaritaville

2007-06-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

Good morning to all, and Lordy-Lu, I love these fresh June mornings at about 6 a.m. when it's still in the streets, and the squirrels and birds are all that roam the Island. At least it seems so out here in the Wonderland that is the Base. It's like being in the country, except for the night noise from the Port of Oakland across the Estuary. ('Nother story there.) I just came in from watering the front garden, which includes the lavender patch between the front walk and the driveway, all the potted lovelies on the front porch, my little Angel garden, my plant nursery in the private patio, and the landscape plants around the left (east) side of the house.

This is the angel in the Angel garden (above). She's a recycled sculpture made by our family friend Phil Glashoff (if you check out his Web site you'll see lots more like this). He's a lifelong friend of the Man's; they grew up together on neighboring farms in the Suisun Valley/Fairfield area. This little angel needed a special place to live, and there was a funky unclaimed corner in the front yard between the boxwood hedge, a really ugly juniper, a manhole cover at the edge of the lawn, and the lawn itself. You can see the hedge behind her and the juniper to the right. She is standing on a blue slate tile, one of a pile I got from Freecycle friends, and in front of her is a row of little chamomile flowers. As well, I planted two or three English daisies, which are very tender and sweet in shades of fuschia and pink, a volunteer nasturtium that is thus far behaving itself, and four margarita daisies -- also known as marguerites.

Here's the bigger view of this little corner, which is about three feet wide and takes just a small corner of the front yard.

You can see the edge of the manhole cover just in the bottom left corner. Why would someone put a manhole in the middle of the lawn? Only Jah -- or the military -- knows what is beneath there. I don't really want to know (though perhaps it's a bomb shelter?). But how's this for a flash-to-the-Sixties? I planted a bunch of flowers on top. It's the classic put-a-daisy-into-the-barrel-of-the-rifle thing. Make love, not war. You know. All that jazz. And it just happened. I didn't think about it as much as just saw the empty wasted corner and wanted to grow something there, beautify my little corner of the earth.

The message of the day is that my marguerites, AKA margaritas, given to me by the green thumb extraordinaire, Chantal of Freecycle, took forever to get that tall and took forever to bloom, but -- they're blooming at last! It's so thrilling when something you've planted and watched and watered and nurtured for months finally gets fruitful and blooms for you. Puts on a show. Gives up the goods. I love it!

Except so do the bugs. There's something eating them already, and it's not snails. I think it's Japanese beetles, those little green lady bugs. I sniped a stem of rosebuds this morning -- my first at this house, another huge thrill for me. And about three of these pests fell into the sink as I was placing the stem into a vase (that's vase, not vahz, for all you pretentious wannabe-Victorian folks*).

At some point I'm gonna have to go military on the Beetle Invasion and get out the big guns. And of course, by that I mean, I'll have to turn to faith and pray -- with praying mantises. Bug spray? Nah. Not in this yard.

Happy summer day, and today, remember our friend Shakespeare, whose most famous sonnet (18) compares his beloved to "a summer's day: thou art more lovely and more temperate..."

[he continues] ...Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Isn't that nice?

*No, it's true: Preferred pronunciation is vase (vAs): 1563, from M.Fr. vase, from Latin vas, "container, vessel." American English preserves the original English pronunciation (Swift rhymes it with face, Byron with place and grace), while British English shifted mid-19c. to a Victorian preference for a pronunciation that rhymes with bras (vahz). -- cf Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vase>.

The Weekend (Part Un)

2007-06-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

The planter boxes! We finished building the planter boxes! Huzzah! Look at this hard-working Man, pounding nails. Measure twice, cut once. It all worked beautifully. We completed the final three, and then came the dirt (you know you love to hear the dirt...). And how much did they cost? Free! All off of Freecycle, out All free!

So here we are hammering, carrying big ol' sacks of dirt, and then pouring it into the planter boxes. Hot day, strange headcoverings, garden gloves always, yes. But all in the name of the Garden.

Want to see the whole garden? Check this out (below):

I can't get the photos to line up, but it's the panorama of left to right. Note large planter in the middle with veggies, new planters on the far left and back fence, and on the back right side before the compost bin.

Other items of note, to newcomers, are the sunflowers grown by the Boy in the planter along the right side of the garden by the house. (See them above.) A foot tall now!

The only other thing I can note as of today, in my foggy mind, is that in working in the mulch I somehow got a splinter between my big toe and second toe, and it hurt like the dickens (or like reading Charles Dickens), and now I am wearing a little bandage and not quite but almost limping a tiny bit, like Tiny Tim, to pimp out a simile, but not really. Because it hurts. I feel like the poor lion - where's Androcles (or Aesop) when you need him?

After filling the planters with dirt, I got to plant (yippee!). I received some penstemon, among other lovelies, from my mom, plus one more yellow pear tomato plant, and those went into the planters. Also planted the grapevine that's been waiting impatiently in the front nursery garden (by my side door - where Buddha sits, exuding calm), and then all the honeysuckles along the fences in the Tiki area of the yard. Sun, water and no longer being root-bound should improve all their constitutions soon.

I also planted cooler-weather root veggies along the shady side of the Secret Garden -- radishes, beets and turnips, hoping for greens to grow. Because who doesn't love greens? I fear the squirrels will make a mess of it, but we'll deal with that if it happens. How? No flippin' idea. We'll come back to the squirrel topic soon, though. What else? Oh, yeah, the 20 or so petunias waiting in a flat by the side of the house finally were put to bed in one of the planters. That made them very happy.

Now I think I have finished planting in the Secret Garden. I think everything is there for the summer. It wants watering and a keen eye for weeds and the nosy gopher, who doesn't seem to mind an extra layer of black weed cloth and 4 inches of mulch to dig through. I sense a battle brewing there. I shall await the spread and bloom, the lushness to fill the boxes and planters in time for nuptial festivities in August.

I can't wait.

Now on to indoor fix-up chores and other urgent acts to prepare for the Day of the Wedding. Ack! Eek! Come along, won't you?

Eat Your Veggies

2007-06-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

I skipped a part of the story.

This is the part where I say I wanna plant some veggies, now that I have mulch and dirt. But you see, first we have to have a flashback. It's June ("June is bustin' out all over..." Sing with me...) now. But one can't start a vegetable garden in June because it's almost summer. You've gotta start early. Like in spring. Duh.

(cue weird flashback music...da da da!)

Back in early spring, April-ish, maybe late March, well before we had done any Tiki-fication or mulchification or collected wood for planter boxes or had to clean up broken cubelettes of glass, I looked through my vegetable seeds. And what a sorry sight it was.

Wait a minute -- flashback within a flashback...da da da!

I used to have vegetable gardens wherever I went, wherever I lived, from childhood, skipping college years, of course (don't be silly), then into home-ownership and marriage and all the yards and time and stuff that went with it. But then came single-motherhood and the curse of a small house with a cement backyard, and then a country house with acreage for a garden but no time to till it because I was commuting like a maniac six days a week and dying on the seventh, just as G*d hath commanded. Then I moved back to the Island into a house with a big backyard but grass that wasn't mine to till under and some trees with pollen and dusty leaves and bark that gave me sneezing fits whenever I went into the backyard. Then I moved to an apartment. And obviously, you know. No garden there. (I did have fun with houseplants, but that's a tale for another night, kids.)

However, I continued to hold onto my gardening gloves and watering can and tomato cages and a dirty plastic grocery sack full of seeds that should have been planted in 1997. But weren't. And a box of dirt. I'll come back to that later. Remind me: box o' dirt. Now...

(flash-forward to April..da da da!)

...Like many gardeners, I have a lovely collection of four-inch pots that four-inch potted annuals come in. The pots are often black or forest green, sometimes pink or white. I filled about 20 of these little square pots with dirt and although I tried to get the Boy interested, he was busy chasing lizards and paid me no mind. I didn't bother to ask the Teens. I planted eight pots of corn, four of string beans, two pumpkins, a gourd, four different cucumber varieties, two yellow crookneck squash, two zucchini, four tomatoes (from seed, bad idea, I know), a butternut squash and hmm, maybe something else. I can't remember. That was the same day I planted the sunflower seeds that the Boy gave me for Christmas, that his class had grown earlier over summer and harvested to sell in the fall. The circle of life continues...ahhh.

Anyway, you know the routine: Cover gently with soil, place them in a sunny spot, water them frequently so that the soil is moist but not soggy, and soon you'll be marveling at lush plantiness.

(time passes...da da da)

It wasn't long before -- huzzah! -- the corn was sprouting! The pumpkins were sprouting! Gourds and cukies and squash, oh my! Sprouting and sending up their sweet little leaves in search of sunlight and that delicious chlorophyll diet and a cell phone and Tivo. The tomatoes, and their friends the Serrano chili peppers (I remembered) did not want to wake up. I think the date on their packet really and truly was 1997. I had figured the date stamp was a scam to get me to throw out perfectly good seeds and buy expensive new ones, but no, it seems to be true. Old seeds don't always sprout. (Wait -- say it in this voice: Dead men tell no tales....Old seeds sprout no plants...)

You know I'm a Scot -- I'm a frugal lass, in fact, because of being raised on a farm with four siblings, and then being a single mom twice over and working at jobs about which I am passionate and committed but which pay diddly squat, so I've learned a few tricks about saving pennies. And one of those tricks, my friends, is to go to Walgreen's or Longs and look for the veggie seeds and buy them on sale -- when they are 5 for a dollar. That's right. Five for a dollar.

For minimal outlay, you can plant a zucchini and a tomato and some bean and corn plants that will feed you all summer long. And you know that squash, corn and beans are the triumvirate of native North American veggies (Read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel for more details about this). And throw in tomatoes -- not literally -- and you've got not only a native veggie garden (especially with some of the American heirloom varieties) but you've got plants that will produce the proverbial bumper crop.

For example: The best price I've seen for corn is 5 or 6 ears for a dollar at Slaveway. Even at 8 ears for a dollar, which is pure fantasy on my part, I know, you'd still have earned out your 20 cents for the packet of corn, even adding in the water, which wouldn't be more than a few gallons for one plant over the course of the summer. And zucchini plants -- mama-mia. Have you seen how nuclear some of those babies can get? Ever lifted a zucchini leaf and found a behemoth resting there like a fat torpid beached whale? And then tried to cook it? It's the loaves and fishes and the Feeding of the Five Thousand right stinkin' there.

And then what you need is a Seal-a-Meal. Which I have, thanks to Freecycle. And there's a story there, too. But I'll come back around next time, lads and lassies.

So everything but the tommies and the peppers and the beans came up in the pots, and that was OK, sort of, but not really. And then my mom called and we chatted and out of the blue she said, "I have some tomato plants -- I bought six but I don't need that many. Do you want them?" And I said yes ma'am, but what I really meant was Yes Lawd, because the Universe listens, the Universe responds, and not even the fall of a sparrow is missed in the great scheme of things.

So then. Veggies are blooming, and I decided I didn't really want peppers anyway, and I made the drive to lovely Farmland where my parents live (That's a made-up name. It's rural Sonoma County, in fact, but I'm trying to be anonymous. A Nonny Mouse. You know.) She gave me the tomatoes and some nice yellow europs starts and some geranium and pelargonium starts from my Great-Aunt Doris's yard, and I think a couple of Cape mallows, which are a pretty bush-shrub with pink flowers when they get going.

(flash-forward to May..da da da!)

I planted the tomatoes in the wine tubs (another fascinating story you're just dying to hear) because we still hadn't got the dirt and the planter box yet, and I watched my veggies start to grow. I kept watering and kept watching and did a bit of nagging, and then we went on the fateful walk and found the crate, and the dirt came, and the mulch and all was right in my Secret garden. I came home after work one afternoon and again asked the Boy if he wanted to help. Nope. He wanted to go to the skate park. So I planted the squashes and pumpkins and corn, and interplanted marigolds, and left a long row down the middle where I planted some *new* bean seeds, because it is, after all, 2007, not 1997.

Water, forget about them, water some more. Repeat.

(time passes...da da da)

...and so today, here I am, the proud keeper of a thriving veggie garden, despite the miserable fog that is June on the Island. The sunflowers are a foot to 14 inches tall, the tomatoes are putting out little blossoms (the first one opened up yesterday), the beans finally sprouted and are about 3 inches high so far. The squashes are still very small,but still green. They and the cukes may not do much until it gets hot. Hecka hot, I mean. If ever. The corn is almost knee high, which every farmer knows is the perfect height by Independence Day -- you know, "knee high by the Fourth of July."

So far, so good.

A Mighty Wind

2007-06-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

The wind started up yesterday morning, and grew stronger throughout the day, so that by midafternoon, it was blowing so hard the Boy could hardly ride his bike into it. He brought the bike back and went out on Rollerblades instead.

When no one was looking, the gusty wind spit down some odds and ends, then tucked under the umbrella on the dining table and blew it down. Over it went, and its glass tabletop shattered into a thousand crackly cubes of glass like sugary-ice. The crunchy cubelettes have fallen into the grass, so one of our hottest chores on the chore list is to clean it up. Otherwise, there will be no bare feet in that part of the yard till who knows when. And I'm all in favor of bare feet, at least in warm weather. Which I'd like to have a month of right . . . about . . . now.

The wind is very drying, and all the plants are thirsty. But watering into the wind is in the very same category as spitting or micturating into the breeze -- not advised. The water blows everywhere but where you want it. I plan to spot-water with the hand-held sprinkler at midday today, just to keep them from dying of thirst.

Who needs water? The honeysuckle plants in 6-inch pots who are dying to get into the ground, and have been for -- ack! almost a year. The variety of geranium snips I gathered from people's yards last month in quest of a Martha Washington purple; I got lovely shades of pink, fuchsia, burgundy and some striped-blossomed things, and finally the MW I wanted. But the squirrels keep digging out the snips and throwing the plant away, in search of nuts or a place to hide their nuts. (I have a rant about squirrels which I'm saving for a special occasion -- just wait.) Those little snips need some water, though the trauma of getting settled into some nice dirt, then being yanked out and tossed on the hard bricks, then being rescued and tucked back into dirt may well be too much for the dears.

Who else? The veggie garden, of course, and the drooping sunflowers that are about a foot high now. The marigolds I've been interplanting to keep bugs away are dying, while the veggies are thriving. What's up with that? The tomato plants are all about a foot tall and showing signs of blossoms forming. They need heat, and water, of course, and perhaps we'll get some tomatoes by October. (I'm not bitter. Just realistic.)

What else wants water? The crabby grass, always. Anything in a pot, yes. Me, actually -- who doesn't need to drink more water? I know I do. Bottom line is it's time to water, and everything is thirsty, and that stresses out the plants, which become more disease-prone and less productive...more likely to die, actually. The trick will be getting the water where it needs to go and not standing downwind.

My task: Stay dry. The plants' job? Get wet. It's a match guaranteed to please all of us involved.

The Dirt

2007-05-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

You want to hear the dirt, the filthy dirty dirt. I know you do.

Here's the real dirt, then. What do you put into your planter boxes? Well, dirt, obviously. But any old dirt?

I spent some time considering this before coming to a decision. I was, for example, concerned about toxins in the soil. The former Alameda Naval Air Station is, after all, a Navy Superfund toxic waste cleanup site. While it's not likely that the Naval officers in whose homes we now live allowed much backyard dumping of jet fuel or mercury or dioxin or whatever it is that is in the soil elsewhere on the Base, there is seepage and capillary action and the distinct possibility that perhaps the officers didn't know, or no one knew, but maybe mistakes were made, and toxic waste hadn't even been defined yet (remember how toxic sludge used to be dumped right into rivers and lakes?). Perhaps there was some other kind of sludgification in the neighborhood before it became a neighborhood. Some of this history is shrouded in the mists of time, and other portions have been shrouded in the catacombs of bureaucracy, and I'm not sure I have the time to do the research and still keep my day job and feed five kids.

So let us assume, if one might presume to assume, that the soil is somewhat contaminated at least in certain areas of the former Navy base, and since I'm not exactly certain where all those areas are -- one might be just on the distaff side of my fence, you know -- I would prefer to err on the side of not eating toxic carrots. Although, and this is a wide digression, remember that episode of Gilligan's Island where they ate radioactive vegetables and Gilligan became really strong (he liked spinach) and Mary Anne could see about a hundred miles away because she ate the really gigantic radioactive carrot? Ah, yes. Good times, good wholesome memories.

Do I want to eat anything radioactive? No, not even for the chance to see a cruise ship a hundred miles off this Island. Do I want to feed it to my kids? No, I'd really rather not, and my future grandchildren will thank me for that when they have just two legs and arms rather than five like some of their future friends.

So OK, yes, we need to get some good dirt in here. But -- ka-ching! Dirt costs money, doesn't it? Well, yes, but looky here. On craigslist.org, there's always someone giving away free dirt. People dig a deeper basement, excavate their backyards, and they have to get rid of the dirt. It's free.

If only we had a pickup truck. If only we had a wheelbarrow. If only I had enough big white buckets to fill with dirt and bring back to my house and if only I had enough muscle to carry those full buckets from my car to the backyard. If only someone would deliver it to me for free. If only I had a magic wand and could make the elves do my bidding, or my alien friends would scoop up the dirt in their giant saucers and then all my dirty troubles would be over.

Having none of those, I circled back to the toxic dirt issue and decided that if someone were to excavate his basement, what kind of dirt was that likely to be? And even if it was, geologically speaking, rich loamy gold that would sprout lush vegetables in a trice, then how would I get it here? Answer: I couldn't.

So I went to Pagano's. Hello, my sweet Pagano friends, will you please help me get some dirt? And in a trice, these friendly folk helped me place an order for 20 sacks of dirt which included a slight discount for buying in bulk and also free delivery, and a few days later, there it was in my driveway: 20 cubic feet, in recyclable plastic sacks, of organic garden soil. (A few days later I ordered 10 more, just because the Pagano folk are so darned nice.) The thought of playing in the dirt was so enticing to the Man and the Boy that they dragged it around the back, tore open the sacks with their teeth, apparently, and filled up the planter box.

I have organic dirt and I'm not afraid to use it.

Mulch and Tiki, Part II

2007-05-21T23:17:00.001-07:00

Speaking of necessary and unnecessary delays: Some of these delays involve life. We have five children between us: four Girls and one Boy. The eldest Girl is away at a private acting academy in Manhattan, which costs at least one arm and three legs per year, and let me just say that a teenager on my auto insurance was cheaper than this per month. The other three Girls are in high school and are busy, busy, busy with school, friends, activities, friends, sometimes hanging around with friends at home but mostly trying to get away from us and our list of chores to be with friends. The youngest is a Boy who is all Boy, and he likes dirt and the fish pond and lizards and ice cream and bikes and Nintendo and all the rest of the stuff that Boys like. He's been most interested in the garden because he gets to help hang up bird feeders and other such fun things.

Some of the delays involve money. Together we work more than one job. The Man has one job, a big job with a big, growing company. He drives away early and drives home late. I have a part time job at a magazine, more part-time teaching, some freelance and other miscellaneous creative projects. I also drive the kids to and from school (unless they take the bus), to the orthodontist, doctor, therapy, the mall, friends' houses, to drama practice or the game, to cheer practice or the skate park, and so on. I think driving is one of my biggest jobs. I also do the grocery shopping most of the time, and errands like the post office, the hardware store, Walgreen's or other places to buy gifts, clothes shopping, and on and on. Best of all is the shopping -- shall we call it the hunt? for home and garden stuff. I luv that. Not just love. Luv, as in, tru luv.

As well, I believe I mentioned that we are planning a wedding. Yes, a wedding that merges two families and will take place here at the Casa Blanca -- the white house, which is a bit of a joke because all of the houses out here are white. And we're all on the right side of the road. So if I tell you it's the white one on the right, ask me to be more specific. Because otherwise it's just funny to me, not to you who are lost.

Because of wedding-planning and money-juggling and time with kids and driving and errands, plus collecting, nay, gleaning goodies from various places for the garden-that-has-yet-to-be, it took us a bit of a while to get ready to build the planter boxes in the backyard. And it had to stop raining. It finally did, and we had some gorgeous weather and the crabby grass started to grow. So the Man started to mow. Thus, the Man is no longer going to marry me. He's going to marry the lawnmower, since they spend so much quality time together. He's cheating with the weed whacker, though. There's just way too much lovin' going on in the backyard these days. I'm beginning to get jealous.

Finally, finally, the day drew near. "Honey," I said, "we've gotta do it. We need to go to the lumber yard and get the wood for planter boxes." But what happened? I decided to save us the money and posted a request on Freecycle that I wanted some boards for planter boxes and voila, a lovely lady named Julie on Ninth Street had some extra boards and she gave them to me. Then one bright morning about two weeks ago, the Man and I went for our weekend stroll and found a large crate-like box next to a Dumpster and rescued it. Suddenly we no longer needed to go to the lumber yard. We suddenly had either the wood or the ready-made boxes at hand. So we scampered back home and started spraying weed killer. Then we rolled out the black plastic weed-guard fabric and were ready to place the boxes. There was just one thing.

The mulch. How would we get enough mulch to cover all of this, and cheap, and fast?

The Universe listens to these kinds of prayers, I think. How can I beautify one corner of the planet, I wondered, and the prayer went up into the ether and the heavens. And lo, there came unto my ears the blessed sounds of a choir of chainsaws from down the street, which begat the roughly grinding sounds, not of Gideon's Trumpet, nor the sounds of Jericho walls a-tumbling. But a tree was smitten, or smited, or smoten, though by the hand of G*d or man, it was unclear. And lo, the tree-cutters were feeding the branches into the very maw of Moloch the beast, which then spat the remains into a vast green chariot of some sort. And I said, "Yea, verily, I say unto you, good tree-cutters. May I inquire where thou wouldst take these fine chips when thou finishest thy work?" And they responded with hearty laughs and shrugged, "Wherever." I asked most sweetly, "Could I then partake of these mulchified chips which you have so finely wrought?" And they laughed and danced with the timbrels and the harp, and promised to deliver unto me a load of mulched pine tree. And verily, within an hour I had a load of free mulch at my pearly side gate. And it was very good.

True story. Minus the Biblical hoo-ha.

So on that sunny Mother's Day, a week or so back, guess what the Man, two of four daughters and self were doing? Yes, friends, shoveling mulch. Free mulch, I hasten to add. We shoveled free mulch all into my little corner of the planet until there was a five-inch thick blanket of pine chips and bark and needles surrounding the large crate which is about to become my vegetable plot. I laid in several stepping stones, which I have already moved and removed in other places five or six times. Now there is a little path from the entryway -- a gap in the folding wire fence -- around the veggie plot to the compost bin. I brought my unpainted bench around from the front porch to the Secret Garden and now I have a place to sit. I also set my funky wicker chair there (found this one by the side of the road on Paru Street, at Buena Vista Avenue, one day last summer. I knew it was a keeper, though the Man wasn't so sure.)

There's more work to be done in the Secret Garden. We still need to finish building the three planter boxes -- all it needs is long nails and a strong arm to swing a hammer (Honey...) or a drill and some L-brackets. I have four L-brackets in the toolbox now and no nails long enough. I also have Superglue. Seriously, it looks like it's time for another trip to Pagano's.

Mulchy Goodness and Tiki-fication

2007-05-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

This is bass-ackwards but let me explain how it got this way. The yard is empty but for the so-called grass, as I mentioned. Think of a large letter L. Our backyard is that shape. About a third of the long side is next to the family room and is thus fairly closed in on three sides -- two fences, one wall with windows. Cutting straight across from the edge of the house to the fence, with a small metal folding fence we got from Home Depot, marks the edge of my garden, as I've claimed it. Mine!

The rest of the yard is going to be lush lawn or crabby grass, depending on if you're a half-full or half-empty kind of guy. In those areas we have the picnic table, the fire pit, and the Man's Tiki Lounge area, where he barbecues and entertains. And he's a half-full kind of guy and has Big Plans for the Tiki Lounge. Last year we semi-decorated the Tiki area with some big tiki heads from Target, some bamboo lounge chairs from Long's, and a grass skirt to cover the umbrella over the glass table. He rolled out some bamboo-cloth fencing (thanks, Home Depot) to cover the military chain-link fence we have here, and propped his wind-surf board in the corner. A bit of colorful netting, some plastic leis and strings of shells, a few random flamingo lawn ornaments, and, presto -- Tiki Lounge!

And yet...it was all a bit temporary, because we had just barely moved in, threw these things around, and called it a backyard. It didn't feel quite lived-in. When the rains threatened in the fall, we dragged all these goodies back into the garage, and there they sit, waiting to be undragged and claim their proper day in the sun. Pretty soon, we tell them in passing. Patience, please.

But I digress. Back to the mulch situation.

So the garden area, the Julia garden, is not too large, perhaps 25 feet long and 20 feet wide. My father brought us an empty wooden crate from his brass tubing (he makes wind chimes and receives these very long wooden crates of brass tubing to cut and polish). These make great planter boxes. And did I mention, it was free! I've also scavenged some trellis and another smaller wooden box that, once upon a time, was the Halloween-decoration coffin that the Man used to use to scare the neighborhood kiddies. Now it's a planter box holding my basil and a couple of tomato plants. Other than these two boxes, there was nothing behind the small folding metal fence. Not much of a garden, huh?

But I have a plan, see, a Big Plan. And that plan involves planter boxes and organic dirt and a lush vegetable garden, and birds and butterflies and rich compost moldering in the corner, becoming healthy dirt and not filling up the dumps and landfills with our eggshells and coffee filters and cupcake papers and banana peels. Black gold, that stuff. And...it's free! Did I mention how much I love free? I do. I do!

But there's this problem. Crabby grass. Everywhere in the backyard. Coming in under the fences from the Greater Outdoors. Growing into cracks in the house. Really, truly, everywhere. We thought, hmm, let's rototill it and that will kill it. We hemmed and hawed and weighed the price of renting a rototiller and the energy we'd spend and how it might affect the Man's back and what I if I did it, and then we called in a garden contractor and got his opinion and estimate. And then we decided, nope, not gonna do it. We like free and we like keeping it simple, and this is, after all, a rented house, out of which they will throw us one of these days when the big developers come in and steamroller these places to build some ticky-tacky big-box homes and destroy all evidence of a life that was here. Is it worth it to invest the time and money to build and sow and try to feel like it's permanent? Not so much. So free seems the right way to go, both energy- and cost-wise.

So here we go. I went to my friendly hardware store, Pagano's, which is an Ace hardware store and had a lovely sale on black weed cloth. About $5 a roll, thank you, and I bought three rolls, plus a gallon of weed killer and a pump-sprayer, all on sale. For less than $50 I could kill weeds in my Secret Garden and get ready to rumble. And we did, but not after a number of necessary and, of course, quite unnecessary delays.

A Bit of Earth

2007-05-16T16:24:00.001-07:00

I have been making a garden out of nothing, or nothing much, something like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. We moved here, the back yard was empty, literally empty of any living thing except one horrible old tree with rotten red and yellow dung-scented berries and some crab-grassy weeds, mown occasionally so that it thinks it's a lawn. It isn't.

When we first moved in I had some grand aspirations but my husband-man hurt his back and rapidly went downhill so that he couldn't work much and I was doing both our work, and working a job as well. So whatever fine wishes for the garden I had either remained as wishes, or got a weak start and then dried up quickly. The vegetable seeds I planted withered because they were in the shade too much. It is foggy and windy out here and I didn't know which way the sun slanted just yet. They say you have to live in a house a year to know where to plant, but I was impatient and couldn't stand to wait. I did not wait. And very little grew.

It is not quite a year, but we have a wedding coming (ours -- he is not quite the official husband-man yet -- T minus three months...!). So I am working at the yard again, front, side and back, to make it pretty, to make it habitable, to make it a garden, not just a yard full of crabby grass and a Weber and a picnic table we never use.

This, then, is the chronicle of that venture: how the yard became a garden, and how the house we rent became a home, and how we sad two becam a happy unit, and all our brood, and the adventures we all have while making a garden, both secret and secure, our little urban Eden on an Island in the Bay.