Garden

The Great Broccoli Lie

July 27, 2009

There is a lie that gets told every year in the Menke home right about now. It goes something like this:

“Hey guys, this is our first broccoli from the garden this year.” (Jennie)

“Really? I thought you weren’t going to grow broccoli anymore.” (any one except Jennie)

“Yeah, I know. But I was at Shady Acres and it looked good, so I bought some. I got it in early, so the Cabbage Moths weren’t a problem.” (Jennie)

“Really? Are you sure? (Family member A)

“You are positive there aren’t any worms?” (Family member B)

“Have you seen any moths? Do the leaves have any holes? Are you sure?” (Family member C)

“I am positive there are no worms. I promise.” (Jennie – THE GREAT LIE.)

BT is a very good (and organic) control for cabbage worms. The problem is, you have to go into the barn, find it, mix it, spray the plants and repeat at least once a week during the growing season. I simply can’t be counted on to do that.

Oh, what’s that you say? I should just pick the worms off? Sure. No problem. Here is what my family sees when they sit down to some perfectly steamed broccoli:

And this is what I see, right after telling the Great Lie:

Of course, this second photo has been enhanced, for your viewing pleasure. It is what I see. My family, most notably, does not see the worm, even though it is there. Scroll back up and look for yourself.

I have two choices at this point.

1) I can fess up and tell them that I lied. That I really did see moths, and holes on the leaves and even saw a worm before steaming, but was positive they were gone until right this very minute when I saw it on my plate.

Or, 2) I can keep my mouth shut, eat the worm and pretend nothing untoward is happening.

What would you do? (comment please).

Well, as I’m sure you all know by now, I ate the worm. Admitting I was wrong would have been way harder.

Sex in a Plot

July 24, 2009

That’s sex in a garden plot! I don’t know why these photos seem so sexy to me. Well, the carrot, yes. She (clearly, it’s a she) looks like a demure, leggy vixen! I finally had to let Charlie eat her though. What would be the point of letting her languish in the refrigerator? The garlic photo, on the other hand… I guess I just think garlic, the smell of garlic, the taste of garlic, is all sexy. I love garlic. I even love garlic breath.

I harvested my first true carrots, thinning my rows. I’ll harvest now as needed. I direct seeded a new bed with carrots in mid July. Hopefully, those will mature before the hard frosts stop their growth. Fall harvested carrots are way better than summer.

Half my garlic was ready to harvest. I am super-paranoid about waiting too long. Every single garden source tells you that when the tops flop, they are ready to be dug. I have found that when most of the tops flop, I have rot. Now, it could be that the rot was due to late moisture, but how can you stop the rain from falling down? I’d rather sacrifice a millimeter of growth for healthy bulbs.

The soft neck garlic had just started flopping over when I harvested it. The hard neck (which forms the curly scapes I wrote about a few weeks ago) takes a bit longer. My softneck variety is inchillium red… or polish red… I can’t remember which. But hear this: garlic is in my top five favorite things to grow in the garden. I love it. After digging, I leave it the sun for a day or two to dry a bit, then move it to a cool dark location to cure. You can eat it whenever, but if you cure it right, your garlic will last until next season. I will earmark the biggest heads to plant in late October for next year. For some reason, that’s always hard for me to do…

The onions are still going strong. So weird. Usually they are long done. I suspect they will start to flop in the next week or so. I have the same exact problem with onions as with garlic, so I am very quick to harvest when they show the first signs of floppage. I used to try to store them over the fall and winter, but now I like to chop and freeze most of them. Having chopped and frozen onion that you can grab by the handful is habit-forming. Plus, it’s so darn maddening to spend all that time growing and weeding only to find that every third onion is rotten in the middle two months down the road.

The new mutt-chickens are in their upgraded abode. I went mental with the electric wire. The darling white picket fence is really my clever way of electrifying the fence door, which has always been a hole in my defenses since the door swings out and I couldn’t have the low wire in front of it. Now, I can easily step over the fence and open the door, but hopefully still keep marauders out. The chickens now enter the fenced run by way of a small door (unseen in the picture) that I cut into the end of the coop (nee playhouse). I am very proud of my handiwork, but was too lazy to document its making, so you’ll just have believe me when I tell you I did an excellent job. Anyway, short of Big Foot or Hedwig the Owl, I think they will be safe:

I can’t believe I just said that.

World’s Smallest German Shorthair Pointer

July 9, 2009

Or is it the World’s Tallest Asparagus?

It’s really hard to show just how tall the asparagus really is. I suppose I should be in the shot, to show the human proportion, but then, you’d all see how gross I look. (But just so you know, it is way taller than 5’7″ me.)

Actually, I am really liking this camera. I can’t believe how good it makes me look:

All cameras should have this feature. Who needs wrinkle cream?

This, my friends, is called auto focus. And what was focused was the post behind me. I kind of like it that way. Who need skin-enhancing software — or wrinkle cream, for that matter, when there is the much cheaper out-of-focus option available?

Here is a better picture of a different post (that is falling down). The sweet dumpling squash planted on the right side of the fence is in the process of actually crawling and climbing onto the falling-down fence. It is soon to overtake the garlic, planted on the left, which needs to hurry up and mature. Otherwise, where it stands now, planted between the mutant asparagus and creeping squash, it doesn’t stand a chance.

I’m thinking that a new feature of this site could be WWYT (what were you thinking). That’s a nod to my soon-to-be-published friend Sheila, who got picked for a mention in David Pogue’s Twitter book. He liked her acronym. And so do I. But since adding a tab might take three years to figure out on wordpress, I’ll just randomly throw them in. Today’s is:

Strawberries: WWYT?

Why you ask? Because you have to be INSANE to try to grow strawberries in a home garden. It only makes you realize that you must be ingesting some pretty effing insane amounts of pesticides when you eat the spankin’ clean berries from the store. These are my strawberries. And I share them with the birds, the bugs, and Lord only knows what else. ( I cut them up, lest my family figure out that the other half of the berry they are eating was recently in the mouth of a chipmunk.)

Busted!

July 8, 2009

Well. I was out weeding yesterday, I had my camera, and truth be told… it really didn’t require all that much stealth to catch her in the act. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here and read the sad pea story.

Just Got Back from a Lovely Trip…

July 6, 2009

And my garden was a mess! Weeds everywhere, super dry. Pea plants that dogs have made a complete mess of didn’t come back while we were gone as I had hoped:

Have I talked about this before? How I seem to have the only vegetable-seeking dogs? I don’t know, maybe it’s the absence of squirrels around here. But ever since we had our first Viszla (or is it Vizsla? I can never remember), I have had this problem. If I were a more disciplined blogger, I would run around after my animals with my camera to catch them in the act and show you. But it seems I am never quite organized enough for that. You will just have to take my word for it.

When I built my garden, I put the fence around it to keep wild animals out. The reason I am so careful to close the gates behind me now, is to keep my dogs out. (Well, them and the chickens, too. But, Lola-as you may remember-killed all the chickens last year and they are not allowed to free-range anymore.) Anyway, the problem is, the fence is about 10 years old now and falling apart. Lola-the sociopath-has identified its weaknesses and now browses the garden at will. This week, it’s the peas. A few weeks before that, it was the asparagus. I have come to consider this normal behavior. No big deal. But then people come over and totally freak out about it. Can’t get over it. So I mention it here, as you may find it entertaining. Makes me wish I actually did chase them around all day. But with the remote to the shock collar instead of a camera…

So, I will probably pull most of the sugar snaps tomorrow and salvage what I can. I was also faced with collapsed arugula plants that had gone to seed. I pulled them up and will save the plants until they are dry and keep the seeds. (Which is so insanely easy. I finally figured it out after arugula was growing everywhere that I had thrown the old plants.). Besides that, I found that each of the hard-neck garlic plants had sprouted a scape. They are pretty, but I need to cut them off so the plant puts all its energy into producing a bulb instead of the seed head.

And, saving the worst for last: the CHIVE PLANTS! I might just dig those damn things up once and for all. Why, oh why, when you read about the virtues of chive plants, does no one tell you of the perils? Look closely at the picture below and see if you can spot the tiny black specks inside the faded flowers. Yes? Well, should you so much as brush up against one of those damned plants, thousands of hardy little seeds will fall to the ground all around the plant. And even if you can’t get things to grow in pots or well-tended rows, mark my words that by the first freeze, you will have hundreds of baby chive plants. (Yes, I do know that dead-heading prevents this problem, but come on!)

Go ahead, just see if you can pull one out. I seriously doubt it. They are almost as bad as that beautiful chamomile. Or didn’t I tell you about that stuff, either?

I Hate Beets

July 2, 2009

I hate them boiled, roasted, pickled and pureed. I hate them with orange vinegarette and in salads. I’ve tried every recipe that starts with “Even people who say they hate beets love this recipe…” (You would be amazed at the number of beet recipes that lead off with something along those lines, which tends to make me to believe that I must not be the only beet-hater out there.)

So why do I grow them? Well. My family loves beets, so I grow (and cook) the insipid things for them. I think it grossly unfair that in the intermixed gene pool that are my children, my food preferences seem not to be represented. I love mushrooms; no one else does. I love eggplant; no one else does. I love tofu; no one else does. On the other hand, Dave loves pizza; so do the kids. Dave loves olives; so do the kids. And, of course, Dave loves beets; and so do the kids.

What’s a beet-hater to do? Eat the tops. They are delicious.

Beet Greens Saute

1) Rough-chop the tops of the dreaded beets you will feed someone else
2) Heat about 2T olive oil in pan
3) Add 1-2 minced or chopped cloves of garlic. (Do not brown)
4) Add beet greens and stir until mostly wilted
5) Add a splash of balsamic vinegar*

*Of course, I could simply drink balsamic and be happy.)