Bee in Indian Pipe

While hiking this week, I stumbled upon something I'd never seen before: hot, steamy bee in Indian Pipe action (as always, inspired by Michelle). You just never know what you'll find in the woods.

It's that time of the year again

Monday dinner & Tuesday lunch
Yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli & onions sauteed in olive oil, with Weber Veggie Grill seasoning

Tuesday dinner & Wednesday lunch
Yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli & onions sauteed in olive oil, with turmeric, ground coriander, cumin seeds & garam masala
Miraculously, this had almost no taste. I think some of my spices are going bad.

Wednesday dinner
Sauteed cabbage with Old Bay
Really. It tastes sort of like crab, as does just about everything when smothered in Old Bay.

I'm about "squashed out" for a while. It's funny. I wait and wait for the squash to be ready, and then after about a week I've had my fill. The remaining zucchini & yellow squash in my fridge are probably destined for the freezer.

Onions...I got 'em

After last year's golf-ball-sized onion nuggets, I'm quite pleased with this year's crop. The bad news is that it's going to be really hard to dry laundry for the next month or so.


In the past I've waited until the tops turned brown before pulling them, but this year I needed the space to plant my 2nd round of zucchini. Anyone know whether the tops need to stay on till they dry out?

Lion in them thar hills?

I've been following this story with great interest.

I know having a lion prowling around the hills of WV is not a good thing -- especially for the lion -- but there's part of me that would love to see a lion poking its maned head out of a thicket of rhododendron. Just once.

Yield

The garden is about gone, and it's just as well because my freezer is packed with yellow squash, zucchini, spaghetti sauce, salsa, and green beans (green beans not from my garden).

Best producers:

* 2 West Virginia '63 tomato plants = 60 tomatoes (still have several on the vine)

* 1 zucchini plant = 23 zucchini

Worst:

* 1 Ichiban eggplant = maybe 5 small eggplant...This was really disappointing. The last time I got an Ichiban eggplant, I grew it in a pot and had more eggplant than I knew what to do with. This year it did almost nothing.

* 1 Yellow Squash -- I didn't count the produce, but it was a disappointment. It did, however, live much longer than other yellow squash plants I saw in other gardens.

* Onions -- Over the winter, my brain erased all memory of a key part of gardening: working up the soil. After I planted the onions, trying to figure out why they didn't look quite right wedged in between big clumps of hard dirt, I remembered, "Oh, yeah...you're supposed to get the soil loose and crumbly. Um...oops." The onions suffered the worst from this dumb error, which was even more devastating because of the extensive dry spell in June and July. I now have a small collection of onions the size of ping pong balls.

Froggy Strikes a Pose

Until Sunday, I'd never actually seen a frog sitting on a lily pad, but what do you know -- the water garden frog found a comfy spot on one of the lily leaves, with another lily leaf overhead to shade him from the sun.


I'm already worrying about what he's going to do for winter. I hope he has the instinct NOT to bury himself in one of the flower pots that we plan to overwinter in a cool closet indoors.

Sneaky Water Lily

Yeah, I know, enough already on the stupid water garden. Hang in there -- frost is nearing.

As you can see, I finally captured the lily. I took this at about 10:30 a.m., and by 3 p.m. it was closed up for the night. A flower with bankers' hours! Plus, it only bloomed 3 days total.

Next up is the leopard frog who is residing at least part time in the barrel garden. If I can get a picture of the frog, I swear, I'll stop (for this season).

Barrel Garden Update

It's only been since Father's Day that this thing has been going, and already, as you can see, the surface is just about covered.

This is the least attractive angle, but it shows less of the property. The water lily has bloomed once, and it has another bud emerging from the water. The first bloom only lasted a couple of days and was only out in the daytime. I missed it completely. I'm hoping I'll time it right to see bloom #2.

The parrot feather, in the upper right of this picture, has grown like crazy, even more so than the water lily. And the pickerel weed (with the blue/purple blooms) has flowered ever since the garden was created.

I'm happy with how the plants are doing, but the most exciting thing was when I walked by after sunset one evening and saw a rather plump leopard frog sitting on the edge of the barrel.

Squashtastic!

Last fall I created another small garden. Yes, the shape made it look like I had recently buried a body in the backyard. My neighbors must've thought I was nuts.

Anyway, the whole point of the new space was to make room for some squash plants. I'm happy to report it's so far a success. In May when I peeled back some of the straw to plant the veggies (one yellow squash and one zucchini), it was just perfect. No excessive digging required!

Despite the severe lack of rain, the squash seem to be doing OK, the zucchini more so than the yellow squash. Mmmmmmm.

Water lily on steroids

After just a week, the water lily in my Father's Day water garden has at least doubled in size. I knew the things spread quickly in the wild, but geesh -- it's only been a week!



Garden contains: (clockwise from back plant w/purplish flower) Pickerel weed, corkscrew rush, water lily, parrot feather, and bloody dock. The parrot feather is mostly below water and not really visible in the photo.

My design is completely unoriginal. I did fall in love with the deep red veins of the bloody dock, which wasn't mentioned in the project description, so I did add an extra plant. Knowing what I know now -- that the water lily is going to take over the world -- I see it was a mistake to go beyond four plants.

My next career: water lily propagator

This year for Father's Day I broke out of the rut of striped polo shirts and books and bought the supplies to make a whiskey barrel water garden.

It turned out OK, but I think it will probably require some additional work in the next couple of weeks. I did learn a few things during the process:

• Water plants must be gold-infused because they go for $10 a pop. And we're talking small pots. OK, some are $4.97 at Lowe's but darn it, I didn't go there till after I'd shelled out over $30 for 3 plants at the garden center up the street. So, I'm considering investing in some swampland and going into business for myself.
• Um, yeah, that light fluffy Miracle Gro potting soil doesn't work so well for pond plants. When you sink the plants it just floats right to the top. Arghhhh. I ended up putting lots of little stones around the top of each pot, but still quite a bit of potting soil escaped. I don't know if the stuff will actually absorb enough water to keep it down in the pot. If not, I'm going to have to re-pot all the plants.
• Which brings me to sinking the plants in the water -- who knew that would be such a challenge? My pots wanted to float, even though they were really water-logged when I tried to sink them. And it was also quite a challenge to find bricks, blocks, rocks, etc., to balance the pots on and put them at the proper depth in the water.
• A word of advice: If you plan to buy a whiskey barrel and transport it in your car, be sure to take an old bedspread or blanket or something so you can completely wrap it. By the time I got to the cashier, my arms and legs were covered with black. It would have destroyed my car if I'd had to put it in uncovered. Luckily, I'm a total dork and always carry an old bedspread in my trunk because I'm always dragging home random filthy stuff.
  

Making 'Lasagna' in the Backyard

I found myself buying a lot of squash and zucchini this summer, so I decided to make a small addition to my small garden using the "lasagna" gardening technique. I'm referring to it as Squash Annex.

I used layers of wet cardboard, bagged cow manure (200 lbs. total!), and a bale of straw, and then covered it with a layer of chicken wire to ward off the neighborhood cats. This will "cook" over the winter, and I'll be able to plant in the spring/summer without digging.

Materials cost about $26, with the chicken wire being the biggest single expense. I'd hoped to have enough wire left to make another bed, but I didn't. :(