I'm not sure, but I think this may be the weediest year ever for my garden, flower beds, shrubs and other leafy environs within the forested enclave I call "home." Seas of delicate grasses wave politely in the humid breeze, not seeming to mind that they are choking out the sweat-and-tears-planted Shasta daisies and ferns (although the ferns take it all in stride, I've noticed).
When I get a few minutes away from the computer and the dog and the appointments and the phone, I try to get out there and take a swipe at a section of them. They really aren't rooted deeply. They give up without much of a fight. After 15 minutes and a three foot cleared swath, I wonder why I don't stick to it and really weed the WHOLE property. Another 15 minutes of mindless weeding reminds me: this is really boring.
There is limited challenge to making sure I pull up the entire root system instead of snapping off the stems (which will promptly and quickly shoot back to knee height again). A coach of mine once recommended that I spend my mindless gardening time thinking about solutions to issues I faced in my marketing company. She just didn't get it: gardening is SUPPOSED to be mindless.
When I am weeding, or staking tomatoes or watering the onions or planting petunias, I am focused on one thing and one thing ONLY: the task at hand. It's living in the moment to the highest exponent. That's why I love gardening, I guess. Non-gardeners thing it's "work" -- all that sweat and digging. I know better. It's vegetative mediation---"Vegiation" perhaps?
Perhaps, then "boring" is too strong a word for my weeding chagrin. "Calming." "Zen-like repetition." "Weed-like." Now that's more like it.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Friday, June 24, 2005
When good broccoli goes bad
There's no one to blame but me. That's part of maturity, right? Taking full responsibility for your actions. Or in this case, inaction.
Two loamy beds of broccoli, in their early days protected against the bulls-eye beaks of hungry crows. Watered and fertilized and weeded with diligence and care. A few tight green heads harvested in the late spring and enjoyed with gusto. And now. Disaster.
Tall spikes of broccoli flowers tower over the broad leaves, which are riddled to lace by insects and slugs. Little broccoli flowerettes are brown with fatigue and thirst. Even the cabbage butterflies have abandoned hope and moved their egg-laying operation to more worthy plant life.
How did this happen? I know the rules: broccoli needs to be covered to keep away those pesty butterflies. Actually I like the butterflies flitting around, but not their inevitable children who appear in the form of skinny green worms that are impossible to distinguish from broccoli stems untl they fall off in the pan, cooked through and through. Appetizing, eh?
I used floating row cover (it's just plain old non-woven interfacing used in the garden instead of the sewing room), dusted with Dipel -- non toxic to people and mammals, but lethal to the digestive tracts of worms and their ilk. I just didn't dust soon enough, often enough, heavily enough????
Then there was the HEAT. Broccoli is "cool weather crop." It's been 95 degrees and hotter in central North Carolina, after a fairly moderate spring. I have no sway with weather, so couldn't fend off the smothering temperature spikes. That's no excuse for broccoli-ocide.
The real truth is that I have paid only lip service to my veggie garden for several weeks. Benign neglect is strictly forbidden inside the garden gate. Vegetables demand constant attention or they pout and wilt and/or flower and try to set seed. I can tell when yellow flowers twinkle merrily on top of the broccoli heads that I have lost control. My once-good broccoli has gone bad. No longer edible, no longer pretty. This broccoli is unsalvageable.
The only thing to do is rip it out of the ground and replant. No more broccoli: June is far too warm. I need crops that can stand the heat AND get into my kitchen. Perhaps I can dig up the beds, re-fertilize (with organic fertilizer, of course) and plant my favorite crop: green beans.
Beans have those fat seeds that respond so well to garden soil. Within a few days they pop up out of the ground, already erect and five inches tall with two baby bean leaves. Wow. Semi-instant gratification. Within a month, I'll be munching on pots of tender green beans, cooked just right in the pressure cooker.
Unless I fall off the garden wagon again and forget to pick beans every day. A horror that rivals bad broccoli threatens me if I do not: BUMPY BEANS! Those bulging pods with mealy bean seeds inside are the stuff of nightmares for me. I can't fathom some people who plant beans that act like that on purpose!
Green beans are supposed to be haricot verts--slim and tender. So I'm clearing my calendar in late July for bean picking. I take 100 percent responsibility.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Prophylactic harvesting
The zucchini have arrived!
Yesterday I picked the first five slender fruits from gigantic plants that are overflowing their five-foot wide raised beds. Three yellow straight-neck squash tried to hide under the shade of their mother plants but I knew they were ready. I wrenched the thick vines hard to twist them loose--separation anxiety apparently runs rampant in the squash family.
This morning the eight rest placidly on my kitchen counter, shiny, beautiful. And tender. The ideal size for slicing, dicing, sauteeing and even frying (if I throw diet caution to the wind).
They are the calm before the storm, or more aptly, the torrent.
Soon (usually via sneak attack overnight) those tempting, slim fruits will balloon to flabby, dismal creatures that barely resemble zucchini. Tough and aggressive, the dull skins of the mammoth zucchini are stretched almost to breaking by the zoom-zoom growth spurt. I giggle at the thought of zucchini stretch marks, should they actually be able to shrink back down to normal size again.
Of course, they never reduce their size. They keep growing and growing and growing, a Green Giant version of the Energizer Bunny. And as all good gardeners know, leaving the big guys on the vine is an invitation for all the others to stop growing altogether. The mother plant throws all her energy into poking that big baby into the world, hoping for seeds and progeny.
To keep the harvest flowing, I pick every day. Prophylactic harvest, I call it: zucchini contraception of a sort. I lift the deep green scratchy leaves to peek at the emerging squash, choosing only the few that are in immediate danger of developing runaway chubbiness.
For now, I get high marks for zucchini management. Check with me again next week. If I'm hunting down the zucchini pancake recipe, you'll know I've lost control.
Yesterday I picked the first five slender fruits from gigantic plants that are overflowing their five-foot wide raised beds. Three yellow straight-neck squash tried to hide under the shade of their mother plants but I knew they were ready. I wrenched the thick vines hard to twist them loose--separation anxiety apparently runs rampant in the squash family.
This morning the eight rest placidly on my kitchen counter, shiny, beautiful. And tender. The ideal size for slicing, dicing, sauteeing and even frying (if I throw diet caution to the wind).
They are the calm before the storm, or more aptly, the torrent.
Soon (usually via sneak attack overnight) those tempting, slim fruits will balloon to flabby, dismal creatures that barely resemble zucchini. Tough and aggressive, the dull skins of the mammoth zucchini are stretched almost to breaking by the zoom-zoom growth spurt. I giggle at the thought of zucchini stretch marks, should they actually be able to shrink back down to normal size again.
Of course, they never reduce their size. They keep growing and growing and growing, a Green Giant version of the Energizer Bunny. And as all good gardeners know, leaving the big guys on the vine is an invitation for all the others to stop growing altogether. The mother plant throws all her energy into poking that big baby into the world, hoping for seeds and progeny.
To keep the harvest flowing, I pick every day. Prophylactic harvest, I call it: zucchini contraception of a sort. I lift the deep green scratchy leaves to peek at the emerging squash, choosing only the few that are in immediate danger of developing runaway chubbiness.
For now, I get high marks for zucchini management. Check with me again next week. If I'm hunting down the zucchini pancake recipe, you'll know I've lost control.
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