First Bouquet of Spring

The girls picked these for me today.

Encore Performance

Two years ago, I bought this “Bleeding Heart” from a community plant sale.  I dutifully took it home, put it in a shady garden spot, and watched it wither away to nothing.  The following year brought neither hide nor hair of this cool-weather plant, and I assumed it had been lost forever.  However, I spotted something pink in the shrubby brush that is my main shade garden this spring.  Lo and behold, the bleeding heart has come back!  Its blooms are now gone, since this picture is about a month old, but the plant looks lush and green.  Maybe it was just lost among the weeds.  In any case, welcome back, little plant.  Hope to see you again next year.

Peas Please

I had a very modest but very delicious crop of peas this year.  We planted a row of about 15 plants on St Patrick’s Day, and another row two weeks later, on my birthday.  I can’t say it was financially worth the effort, but it was fun to pick our own and shell them.  And we definitely had more success than last year, so that’s something.

This is the second harvesting.

I think we averaged about one or two pods per plant. Not particularly bountiful, but the peas are still tasty. The kids had fun shelling them, and that was also a good “job” for them to help with. They did all of them on their own.

We counted how many peas were in each pod. The fewest number of peas was two. The most was five.

I was very impressed that the kids stayed on task and finished the whole bowl. O4 started to get a little bored at the end, but S6 and I helped her finish the last three pods. All three of them had exactly four peas inside.

Some of these went into my salad for dinner, and the rest are about to go into alphabet soup. I’m also toying with planting a fall crop in a different place, to see if they do any better.

Amateur Botany

While I did end up purging the vast majority of books we inherited from my dad, I kept several cherished ones.  One of my favorites is a wildflower field guide.  I love trying to figure out what all the pretty and interesting blooms are in the backyard.

We’ve been walking in the woods across the street a lot, now that the weather has warmed up. That’s a great place to spot wildflowers.

Right now, the bluebells are starting to make their annual appearance.

They’re not quite at peak but already look beautiful.

Of course, there are other things to admire and identify besides bluebells. We spotted this trout lily next to the trail:

I’m not exactly certain what these white flowers are. They look like a sort of phlox, but the leaves seem too big for moss phlox.

The mandrakes have their umbrella leaves up and buds are starting to form underneath some of the plants.

We even spotted some skunk cabbage about to unfurl.

Skunk cabbage is a foliage plant, sort of like a hosta.

Of course, there’s nothing like picking dandelions on a pretty spring day.

We didn’t even need the book for that one.

This Poor, Neglected Blog

I don’t know why I get out of the habit of writing here.  Sure, I have absolutely nothing vital or even remotely interesting to say, but that’s not the point.  The brain exercise ought to at least keep me coming back.  My noggin feels smarter when I blog.  Okay, maybe not smarter, but definitely clearer.  Writing is healthy.  It’s good stuff.  I should do it more often.

This past weekend was a strange juxtaposition of tragedy and celebration.  I spent Friday and Saturday alternating between a funeral for my cousin and a wedding for our good friend.  It was rather bizarre, truth be told.  I also attended Mass twice in one day.  I haven’t been to Mass since … well, since the last funeral I attended.  Or maybe the last wedding.

As the weekend unfolded and I had to make decisions about what things to attend (rehearsal dinner or calling hours? Pictures at park, or mournful luncheon?), I found myself gravitating towards the funeral functions.  I didn’t want to be at the wedding, making merry.  It felt more comfortable to be at the funeral home, surrounded by weepy people and rapidly-emptying boxes of Kleenex.  (They were real Kleenex, by the way.  I checked.)  Now, what is wrong with me, that I’d rather focus on gloom than gaiety?  Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that the clothes you wear to funerals are a lot less revealing.  Black is more flattering than, say, lamé (not that I’d ever wear lamé anywhere.)   Or maybe I’ve become a negative person who prefers sobbing in a dusty funeral parlour to the artificial pageantry of an all-out wedding reception.

(Or maybe I may have just answered my own question.)

Anyway, all that’s behind us, and now we can focus on really important things, like planting seeds and getting the garden ready for the growing season.  I hope we don’t go another round with the bunnies and deer, but  I’ll give them a damn good fight this year if we do.  Meanwhile, things are already looking greenish.  Spring is here, honestly and truly.  I have some plants coming up, many returning from last year, some of which I never thought we’d see again and some of which I have no idea where they came from.

Check out these sweet little flowers in the backyard:

And look at this gorgeous bloodroot, which came from who-knows-where (I didn’t plant it, that’s the thing)

These adorable little perennials are displaying up front:

In the woods across the street, there are many other pretties making their annual spring appearances:

Of course, it wouldn’t be spring without the bluebells. They’re up and getting ready to put on the late-April show.

I’ve got a few peas coming up (should take pictures of those, before the bunnies find them) and some other things started in pots, like parsley and tomatoes.  All of our tomato seeds are saved from last year’s crop and/or heirloom fruit we got from friends, the CSA box, etc.  Same with peppers.  This is an experiment: I’m testing out our highly scientific seed-saving technique (which involves dumping the pulpy seeds into a small container, covering with a coffee filter, and letting them congeal into a hard film.  In the spring I peel the film off the bottom of the container, stick it in a pot, cover it with dirt, and voila.)

The girls got some seeds in their Easter baskets (Cosmos and bachelor’s buttons) and are eagerly watching to see when they’ll bloom.  Those are some fast-germinating plants, let me tell you.  We planted them maybe five days ago and already have little sprouts in our pots.  I suppose annuals have to get on with it and not waste time, unlike perennials, who can try again the following  year if things don’t work out so well.

Our tulips bloomed on Saturday, incidentally.  I haven’t photographed them yet, but we have two glorious flame-orange blooms out front.  I’d better get those tomorrow, too, before the deer find them.

Randomness and Pudding

It’s the Ides of March, but forget all that blather about being wary today: winter’s finally ebbing.  It’s hanging on, but steadily losing steam.  Now that our 2+ feet of snow has melted, there are perky springy buds all over the place, and zillions of daffodil shoots poking up everywhere    My neighbor claims she planted over 700 bulbs in her garden last fall.  That will be a brilliant display, and you can bet there will be me and every other person in the neighborhood with a camera standing in the street taking photos once they finally bloom.

I made rice pudding today.  Been craving it since last week, when a friend and I went to some cute dinky diner for supper.  Rice pudding was on the menu, but they were sold out.  Damn.  I hadn’t particularly wanted any til they said it was all gone, and now it’s all I can do not to eat the entire pot here at one sitting.

I’ve been knitting like a fiend, sometimes working on socks but mostly doing a shawl that I decided, last-minute, would be nice to have for an early April wedding.  I want to finish it while the motivation lasts.  That window of opportunity is dangerously small.  Fortunately, so is the amount of knitting left to go on it.

Our garden seeds arrived over the weekend, and S-almost-6 and I spent a lovely afternoon planting some of them in peat pots.  We sorted the seed packets into piles of “start inside weeks early” and “sow directly after all danger of frost has passed”.  There’s one small pile for peas, because those get sown outside but early.  They’re rebels, those peas.

Finally, my husband had a job interview in another state.  I have no freaking clue what is going to happen with that.  The interview went very well, they called back a few days later to ask him some followup questions about salary, and then… nothing.  Two weeks have now passed. He’s adopted the “just forget about it and act as if we’re going to die here” attitude.  I’m not that placid, unfortunately.  I just want to know, one way or the other, what the hell is going on.

Guess I’ll just have some more rice pudding while we wait.

Creamy Rice Pudding

• 1 1/2 cups cooked white rice
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups milk, divided
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 3/4 – 1 cup raisins
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 T butter

Combine cooked rice, sugar, salt and 1 1/2 cups of the milk in a saucepan.  Heat on medium flame until thick and creamy, about 15-20 minutes.  Stir regularly to prevent milk from scorching.  Combine 1/2 cup milk, egg, and raisins and pour into rice mixture.  Cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and butter, and let cool slightly.  Pudding will thicken as it cools.  Serve while still warm.

and buds and green all over the place.

Finally.

My tomato garden did not do well this year. Well, let me clarify that. The plants did well. The tomatoes did not. There are lots of fruit, but it’s all green, green green. I blame it on the weather. We had a strangely cool summer, an overabundance of rain in July, and not very much sun the rest of the season, not to mention the late blight that blew through (I did get some blight on a few plants about 2 weeks ago, which was much later than most other people around here).

But my plants held on. I resisted the urge to rip the undiseased ones out, even though there have been unripe, green tomatoes for like weeks now. And today, the wait paid off.

We picked two smallish red tomatoes from the garden earlier this summer, but today, there were big ones, and bunches of them. Okay, there were five. But that’s a huge percent increase.

I picked nearly two pounds of ruby-red tomatoes. And oh, my. My, oh my. They are the tastiest little buggers I’ve had all summer.

So finally, the moment I’ve been waiting for practically since March, when I started these plants inside:

That made the wait worthwhile.

Good Things Also Come to Those Who Just Can’t Wait

Yesterday, while weeding* the garden, I accidentally pulled up a potato plant. Ooops.  We’re still a little early to be digging up the potatoes.

Then I spied a wee little spud nestled in the dirt, right where the plant had been. Well, who could leave a motherless potato buried in the dirt? Not I. I gently brushed the dirt away and rescued it.

This process uncovered another potato plant, and another potato. Before I knew it, I had pulled up three plants, and a handful of potatoes.

Darn.

*weeding generally implies walking past the garden and noting that, yes, there are weeds. In this case, I was actually pulling some of them out.

All Is Not Lost

I’m rather disappointed in this year’s garden, mostly thanks to the varmints, deer and bunnies who were under the incorrect assumption that all the vegetation growing out back was some sort of free wild animal all-you-can-eat buffet. In fact, I had rather resigned myself to a sparse harvest of a few heads of sad-looking garlic. And, while the garlic harvest is a bit sad-looking (the deer trampled all the foliage before it had finished bulbing), there are still some signs of life out there in the vege patch.

For example, I nearly forgot about the cucumber plants. They’re around the corner of my “L” shaped garden, against the wall, so I don’t often see them unless I go back behind the tomatoes to look. The other day I happened to venture back, and lo if there aren’t some lovely vines growing up the trellis.

Even better, we have some little baby cucumbers beginning to form.

If you look past the weeds (actually grass growing out of the manure mulch), you can see a little hot pepper here:

There are quite a few of those, and several flowers on each of the six plants. I’m surprised, actually, considering how cool it’s been.

There’s also a sturdy looking pumpkin vine:

I check it vigilantly, every day, for squash beetle borers. They decimated my pumpkin plants last year. So far, so good, though I am having no luck getting both a male and female flower to bloom at the same time. So we may just end up with a really big vine and no pumpkins. But I’m hoping.

The one thing I’ve been especially glum about so far this year is the tomatoes. My plants look pretty healthy, but there aren’t too many flowers yet, and no tomatoes. But then I noticed these on a few volunteer plants which I had let go:

If I remember right, these are the yellow cherry tomatoes, which were very tasty (and very pretty!). But I also found these volunteers:

If those are also yellow, then they’re Taxis. If they’re red, I am fairly sure they’re either Stupice or one of the black varieties I grew last year. Time to check my notes.

Not only are the wee little tomatoes exciting, but there’s about to be a bloom on the fuschia plant. This is thrilling, because fuschias are typically grown as annuals in these parts. I cut this one back practically to nothing last fall, overwintered it in a cool, sunny room, and now look:

Aren’t they adorable? Such cute little buds? I ask you. It looks like there are about 3 or 4 pair of buds all ready to bloom any day now.

Speaking of blooming, the acidanthera have just passed their peak. I managed to catch a shot of one of the best bloom days:

I seriously can’t decide if I like acidanthera or nasturtiums better. The nasturtiums probably win, on account of they are (a) edible and (b) much longer-blooming. But damn, those acidanthera are gorgeous!

And here is the garlic harvest, somewhat small but still serviceable, hanging up to cure:

Hey, it might not be pretty, but there are definitely NO vampires coming in my back door anytime soon.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait*

Right… so, remember that nasturtium plant that was all infested with black aphids? The one I was going to rip out and burn because it was so bad?

This one?

Well, I am proud to report that it is aphid-less.

Not aphid-free, mind you. But definitely aphid-less.

I do believe it has something to do with a very exciting recent discovery, which happened totally by accident while browsing some online garden site for information on marsh mallows. The reason I was looking for information on marsh mallows is because I’ve started some from seed, but what I thought was a marsh mallow seedling has now also mysteriously appeared in two other locations (important to note that I did not plant marsh mallow seeds in those locations), which leads me to question whether the thing I think is a marsh mallow seedling is, indeed, such a thing. I’m beginning to think it is not. But that’s not my important discovery (although it is useful, since I can now give up hope on growing a marsh mallow plant this year and concentrate my efforts on something else).

No, my very exciting discovery was what, exactly (or approximately), ladybug larvae looks like. (Whoa, how’s that for some alliteration?!)

This is important because, as we all know, ladybugs or lady beetles are excellent companions to have in one’s garden. They rank up there with earthworms and mulch and fish emulsion in terms of garden usefulness, really. And having ladybug larvae in my garden means that soon,  I’m going to have ladybugs. And this means we will likely not be totally infested with aphids on our nasturtium plants next year. And I am so excited about this that I have already started looking around for nasturtium seed sources because, next year, I am going to grow so many damn nasturtium plants that people will think I’m nuts.

As proof that my dastardly plan theory is already at work, please note the (very bad) (hey, it was windy today) shot of a ladybug larva hanging out on a nasturtium leaf.

I swear, I heard it belch.

*even if it is out of sheer laziness