I Ate It.

And it was good. I ain't even gonna lie.

A girlfriend of mine was over for lunch and I chopped her up some yellow and green peppers from the garden for her salad. She found out I didn't eat peppers. When she deduced that I had never actually tasted a pepper before (apparently the lingering contamination of what you pick off of pizza doesn't count), she made it her mission to get me to eat them, but acquiesced to allow me to drown the raw slices in ranch dressing.

I can't believe it, but I was actually afraid. It's a strange feeling to be so afraid of a food that's benign. It's not like I was going to chomp down on a hissing cockroach. This was only a pepper. A stinky, fowl smelling, down right ugly pepper, but still only a pepper. I promise you I must have looked like the boy eating new food when he scrunches his nose, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and surreptitiously bites off a smaller piece than would constitute the actual ingestion of the item.

The yellow pepper was actually good! It didn't quite make me want to sass my granny, but it was better than a sharp stick in the eye. The green pepper, however, tasted like tushy. Tushy and lighter fluid. Never again. I'd rather bury myself in sand and have a kid stand over me wiggling multiple loose teeth than get near another one of those again.

I'm proud. I ate new food that I grew in my own garden. Maybe I should add my own spot on the sidebar underneath the boy's and the girl's since they've remained pretty much stagnant in their eating patterns here recently.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Garden Blogger's Death Day: Cucumber Carnage

It's the last day of the month so you know what that means!! It's Garden Blogger's Death Day! It's when we can say I tried, but it died, and not feel poorly about it or ourselves.

Here you go sports fans. Steel yourselves, for I present you cucumber carnage with a side of beans and tomatoes. AAAAAHHHH!!!!! Oh the humanity! My eyes, my eyes!!!

I wound up just clipping off the entire trellis instead of attempting to unwind every last cucumber vine. I think the cost of new trellising would go under the "sanity expense" line in the checkbook. I've set them out in the yard to wither so it's easier to get them in a garbage bag (no compost pile here), but the rain has kept them from totally withering and now they're heavy and yucky. Hopefully it will dry out this weekend and I can bag them up then.

The lavender is a loss as well. Seems like the constant rain didn't agree with it. "Oh, look," you say, "it's in a pot. You could have just brought it inside." Could have. Didn't. Now it's dead. However, it is giving off a lovely cinnamon like scent which is nice.

Lastly, the tomatoes in pots are all done for. Every last tomato has BER and the leaves are chewed to bits. They'll be making an exit this weekend.I don't think I'll try tomatoes in pots again. The only thing that's done very well in pots has been my banana peppers. I'm most likely going to do more of these next year, but that may be the only ones I do which is a bit counterproductive because I don't even eat them. I'm most likely going to move two of the blueberry bushes to the larger containers that the tomatoes were in and I'll find something to do with the other pots.

No tears for me on this death day. We're making room for the fall crops. Woohoo!!!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Peach Barbecue Sauce

***Second post for tonight** The first isn't gardening related, so I added this one as well.

This is the second time I've made this, and yet again, it has turned out more as a topping rather than a sauce. I don't have a food processor or chopper or anything, so I can only get a peach as finely chopped as my dull knife will allow. Regardless of the consistency, I love it. It's sweet from the peaches and has just enough red pepper flakes to make the back end burn (no, not that back end, silly). It's so easy to prepare. I got the recipe off of Ball's Fresh Preserving site under Zesty Peach Barbecue sauce. You can find the recipe here.

I was able to use peppers and the red pepper flakes that came from our garden, so I only had to purchase the peaches, onions and garlic. I had everything else at the house. Peaches are rather cheap here at the moment, so I thought to take advantage of it. Since mine is chunkier than a sauce, I put it on top of my chicken during the last ten minutes or so of its cooking time. I really, really suggest it. You can it in a BWB, so it's amazingly simple and dresses up baked or grilled chicken without much thought.

Try it!

The morning comes early. Sweet preserving dreams.

Early Mornings and Furloughs

The mornings come early. They always do, for after our gardening dreams, what better time is there than those first predawn moments standing outside with a cup of smooth coffee, surveying your garden from afar, with the moist air enveloping your skin and the damp earth caressing your nose. These are your minutes before the shower, the television or the screaming children assault your senses and manhandle you into the day. These are your few cherished moments to prove to yourself that you are alive, that this is your life, and you are content.

For ten months out of the year, mornings do come early at the Ribbit household. The alarm goes off at 5:00 AM, and the mad dash out of the house begins. Rarely is there time for those moments of solitude and reflection during the school year as there is over the summer, for it's still midnight dark when we leave the house. During the school year, the children's internal alarm clock runs on full tilt. Neither holidays nor weekends are sacred. 5:00 AM is morning, and morning for everyone it is. During summer vacation, however, the children are lulled into complacency and their natural sleep rhythms allow them to slowly extend their sleep, and I get my five minutes of surveying the garden-predawn bliss.

As luck would have it, just when the kids get used to the new pattern, it's time to go back to school.

Or is it?

I've been furloughed for the first two days of preplanning and then another day later in the school year. PLEASE note I'm not complaining about the pay loss. There are worse things in this world and my situation could be much more dire. We're one of two families in my neighborhood that has both spouses holding steady jobs, and the man had to let one of his employees go last Friday. Things could be much worse and that I'm not debating. So I loose three days of pay. It's not a big deal in the long run at all, but it does make me stop and think. I used to say that there were a few industries that would always be safe from the largest hits of any recession: people will always get sick, need food, and have children who need educating.

Yes, the last is a fact, but the government that relies on a lot of that tax revenue then get hit hard themselves. It's unavoidable.

Again, cut my salary if you have to. I don't teach for the pay, I teach because I have to. I'm not a whole person unless I'm in front of a classroom. You have to HAVE to do teach, or you can't and fail. The majority of us are like that. So you furloughed us for the first two days of the school year. You know we'll be bitter and fussy, but you also know we'll be there anyway because we teach, and we'll be D*&^ed if we're going to stand in front of our students on the first day not having our acts together. Those kids don't know 'recession' from a hole in the wall and they're not going to suffer because of it.

I may not have Kraft cheese on my sandwich next month (note tongue in cheek tone), but I'll be holding that Styrofoam cup of industrial strength, institutional coffee and surveying my students' progress as religiously as my garden's. I'm going to have my act together, and I will be content that first day. I will be content, and I'm not smiling until Christmas. :)

Rant over.
The end.

Zipper Peas/Cream Crowder Peas

My neighbor's mother-in-law grows zipper peas in Florida and sent back zipper peas to share. I just had to try to grow them, myself. They're cowpea like and also called crowder peas because of how the peas are "crowded" inside the pod. Cook them up with a few of the snaps intact and you've got some good, good eatin'.

I had a hard time finding them on-line and most of the places wanted more money than necessary for the seeds and for you to mortgage your house to afford the shipping costs which in most cases were more expensive than the seeds, themselves.

I went to a local farm supply store on a lark and sure enough, they had a four cubic foot bag just full of them. I took "a scoop" for $1.75. You can't beat that. Here's a picture of the bag minus a few hundred seeds I have already taken out.



The main bag did carry a yellow label which I wish I had gotten a better look at. I saw the words "Caution" and "Lower Than Average Germination," but for $1.75 for a scoop, I didn't think I could argue. The warning label was right. Sure enough, germination is about 20-30%. The seeds are covered in a pink coating which seems to absorb water and hold it in close to the seed, but all it seems to do is help the pea rot in the soil. I tried to uncover some of the seeds I planted a week ago and had a devil of a time finding any. The ones I did find were mostly rotted out.

I decided to try to pre sprout some of them in some paper towels. This way I'll get an accurate look at the germination rate and they'll hopefully take to the ground better once pre sprouted. Here you can see that the coating has already absorbed most of the water in the paper towel after only an hour.
The plants don't look like your average pea. Here's my Alaska peas. The tendrils are just now reaching out to grab the silly pea sticks I put out for them.
Here are two pictures of the zipper cream peas. Very different looking, aren't they; they're almost more bean looking than pea like.

I've read mixed statements on if they're a climbing pea or a short bush. Seems like no one has a good consensus. I put some string out there for them to run on, but it looks like they'll bush instead. I'll give them a week or so more and then take out the strings if it looks like they won't be using them. By then I'll also know if any of the second planting of peas came up and be able to fill the blank spots with the new crowder peas I'm trying to pre sprout. I've also heard conflicting things on if they're a fresh pea or ones you should dry first. I've tried to do my research, but I'm coming up flat. Anyone have experience with these or crowder peas in general?

I'm really, really, really hoping to get a good turnout from these guys. I'd like to have enough for a few dinners, but with peas, you always need much, much more than you'd think because once you shell them, you might as well have only picked two or three.

MMMM...peas. The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Congratulations! It's a...tomato hornworm?

Not quite the welcoming home present I was looking forward to, but I must say I was excited to see one of these up close. I had no idea just how large they really were. In spite of how destructive they are, I must say these guys were rather cute and very interesting to watch for a while. Yesterday I found two and today I found six more. All of them except for three today were hosting parasitic wasp eggs so they would have met their demise soon enough if I hadn't found them when I did. It was amazing to me that since they were hosts to eggs that I only found two of them yesterday. The white of the wasp eggs stuck out so clearly that I'm surprised I missed them at first. All eight of them had to be there yesterday, I'm assuming. Boy, do they camouflage well.

I took out the four romas in the corner yard and now only have the heatwave and celebrity growing in the side yard where I found the four hornworms. Those plants are doing so much better in that location since they get full sun. I'm thinking of moving all of my tomatoes and peppers over there next year. The side yard gets double the amount of sun as both corner yards and you can certainly tell the difference in production and general health of plants. The boxes back there are only two feet wide, but if I plant tomatoes and peppers in the back row of the longest box, I can plant smaller items in front of them.

I'm also looking in to moving the trellis up one square in the corner yard's large box. This way, I can plant on both sides of the trellis and double my square feet for trellising that box. I'm a bit worried that I'll destroy the entire trellis by attempting to move it and I couldn't secure the netting to the bottom anymore, but it's worth a shot. I could always weave a bit of pipe through the bottom of the mesh to weight it down. It's a project I might just start working on tomorrow instead of waiting for spring. If I can get it done, I may get one more planting of beans in and then have the extra space for my peas as well. How fun!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Vacationing in a Community Garden

You can take the garden away from the girl, but you can't truly take the girl away from a garden. :)

While we were visiting my grandmother in Laguna Woods Village in Laguna Woods, California, we passed by what at first looked like the remnants of an abandoned and overgrown storage facility. There was chicken wire covered structures, piles of debris, ladders and general insanity. I almost didn't give it a second thought until I spotted a PVC hoop house and a squash flower reaching through the main fence, hailing me as we drove past.

It was the community garden! The chicken wire served as plot dividers and trellises, the debris piles were composting and the ladders were to reach the citrus trees. It all made sense!! The man, the boy and the girl suffered through a walk through one of two community gardens the residents of the village can let. In total for the two gardening centers, there are 868 available plots, 253 fruit tree plots, and 89 shade house plots. To rent a 0-200 sqft plot, will cost you 26$ a year, up to a 400 sqft plot is $40 and a larger is $53. The residents can rent as many plots as they like although not exceeding 800 sqft. The only negative was that the centers are only open 3 days a week and only during limited hours, but they are locked to discourage vegetable theft, which is apparently rather prevalent.

We only walked through half of one of the gardens, but it was amazing. Each plot was cordoned off with chicken wire and judging by the monstrous bunnies we saw, it still wasn't enough. Here is a map of one of the garden centers. We toured the area to the left of the parking lot.



This garden boasted several awards that were attached to the chicken wire enclosure.

The beans were over flowing this trellis!

More beautiful beans. I've never seen so many flowers on one vine.This flower garden also had many awards. This was also the first time the man had ever seen a giant sunflower(not pictured here). The heads had died back already, but they were still majestic.

This gardener built her own little shelter with the squash vines. She was tending her garden and showed us her trumpet squash she was growing. She pulled that seed packet right out of her garden bucket, to show me while she pointed out the other things in the garden for the children.

Many gardens had signs which personalized them.

One gardener was very insistent that we take a cucumber that she just picked. What is it with gardeners, me included, always trying to pawn off cucumbers on others? We took it graciously, but she couldn't identify it for us.

It was interesting to see the difference in the plots. Some plots were very sculptural and some more casual. Some were totally flower based while others focused solely on vegetables. It was rare to see a plot showcasing both. As well, some were meticulously manicured while others, judging by the bolting broccoli and lettuce, had obviously not been tended in months. I mostly enjoyed the boy getting very excited when he recognized some of the leaves and flowers of plants that we grow in our own garden. It makes me feel like he's paying attention after all.

I've got to get out there to tend my own garden today. I found two tomato hornworms yesterday and ripped out some melons and all of the cucumbers. Powdery mildew is running rampant now and reaching over to the other corner yard to my butternut squash, but we did get some good rain last night. I'll post more of an update later today.