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Category Archives: garden
Garden Update
I have a lot of gorgeous dahlias that I love, but this is my favorite, year after year.
Tomatillos are weeds, right? Mom gave me a bunch of fruits one year and I composted a couple and I’ve had a hearty crop pop up ever since. These are filled with bees right now so I believe I’m doing my duty for bees.
Look at my lemon cucumber vines. These are the heartiest vines I’ve had in years. There are a couple of flowers but it’s hard to be optimistic that I’m going to get any cucs before it gets too cold.
I have two acorns on my acorn squash volunteer. That vine is the craziest healthy vine I’ve ever seen. It’s shooting across the garden in every direction. This squash is nestled in some other plants but it looks healthy.
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Slow Roasted
I had to do something with the tomatoes I scored so I opted to roast them using this recipe.
You cut the tomatoes in half, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper and herbs and slow roast at 275 for 5 hours. Since my oven is a sentient being with a stubborn streak I kept a close eye on mine and ended up turning the oven to 200 after three hours and then off an hour after that.
The house smelled amazing. At least I thought so. I asked Bob and he said: Smells like tomatoes.
They aren’t kidding about the parchment. I wasn’t very thorough and I had some scrubbing to do around the edges of the pans.
Very delicious. I ate a ton from the tray and now I’m sorta full right before dinner.
The Tomato Report
Now that the PACNW has been transformed into a new blistering hot paradise, you’d think I would finally have an amazing tomato crop.
But no. I do not. Although that’s mostly my fault since I had illnesses and then back troubles and then had the project of August. Gardening slipped to a super low priority.
The plant above was purchased at the grocery store. It may not be clear but it is only about 18 inches high. It hasn’t grown even a tiny bit. I planted them right when we had that 10 day streak of 90+ temperatures and my plants freaked out.
I bet that single tomato is all I get.
The above is the second plant I got at the grocery store. This one produced a surprise red tomato that I happily picked and then noticed it was completely rotten on the bottom. I thought the grocery store ones were bred so that any doofus with some dirt in her yard could successfully grow tomatoes.
I am either mistaken or worse than a doofus.
This is a volunteer. Sprouted up of its own free will. It has produced two so far and you can see two more on there.
Colleague is going to Hawaii tomorrow. He said he was yanking his plants and composting everything. I said, bring me what you have.
That is 11 pounds of tomatoes. He was going to compost 11 pounds of tomatoes.
I showed those to a lady in the elevator on the way home and she was jealous. I was afraid she might knock me down and steal them for herself.
Tomato processing this weekend.
Crazy Late Garden Update
Pumpkins! You can practically see them pushing out of the dirt.
Yay, thanks for the update Photoshop. Just what I need, to set aside time to do a tutorial since apparently the three functions I use are now outdated and who knows what happened to them? I can’t wait until the kids today are old and start complaining about how everything changes so fast. (Kidding, I can wait.)
I am behind on everything. I have so many photos sitting here and notes for posts.
I’m not working on the same writing project that I was at the beginning of the year, but I am working on a different one. I spend so much time sitting at the computer that I now schedule breaks to keep my spine from fusing me into a hunchback.
Here’s the current project of forever which I have promised to first readers the first week in August so it’s actually the project of August:
I think I mentioned that my double whammy illness this spring destroyed my gardening mojo. I kept thinking next weekend I would get some work done and then I would go out and pull a few weeds and plan to do more the following weekend.
I finally found the tomato seeds I’d saved and planted them. And now it’s the end of June and all I have to show for myself are these tiny sproutlets. I have a volunteer in the garden that’s more impressive than this.
I went to the grocery store and picked out two plants labeled as fast growing and productive. Might as well get science behind me.
This morning I finally prepped the soil for tomatoes and pumpkins. So my pitiful little garden will be in. There are some greens sprouting, as well, although at this rate they will probably bolt before they do anything meaningful.
These are the pumpkins now and ready to go outside. I will sprout some cucumbers for my annual exercise in failing to grow cucumbers and set those out next.
I wasn’t even planning on digging potatoes today. But I was weeding and I pulled a weed and there was a potato, just the size to sit in my palm. I gently prodded the dirt and two more appeared. By the time I was done digging this one mound, I had all the potatoes you see in this basket.
For pure entertainment value, there is nothing better than potatoes in the garden. The things I planted were tiny and shriveled and didn’t look like they would amount to much. Potato salad coming in our future.
The Rain Came Down On Me
That stupid crud really hung on. Both Bob and I felt like it took another half-lap and smacked us again on its way out. At this point we’re both down to an intermittent cough. And we still need to go to bed early. At least I do.
I have done a little bit of work in the garden. I had a huge pile of wrinkled potatoes and I resisted the urge to plant them all. We aren’t big potato eaters. There are lots of daffodils out back and I’m getting a few tulips. (Photos to come, obviously.) I see a few dahlia sproutlets out front which is ridiculous. I’ll be curious to see how that situation develops.
No major stories to tell at the moment. I’m trying to finish up our taxes today so I can cross that off my list.
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The Miracle of Professional Landscaping
You know this funny hedge thing that I do every year and show before and after? Well since I so royally tweaked my shoulder working on the hedge last spring, I decided maybe it was time to pay someone to work on the hedge. I’m talking about the big hedge, photos below. But I also asked if they could do this little hedge.
Look how amazing it looks. I was all impressed and raving and the landscaper was like, aw shucks. We have lots of practice.
This is what it looked like last time I did it. I told him how terrible it looked when I do it and how I can’t reach the top and he said they used a ladder so they could make the top look right. He and his crew are my new heroes. I wished I had baked some cookies to give them.
Here’s the side. When the landscaper looked at it he went: WOW.
Here’s a close up of how out of control it was.
He suggested we whack it back more regularly. Like maybe annually. He told me if we do it more regularly they can make it look better.
And after: amazing!
This is what I look out at from my window. I have so much more light now. There is still some major growth on the neighbor’s side of the fence.
And here’s the backyard. Before. I considered asking them to take out that giant yellow thing. But I don’t want to deal right now. Maybe next year.
And after. Beautiful.
He seemed apologetic about how much he had to charge us. I thought it was completely reasonable. And there was a crew so it didn’t take too long. My yard has never looked better on this side.
***
We had a big wind storm and my compost bin blew over so I ran out to take a photo. The wind tore my glasses off. I looked around but it was blowing so hard the wind was groaning. I realized I could turn into one of those sad public service announcement stories about how not to wander around outside in a major wind storm so I went back inside.
The next day I found a piece of someone’s roof in our backyard and all the leaves were gone but no glasses. I’ll probably find them this summer. Or maybe my neighbor will.
The Potatoes Will Take Over in the End
Subway station in Montreal. I think it’s Station Prefontaine
I felt great when I woke up but I just exercised and had my hot chocolate and now I’m ready to go back to bed. Tempting.
Yesterday I worked a half day and when I got home I made the pie.
The other thing I normally do in the fall that I didn’t get around to because of my trip was the full meal deal garden burial. I had torn everything out and put the cages away but that’s it. All the debris was just piled in the middle of the garden plus I never emptied the compost bin into the soil.
Since the weather was not terrible I thought maybe I could get some yard work done. But that’s not the real motivation.
Remember back in the spring when I tweaked my shoulder trying to do the hedge myself? It took about 5 months to feel even close to normal so I am afraid to try hedge whacking by myself again. It’s taken this much time to find a referral and then finally set-up a time to get an estimate and that is happening this weekend.
So really I cleaned up the yard because I want hedgeman to think we’re at least trying out there. I cleaned out a bunch of dead stuff along the hedge and cleaned up the garden properly and mixed the compost in.
You’ll never guess but I am still finding potatoes. I wasn’t even trying. I was raking soil around and next thing I know there are potatoes rolling through the dirt. I probably harvested another 3 pounds which is terrific because I think we were down to only 7 pounds or so and I used a bunch for dinner last night. These aren’t great mashing potatoes so won’t be part of dinner today.
Enjoy your turkey or non-turkey alternative!
The Post Of 1000 Sorrows
This cucumber that I harvested when I ripped the garden out last weekend represents the 2014 season of the Portland Timbers.
It’s green, it under-performed a tragic degree, but it tried. If nothing else, it gets credit for showing up. I will be back next year with all my hopes and dreams.
On September 27, shortly into a game against Toronto FC, our captain Will Johnson broke his leg. He’s number 4 above and that’s what he looks like with an unbroken leg. The other player is Futty Danso, who was on our team since we were a lower division team and well loved. He was traded earlier this season to Montreal. I’ve only cried about soccer 2 times. Once, in 2003 when Germany defeated the USA in Women’s World Cup at PGE Park. I was there. And second, when Futty was traded.
A few weeks later we played our final group match in the CCL and all we had to do was not lose by 2 or more goals.
We lost by 2 goals.
We managed to win our last game against Dallas, clean sheet but we were still 1 point shy of making it to the playoffs.
Shortly before the half our MVP and supporters’ player of the year Diego Valeri went down. He tore his ACL. He’s the guy on the left. That’s what he looks like with two good ACLs. The other player is Darlington Nagbe who scored his first goal of the season in the final match.
It has been a dark month for Timbers fans. Good bye 2014 season and good riddance.
I’ll be back in February with my plastic pants.
The Air at 4 o’clock in the Morning
While I was gone my mother-in-law gave my husband some stuff to take home in this cute dish. I baked her a pie in it for when we return. It came out pretty. I put it beside my regular pie dish to show the difference. It’s hard to tell but it’s much smaller.
UGH! Re-entry continues much more slowly that I would prefer. I am so tired at 8pm I have to go to bed and then I’m wide awake at 4am. And my brain wheels can barely turn by the end of the day. Sure, it could be worse but the day is coming, very soon, when I’ll need to keep my eyes open past 8.
I had to retire one pair of my garden pants. The denim has been disintegrating for some time but yesterday I felt a breeze on my bottom and realized it was time to trash them. I’m wearing one of my other pairs but it’s pretty close to being done, too. I’m going to have to buy some new jeans and move some older pairs to the work pile.
This is the pumpkin patch this year. A little disappointing. The vines did get a little cooked a couple of times. I keep promising I’ll do homework to improve my results.
Yesterday I did some major clean up out there. I haven’t been able to do yardwork in weeks. I would say that this summer I have been at least 50% less active in the garden and the results are much less than 50% worse so I expect I will use this information as an excuse to be more lazy in the future. I didn’t yank the tomatoes but I whacked them back. We’ll see if I can get a few more tomatoes before we’re finished.
Garden Update and What’s Been Going On
I did something today I haven’t done in a long time, I threw a fit in public.
The situation seems to happen on a regular basis. I’m waiting in line and some manager type person comes over and tells me to move to another checkstand and by the time I move all my crap and get over there, it takes longer than it would have taken if I just stood there. I’m guessing they get docked brownie points for too many people waiting but if you’re wasting my time moving me someplace else then you aren’t addressing the right problem.
This guy moved me way across the store the guest services and when I got over there, there was a lady with a giant cart filled with stuff and a long story. After 10 minutes I went back to the registers to start all over. And when manger type guy came back, I let him know how I felt.
I’m always mortified after I do that, but WTF?
This is my Stupice that my mother-in-law gave me. I put it in early with the walls of water and it’s been producing but the tomatoes are pretty small.
This is one I grew from seeds and these are the first ripe ones.
The clover is from my cover crop I tried last winter. I have little clover bits popping up here and there.
The birds are tearing apart the sunflowers. In my observation, based on no scientific knowledge, I’m going to guess that winter is coming early around here. All the animals are going crazy burying nuts or grabbing seeds and it feels earlier than normal to me.
I’ve been having some alone time at 3am lately and for the past two nights, just after 3am, we’ve had a family of raccoons in the front yard. Well, family, what do I know? There are three and they aren’t too big. I’m not positive what they’re eating since it’s hard to tell with your forehead pressed against the screen but I’m hoping it’s snails.
Here’s a flower that’s been cleaned out by the birds. There was a sparrow convention out there around noon today.
These are the cucumbers. Cucumbers hate me. I start them in the house and I assumed they always shriveled up on me when I put them out because it was too cold. This year it was plenty warm and they still never did anything. I’ve had some good cucumber crops but not for years. I’ll buy different seeds and try again next year. And maybe read something about cucumbers. Maybe they need names and extra encouragement or something.
Some potatoes just hanging out in the dirt.
I had a work trip to Reno this week. Poor Reno, it tries so hard but you get the sense it’s never going to be more than the pimple-faced less-sexy sibling of Las Vegas.
There was an interesting character in the airport when we were departing and Bob leaned over and said: Burning Man starts this week.
Burning Man was rained out right before opening. There was a whole group of guys loading coolers into the shuttle to the hotel. The driver said: It’s been like this all day, they’re rained out. The hotel was filled with Burning Man refugees. Colorful characters until the end of time. It was kind of fun to be on the fringe.
From the window at our side of the hotel I counted at least 50 RVs. I wanted to get a photo but when I woke up at 6:30am already a third were gone and I watched 8 pull out while I stood there.
A friend laughed that we were going to Reno in August but it was hotter in Portland.
This is another plant started from seeds. This is as far as it’s gotten but the tomatoes are decent sized.
Whoa. What’s going on here?
The pumpkin patch is looking great. It got a little cooked a couple of times but it’s still making tiny pumpkins. I think there are at least 7 good looking ones going right now.
I did finally go through my digital photos and I should be able to get some Montreal stuff up this weekend.
If you didn’t catch it, Daniel Shamaun wrote a piece about my story, Battle of Little Big Science. You can find it here.
