I grew a cudgel

I found a zucchini in my garden this morning that’s probably 20 inches long and 5 inches in diameter. I have no idea how I missed that monster. As big as it is, I’m not sure that it’ll be good for any food, but I’m sure I can bash in some heads with it. That could be fun.

But at least I now know why the one zucchini plant was not nearly as productive as the other - because I was blind!

Aha!

I think I’ve found a recipe that makes zucchini delicious! It’s a Rick Bayless recipe for fish and zucchini in a mojo de ajo (garlic sauce). As usual I modified things, although this being my first time doing this recipe I didn’t mess with it too much. Mostly I just halved it and added broccoli and snap peas along with the zucchini, since I had some of those to use up.

The fish was kind of meh and a bit watery (but I blame that on using frozen fish filets, not the recipe) but the vegetables were amazing. The sauce was rich and garlicky and didn’t overpower the vegetables. Even my dad was impressed. But best of all, now that I know how to do a simple mojo de ajo, there’s no need to restrict it to just fish and zucchini - ’cause lots of stuff tastes good with garlic.

And now I need to think about growing some garlic in the garden since I use so very much of it.

I think the garden’s watered

My rudbeckia has been looking pretty sad. It’s at the end of the soaker hose, so it probably gets the least water of anything in that bed. Wanting to make sure it got some water, I turned on the hose last night and planned to give the whole garden a good soak.

I woke up this morning and realized I forgot to turn the hose off. Oops. The rudbeckia is looking a lot happier now though. Although, we also got some pretty heavy storms this afternoon, so it’s possible that it’s been flattened…

But I’m pretty sure I don’t need to go water that garden for a little while.

I’d actually stopped worrying…

And learned to love the raccoon. Ok, maybe coexist peacefully would be a better term. Especially since the vegetable beds and the pots had filled in enough that the raccoon would have to work awfully hard to get to the dirt. So he didn’t bother me, I didn’t bother him.

Until yesterday, when I was out on the porch and heard a weird sound coming from the woodshed, where we feed the barn cats. And all the barn cats were awfully poofy and freaked out looking. After a few minutes of watching, I saw something that much too big to be a cat, even if it has brown tabby markings, going running away from the woodshed.

Obviously, the raccoon’s back. The good news is he didn’t disturb any of my plants or attack any of the cats. The bad news is that I saw him in broad daylight. And he disappeared before Dad got the gun out, because now he’s quite likely a rabid rat-bastard raccoon.

Happy Dance!

Yay! My broccoli is actually looking like broccoli! And since one of them’s getting to be a good sized head, I’ll have some nice fresh broccoli in the next couple days. And we have a magnolia blossom on the magnolia tree that hasn’t blossomed in years! And I have lots and lots of baby squash (uh-oh!). And the vegetable garden is just going very, very well (except the peas - but I’ll survive).

Why did I plant two?

I have my first zucchini. I haven’t harvested it yet because it’s only the size of a finger, but it appeared overnight. And with more water, I’m sure more zucchini will appear. But now I’m realizing how fast they grow and how few ways I know how to prepare them that I like. And I’m also realizing that there are only two of us to eat them all…

So, why did I plant two of them?

Despite that, I am thinking about trying the blossoms. They’re really pretty and I like the smell, plus I’ve heard good things about the taste.

He’s back…

After nearly a month, I thought my plants might actually be safe from the raccoon. Especially since he’d been by and would very nicely dig next to the plant, leaving them happily in their place in the dirt. I was wrong.

He came by last night and dug up half of one of my planters of snapdragons and dusty miller. He dug around the gomphrena, but left them in the planter. He did dig up some weeds on the patio, so that at least was good. But otherwise…

Stupid rat bastard.

Wait, That’s Not Right

All the heat, sun and rain of the past few weeks has made everything in my garden go into overdrive. And a lot of my flowers are in bloom and looking pretty - actually it seems like everything is in bloom. I’m especially liking the coreopsis and salvia, and I’m looking forward to some of the veggies and fruits that will come from the other garden.

But what I’m most entertained by right now are my roses and snapdragons, because they’re not the colors I thought they’d be. The snapdragons came from the same six-pack but I have four purple and two yellow. Luckily, they look good together and when I split them between two containers, I got one yellow in each pot. I must have gotten lucky with that considering none of them were in bloom when I planted them.

But the roses, they’ve become a bit of a guessing game. If you remember, I chose very specific colors for my roses. And for a while it even looked like it was going to work out - one of the ones labeled as a red Oklahoma rose, had a nice, dark red bud, that opened to a nice, rich pink. The next rose to open was supposed to be White Lightning and maybe it is, but it looks more like a light lemon yellow than white to me. The other two roses, haven’t opened yet, but I think from the bud colors that they’re not going to right either. The second Oklahoma looks like it’s going to be whiter than the White Lightning and the Voodoo, which I think is supposed to be a orangey-yellowy-salmony multicolor thing, looks like it’s going to wind up being light pink. But this is what you get when you buy cheap roses - extra days of entertainment.

I will say, that I do like both my white and pink roses so far. They’re not what I expected, but they’re pretty. I’m withholding judgment on the the other two, especially the Voodoo until they actually flower.

Adventures with T&A

The National Arboretum had an activity in the herb garden yesterday for making nosegays and other information about herbs. Being the plant geeks that we are, we decided to go. Except it was raining. But the sun kept peeking out and we kept hoping the rain was over… So we headed down the road, figuring we could go wander somewhere else and inside if it rained.

And right before we got to the exit for the Arboretum, there was lightning and the heavens literally opened up on us. Shockingly, we decided to go to the mall instead. But holy crap, was that the worst drive I’ve ever had to take. Up on all these bridges and ramps with the wind blowing and the rain cascading. I could barely see the cars in front of me, but I could see the trees being blown onto the bridge all too well. But there was no place to pull over to stop, so I just had to keep going.

We did get to the mall safely. More importantly, we escaped the mall without buying anything and since the sun was out and the rain was gone, we headed back out to the Arboretum to see if it was still open. And after a few detours, we arrived at the Arboretum to closed gates. Oh well, maybe next time.

The Things My Ancestors Did

Actually, I’ll blame most of this on one particular ancestor, my great-grandmother Juliet. She apparently liked her schemes, including planting mulberries so she could try to grow silkworms (didn’t work). One of the more common summer activities around here is seeing how many times we have to kill a mulberry before it stays dead (a lot).

Grandma Juliet also decided to have terraces built in the front yard. That was a very good idea, considering the slope. I’m not a fan, however of all the boxwood she had planted on top of the terrace walls and in front of the front porch. The problem is that when they planted the boxwood, they didn’t think about how big they were going to be in a hundred years, which is entirely understandable. However, the front of the house is pretty much completely hidden by our forest of huge boxwoods. And there’s really no going back to a small size after all this time.

What I’d really like to do with the boxwood is move them so that they’re in front of the terrace walls instead of on top of them. And then I’d probably turn a good part of the terrace into a garden. But I’m not allowed to touch the boxwood because they’re a hundred years old and they’ll die if I move them. Because plants are irreplaceable. *eyeroll*

Anyway, the real reason why I started this topic is because I’ve been pulling English Ivy from underneath the boxwood (ok, these are boxwood that my mom planted, but the same issues apply, just make them 25 years old). And there’s still a lot of English Ivy all over all the gardens. I’m sure that Grandma Juliet planted it because it’s English! and ivy is the epitome of English elegance and she was going to make her farm house just as elegant as any English manor! I will admit that ivy is pretty and lush and if it wasn’t invasive and didn’t have suckers that destroy brick, I’d have no problem with it. Well, no problem other than removing it and having to breathe in all the dust that completely destroys my throat and might actually be an allergic reaction.

So in conclusion, I hate English ivy. It’s evil.