“A cat improves the garden wall in sunshine, and the hearth in foul weather.”
-Judith Merkle Riley
- Fluffy on the Bridge
Shy and retiring and a little on the wild side, our Fluffy is always at her best in the garden.
At 17 she has lost her desire to climb trees and hunt rats but she still enjoys the sun on her back. She’s a bit of a stealth kitty, quietly hiding under shrubs and between flower beds, especially when rambunctious children are on the scene.
Can you see me now?
Conversely, she can pierce the nighttime solitude with her tortured wail, beseeching you to fill her food dish at 3:00 am or to release her from the cozy-confines of the bathroom where incontinent kitties must now spend the night.
Shhhh...I'm not really here.
"Hiding" in the Almond Tree
The Fluffster
Fluffy Over the Years
A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.
-Ernest Hemingway
Garden Log: June 14, 2011
A garden critter chewed into the stem of this pumpkin plant so we assumed the fruit was done for. Today we noticed that it continues to grow!
We administered a bit of first aid in the form of grafting tape wrapped around the stem.
and a “Jolly Green Hosiery” cover to deter further nibbles.
Elsewhere, the corn is as tall as I am (5’10”) and the neighboring pumpkin leaves are the size of serving trays.
Our sunflowers are getting taller. Today’s heat was a welcome gift.
Pumpkins Go Viral!
Well…not exactly. But when you say “viral” these days, people notice. In bygone days, it meant you had “the clap.” Now we’re usually referring to our email account, Facebook or Twitter.
I digress…
We have a bumper crop of pumpkins this year. It’s been pretty exciting. Even with the disappointing weather which has been ten degrees below the seasonal norm, the plants continue to send out shoot after shoot. We have five or six varietals, some with leaves the size of dinner plates. We mourned a few losses this afternoon (squirrels!) but the plants are so prolific, that we felt we could afford to be cavalier about our losses.
Bumper Crop
Bagby Garden
It’s been a joy to share in the Bagby School Garden experience these past few years. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Donna Boss since 2007. Donna and one other parent pioneered the school garden. They rallied volunteers and donors along with the school custodial staff, and with a day of sweat-equity, gave birth to the Bagby Garden and Outdoor Classroom.
Donna Outside the Garden Shed
A handful of parents turn out once a month and we collectively share and instruct eager students in the joys of planting, watering, harvesting and tasting the fruits of their labor. Students are inquisitive and willing to try new things. Green soup anyone? Kids covet the rakes and watering cans along with the over-sized wheelbarrow. At the school’s Open House my own children were proud to show off what they planted. Budding gardeners take pride in what they grow.
Bagby Garden
In addition to planting and harvesting, we have a chance to look at bugs, read stories and make garden-related crafts. One of the more popular Garden Fridays included a pumpkin raffle. Our first pumpkin harvest yielded several beautiful specimens. Other years, we supplement from a local patch. One afternoon, my garden duty was babysitting a pair of mantids (praying mantis) from curious but occasionally over-eager hands.
Pumpkin Raffle
Each summer we sign up to take care of the garden for a week. It’s my secret pleasure having the garden all to myself for that week. During the teaching Fridays my role is to instruct, not to plant, water or weed. It’s not always easy when you have green blood running through your veins to step back and let others do all the work (and have all the fun)!
Happy Gardener
My son graduates this year and a whole new crop of students will take his place. We’re both ready for new experiences and growth, but I’ll look back wistfully on my time in this lovely garden. It went by too fast.
This Bud’s For…
The Buds Have It
According to Wikipedia, “In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of the stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately.”
I love their embryonic nature. I’m in my fifties and I still marvel at the wonders of a seed, a bud, a flower and a fruit, that perfectly orchestrated cycle of plant life. But it’s the bud that holds the promise of tomorrow; new beginnings, fresh starts.
This undeveloped, embryonic shoot is for you!
Ferns Unfold
As August unfolds, so too do the Ferns
I’ve always had an affinity for ferns. One of the first house plants to grace my home at the age of 16 was an Asparagus Plumosa. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment with no place to garden, so my mother let me keep a dozen houseplants on a stand just inside our front door. She once told me I handled the plants in the same manner as my deceased, horticulturist father. What a compliment!
My transient lifestyle continued well into my thirties as apartments and room-rentals came and went, but the houseplants always followed. In 1988 I bought two small ferns for $1.79 and planted them in a pot next to my bed. I traveled to Europe and back, leaving them in the care of a good friend. In 1989 they moved from Campbell to San Jose; then back to Campbell for a spell. I married and moved to Fremont for a year before we bought our home in 1996 in San Jose. By now they were a tangled twosome, bursting from a heavy pot, filled with thorns and in desperate need of a transplant, but they continued to climb and grow. At last liberated from their pot, they were free to spread along the back fence of our garden. They shelter cats in the heat of the summer and shade the occasional lizard. When I’m lucky enough to have some cutting flowers I add some feathery ferns to the bouquet. When my back is turned they twine around the fruit tree and climb through the fence. I brave the thorns to tame the wild beast, nursing nicks and cuts for a week. All relationships have their ups and and downs. But after 23 years, I would say that we are in it for the long haul. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Shakespeare in the Garden
"...Here's flowers for you: Hot lavender, mints, savory, and marjoram." The Winter's Tale
"We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible." I Henry IV
Waiting for Asparagus
(The following was written as part of a Facebook project based on Barbara Kingsolver’s book “ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE A Year of Food Life.” Additional entries can be found at ThinkBob.
Baby Carrots Fresh from the Earth
Waiting for Alys: Confessions of a Procrastinator
Fascinated by the concept and in love with the writing style and author’s turn of phrase, I was delighted with my assignment of “Waiting for Asparagus.” My earliest years and meals were in Ontario, Canada with the requisite long cold winters and the culinary influences of a British father and Nova Scotia-raised Mom.
Asparagus?
Never heard of it. I was a young adult before it first crossed my plate, and I wasn’t the least bit impressed. Luckily for me I gave it a second chance.
I love the discovery in this book: both mine and the Kingsolver Clan. Learning the cultivation ritual of a vegetable I’ve come to enjoy seems a mini-miracle in the making. I’ve embarked on my own personal food journey this year, so this book is synchronistic with my own health-improving goals. Changing our long-held behaviors around food is among the more challenging because they are so deeply seated in our youth.
The line that Lily would “already be lobbying the loopholes” resonated to my core. I know what I should do, but the inner give-it-to-me-now frequently won sway. Hershey’s with almonds are a good source of protein, right?
My earliest food foundation was a solid one. Our father was a horticulturist. He worked on a tea plantation in Darjeeling India before the war, later moving to Canada where my parents owned a pair of flower shops. He lovingly cultivated an amazing garden in our own back yard, short growing season and all, and filled it with cherry tomatoes that moved from garden to dinner plate in short order. What a delight it was to be sent out back by our mom to gather food for our meal. I inherited my own green thumb and love of gardening from those early days.
So how, you may wonder, did I drop and roll so far from the tree? Our family moved to the US in 1966, and by 1969 my father was dead, victim to the cancerous crop known as tobacco. My mother went to work full time, with three young girls at home to fend for themselves. It was around the same time when “TV dinners” had come into fashion. Mom was impressed with the idea that her daughters could have a hot meal in her absence, but with limited cooking or use of the hot stove and her fear of one of us getting burned; convenience food at its finest. Strapped for funds she scraped together the cash for our Friday night treat: a can of coke from Safeway and a bag of chips or nuts shared among the four of us. Both rituals were loving ones: gathering fresh garden tomatoes from our vast garden and slurping high fructose corn syrup from a can in our ratty little two bedroom apartment.
“Waiting for Asparagus” is a bit of a metaphor in my own personal journey. I wonder what all gentle readers of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle are discovering along the way?
Cats and Rats and Pumpkins, Oh My!
Late Season Arrival
It’s working! Our late-season pumpkins still think its summer. An early rainstorm, book-ended by two heat waves have kept our lovely fruit growing. And an impromptu greenhouse, fashioned from painters tarp and pipe keep them warm at night, a snug little place they can call home.
The Hardy Boys are starting to change color as the plant begins to decay. Gordita and Lucinda are now golden yellow, just a few shades away from harvest orange. Baby Blush, sadly, is withering on the vine but I snapped her photo anyway. I will take my friend Bob’s advice and carve her wee little shell into something special.
Perhaps Lindy really was standing guard this week. She slew the rat and the fruit survived. In my heart of hearts I love all living things, and recognize the master plan we call nature. Rats eat pumpkins, cats catch rats, and the Organized Gardener needs to be at peace with all the world has in store.
Tomato Surprise
I’m not much of a cook. This comes as no surprise to those who know and love me. The irony is that I love to feed people. My inner “earth mother” is at odds with my culinary skills.
No matter. I wisely married an excellent cook and no one in my house goes hungry. Liberated from the food prep portion of kitchen duty, I’m free to put some energy into the growing and cultivating of our tiny back-yard plot. Growing things you can eat is enormously satisfying, though not without challenges.
We have more failures than successes, and no two years are alike. Somehow we cobble together some semblance of an edible garden and we are all happier for it. We delight in our salad, even if we only used three small cherry tomatoes from out back. The basil was delicious early in the season and made for some beautiful Caprese salads.
Garden Treasures
On the other hand, our incredibly promising beef-steak tomatoes introduced us to horn worms, emerald green creatures with voracious appetites. Squirrels, rats and mice made quick work of most of our pumpkin plants, prompting us to create a mini Fort Knox to keep the four-legged creatures at bay. Constructed of heavy-duty chicken wire and garbage twist ties it worked. Access denied!
We aren’t heartless gardeners so we offered peanuts as a sort of peace offering. What irony: we purchase food for the wildlife so the wildlife leaves our garden untouched.
Part of me wishes I had a hidden camera documenting the late-night food-fest going on beneath my bedroom window. My more reasoned self convinces me that oblivious slumber is the better way to go. We’ll see the destruction tomorrow anyway on our daily trip through the garden.
Miraculously a small, yellow, fully formed tomato presents itself on the vine and we cradle it in our palms letting it fall naturally into our grasp. Is there anything more delicious than a fresh-from-the-vine, warm tomato bursting with delicate sweetness in your mouth at the end of a summer day?
Gardening Nirvana 