Now Norma Knits

Garden Update

Wow, look at this! Two posts in two days! (Don't get used to it.) 

Even though life is somewhat nutsy-cuckoo (happily so), I found some time this weekend to get the veggie garden organized, visit several garden centers and farm shops, and plunk a few plants in the ground, to round out the things I planted back in the beginning of April.

My quest to "cut back" because we can't eat all the produce somehow still left me with no place to plant any beans. I do not know how that happened. But anyway... I guess when I harvest the garlic, I'll get a later-season planting of beans in the real estate the garlic is taking up. It'll have to do. 

A few photos of the garden goodness:

Lettuces that we've been eating for quite a while now, various greens, herbs (mint, chamomile, borage), baby beets that you probably can't see, and baby Swiss chard too. 

Kale (Winterbor), broccoli rabe, mint.

Shallots and red onions.

 

The broccoli is thriving.

A new thing for me: a sweet potato. Should be fun to see how it does.  

A broader view. You can see arugula, marigolds, rosemary, eggplants, peppers, radishes....

Garlic's coming along fine...

The ill-fitting popup mesh net on the right is trying to protect zucchini plants from squash borers. 

A nice row of gourmet red and fingerling potatoes that I put in in early April...

But there is some garden sadness, too. My asparagus has been quite fruitful, but I am fighting a bloody battle with asparagus beetles.

These are the nasty, nasty buggers that I can't seem to keep ahead of this year. They don't respond to insecticidal soap, so I'm trying to keep them hand-picked and squished as much as possible. But with my schedule as it has been, the "as much as possible" has not been all that successful. Makes me want to cry. After all those years of trying to get the asparagus to be plentiful, I've finally succeeded, but much of it is being ruined by the beetles. 

Sigh. Garden, you are a cruel, cruel mistress.

 

 

The Trauma is Still Fresh and What's That You Say? Butterflies in Vermont on April 17???????

Mr. Jefferies has still not recovered from the trauma of being abandoned outside. The cuteness is breaking my heart. If we go outside, and I make one footstep in the direction of the house, he takes off on a gallop to the door. It's so pathetically adorable and adorably pathetic, I can hardly stand it. 

We both thank you for all your messages of love and concern and commiseration. 

It's ridiculously warm here, and the day before yesterday the plum trees suddenly burst into bloom. I think they are more or less on schedule, but really it would be more normal for us to have a crippling, icy, sleety, tree-limb-breaking, car-sliding-off-the-driveway-and-stuck, swearing-like-a-mofo snowstorm just about now.

Instead, it's been 80 degrees for several days, then cooled down to 60 yesterday -- both temps well above normal for this time of year. It was very windy, so I was worried that the trees would not be pollinated. What few bees there are left in this poor sick world wouldn't be out in that heavy wind. But after work yesterday I went out and found both trees alive with activity. There were a (very) few bees, and a lot of those strange bee-impersonating flies, and about a dozen beautiful butterflies on each tree.

Butterflies! In Vermont on April 17th? That's just not riiiiiight. 

And in other bizarre garden news, get a load of my spinach (underneath the critter-discouraging pop-up net from Gardener's Supply, which sadly no longer seems to be available, but they have these instead):

And the beet and Swiss chard seeds I planted on Sunday have already germinated. If we don't have a horrible drought or another blizzard on July 4th or something, I'll be surprised. Things are freakish, but I will be a very bad Vermonter and admit that I can't say I mind the warmth and good gardening weather right at the moment. 

I did appreciate the visit to my blog and comment by a Gardener's Supply personage the other day. After about 7 or 8 years of blogging about their products and probably sending them thousands of dollars of business (well, hell, spending thousands of dollars there myself, even), someone finally noticed. But I'm not bitter. KIDDING! (Does that mean I'm kidding that I'm not bitter, or kidding that.... oh, never mind.)

I'll just do the Pioneer Woman thing and say, "They didn't pay me to say this or give me anything. Not ONE THING. Not even a coupon or anything! In fact, they don't even know I exist," and in my case I'd be telling the absolute troofth. <---------Read that in Edith Ann's voice. 

 

 

 

Look What I Did Today

"Yeah, yeah," you say, "so you bought another travel mug from Starbucks."

 

But look! In the sea of choices marked "Made in China," I found a few items on the shelves that are marked "Made in USA." These may have been there all along -- the trademark/copyright date says 2011 -- but it's the first time I've noticed them. They are said to be BPA-free, and made of 30% post-consumer recycled plastic. 

Well done, Starbucks! I said I would buy mugs when the Made in the USA ones hit the shelves, and I started today. 

This is a slow week for me, while all of my students are busy taking exams. Next week things will ramp up steeply again, and so I'd best take advantage of the time I have this week. I bought a few cold-hardy veggie plants and put them in. 

Having discovered broccoli raab last year, and loving it, I bought six plants this year and plunked them in.

And under cover of the trusty inexpensive coldframe from Gardener's Supply (this is year three, and it's still in great shape), I have four Winterbore kale plants, eight lettuce plants, a curly parsley, several arugulas, and then I threw in a few seeds for radishes and more arugula:

Let growing season commence!

It Was A Social Media Vacation

I took a couple days off and withdrew from the world, from social media, even from Mr. Jefferies. He was not amused. He was pretty damn glad when I got home, I'll tell you that. 

While I was gone, some carpenters were working on replacing and repairing and releveling parts of the deck. Ahhhhhh, it's all clean and straight and white and beautiful.

Mind you, they are not finished all the work yet. But at least this part is finally done. I've been waiting for this for a lonnnnnng time. I just can't stop gazing at it. 

I also came home to find that the beautiful Stella D'Oro daylilies are open and there are pints of blueberries to be picked and broccoli to be harvested, among other things.

(The netting keeps the birds away.)

A lot of beautiful things can happen in a couple of days.

All this helps me to find a little bit of zen and keeps my mind off the fact that I also came home to find that the Japanese beetles are having a convention an orgy on the asparagus ferns. 

Fuckers.

Garden Shots and Notes

This year I have decided that I am a fan of the everbearing strawberries I planted the year before last (or was it last year? I can't quite remember). I underappreciated them last year to the point of letting them rot on the vine. For one thing, something else was nibbling on them, which made me discouraged. A strawberry would be just about ready to be picked "tomorrow," and when I got up "tomorrow," something had either eaten it completely or taken big nibbles out. 

Last week it started happening again. So a couple nights ago, I decided to start picking the berries when they are not quite ripe. I feared that their flavor would suffer, but boy was I wrong. First of all, they ripen beautifully literally overnight. I pick them with some white still on them in the evening, and the next morning there are enough that have turned fully ripe so that David and I can both have a good serving for breakfast. And more ripen throughout the day so that we can graze on a few here and there throughout the day. It's like magic. And they are SO delicious!

Despite all the rain and the strange flip-flopping weather, in general things in the garden are doing well. The bed in the foreground below is all planted up with seedlings that I started in the house in the late winter, and that I planted under the coldframe in this bed in unsettled weather on April 1st, unceremoniously and without hardening off. Red cabbage, kale of a couple different varieties, broccoli, lettuces (many of which we have already eaten and I've pulled up), collards, and to the right of the red cabbage in the foreground is a volunteer potato plant (started from an old potato that was in the kitchen clippings that I threw in the grow bed last fall) that I decided to leave as is and nurture along.

Speaking of broccoli, here is a closeup of one of them in that grow bed:

And the garlic scapes have started to curl in the last day or two. I think this is a bit later than usual. This means we've got at least another month before the garlic is ready to harvest. This garlic is all "free" -- it is seed garlic from the garlic I grew last year. I love it when that happens.

This has nothing to do with the garden, but when I'm sitting at my office chair and happen to look down, this is often what I see:

...looking up at me with complete adoration. He will stand there like that for HOURS. 

Mr. Jefferies got a haircut this week. I love it when his hair is short, because his ears look so adorably huge.

Terrier Tuesday -- The Sashimi Edition

Dear Readers,

Alpha apologizes that the photo of me and my minion (which, by the way, look at how it is still holding up after all this time!) is out of focus. 

She was really just intent on making sure to get a good photo of the gigantic bowl of spinach she had just brought in from the garden:

She was pretty damned excited, because though she said she got pretty crappy germination of her spinach seeds, all the rainy weather has turned out a fabulous spinach crop. 

I guess we know what's important to her and what's not.

*pout*

But that's all right. Two can play this game. I've been eating pretty high off the hog, myself. You know how she's been trying to teach me to do the "roll over" trick, and how I have been refusing because it's just downright demeaning? (The nerve of her to even ask me!)

Well, last week she gave me raw salmon every time I rolled over like she asked. 

I guess I gave her what she wanted right quick. 

I have told her in no uncertain terms, I will not do it, even for steak tartare. Not top-shelf enough. But I do love me some sashimi. 

Love,

 

Mr. Jefferies

P.S. So yeah, roll over. Whatever. Just show me the money. 

P.P.S. Alpha says she saw a big fat rabbit over by the rose bushes at dusk last night. I didn't see it, or if I did, it would have been DINNER. I'm not kidding. But she's been moaning and groaning a little bit about that for a couple of reasons: Well, DUH, her garden, and also because she thinks it's rabbits and their leavings that have made me get coccidiosis every summer. She is not a happy camper about that rabbit hanging around. Personally, I think I oughta do something about that.

 

Terrier Tuesday -- The Entertaining Myself Edition

Dear Readers,

Like a certain famous dog...

...I have had to learn to become resourceful at entertaining myself when Alpha is working. She says I'm very good at it this summer, and she is very proud of me. I love being outside with her, so it's easy. But don't tell her I said that.

She's been pulling a lot of weeds. And those weeds are TALL and THICK!

Sometimes I tunnel into the big tall weeds and pretend I'm not a canine at all, but a big and fierce FELINE in a jungle.

I hide in the weeds, and I am sure she cannot see those grasses moving where I'm tunneling. I make her call my name and say, HEY, HEY! GET OVER HERE! and I'm just hiding silently and I'm just waiting to POUNCE on her when she's least expecting it. Or come out of the jungle and look at her from the edge, like, "What?"

And then she laughs and says, "good boy, good boy!" and then I do it all over again.

And then, if I bark and growl and cajole her enough, she will throw the rubber chicken for me. And she gives me rides in the weedbarrow, and that's a whole lot of fun. 

She says I need to go to the groomer, and that is NOT a lot of fun. But it will be nice to be a bit cooler in this hot weather. 

Did I mention, I love summer?

And I love Alpha too.

Oh, and I love YOU too.

 

Love,

 

Your jungle-dweller

Mr. Jefferies

 

 

Hell Yeah

My Long-Weekend Sunday went like this:

Breakfast.  

Knitting. Yes, knitting! I'm working on the raisin brown Iceling baby sweater. Love it. I ordered a whole bunch of buttons to try with it -- a variety of wooden, bone, and antler ones. I'll be sure to show them to you when they get here.

Running. Yes, running! I went to the track with the idea that I would go back to square one on the Couch to 5K program, which would be mostly walking, with spurts of a minute running here and there. I hemmed and hawed over whether to stick with my favorite Nike Free Run+ shoes or to use the Gel Cumulus. I decided to stick with the Nikes because I love them so much, but I put in the Superfeet inserts that that orthopedic guy recommended I get. I figured that was a sensible compromise, and when I put them on my feet like that, it felt good and seemed like The Right Thing To Do.

When I got to the track, it was in use by a group, so I couldn't use it. I had to use the trail. Though it's not rubberized and is a hard paved surface with some imperfections, it is mostly flat, with some gentle slopes and only a couple little hills, so I thought I'd be fine. But also when I got there, I just could not bring myself to go back to literally square one. I thought I might die of boredom, and I also felt that I could handle more of a challenge than that. When I left off with the program and hurt my ankle, I was repeating Week 7 of the program, so I don't really know why I chose Week 4 yesterday, but I did. Another compromise that seemed like The Right Thing To Do.

And it was! 

I ran the course with ease, did not feel any pain whatsoever, and ended up with no swelling -- no new swelling, at least. I felt great. GREAT, I tell you!

Lunch. Healthy and delicious. Grilled salmon burgers and see below.

Gardening. Oh yes, four more hours in the garden doing the heavy lifting and moving of bags of composted manure and cleaning out the compost bins, digging and dividing of perennials, planting, turning soil, and etcetera and so forth. 

I harvested this, which served as the focal point for lunch.

Dinner. With friends.

More Knitting while

Watching South Riding.

It was a verra good day. Mr. Jefferies says so, too. 

The Weatherman Was Wrong Again, But This Time The Doctor Seems To Have Been Right

It wasn't supposed to rain yesterday. Well, I guess you could technically say that was correct, since it POURED BUCKETS. But at least it waited till the late afternoon, and I was able to put in a good six hours in the garden before it hit.

You see, I was doing it under doctor's orders. The mysterious ankle- or foot- or who-knows-what injury was not resolving, and so on Friday I ended up back at my primary care doc. I won't get into the whole thing, but in the end she and I decided that I should stop being inactive. It probably wasn't helping anything, and I have also wondered if just being active might help push those fluids out of their sluggishness. So she told me to walk a lot this weekend. I did intend to go and do some true "exercise" walking, and maybe even a teeny bit of running -- perhaps starting from square one of the Couch to 5K program again, because I am very eager to get back to that if at all possible.

I never made it to do that, but I did spend almost a full day in the garden, wearing my hiking boots and my SmartWool socks, and doing a LOT of climbing up and down our steep backyard hill, as well as carrying things. I came out of it with certainly no deleterious effects, and probably considerable positive effects. It was a deliciously sweaty day and a beautiful day. At the end of the day as I'm writing this, I definitely feel miles better physically and psychologically.

The water, though. OMG, the rain, it just won't stop. I put my seedlings in the wheelbarrow while I turned my back for a couple of hours to go to an appointment, and came back to them sitting in 4 inches of water.

I am very lucky that I live on a hill. My gardens are not soggy like the cornfields and hayfields and athletic fields and parks and basements (not ours, thank the goddess) around here. Everything I've planted is doing well. I stuck a few of the plants I bought recently into the ground without a whole lot of fanfare yesterday. If we don't get some sunshine, and it keeps pouring like this, many things won't amount to much anyway. Siiiiigh. 

Here is my best accidental discovery (is that redundant?) of this year:

Onions do incredibly well when mulched with shredded leaves. So now I'm doing it on purpose, and wow! I've never grown such lovely onions before!

My first planting of radishes is getting close to harvest-ready:

Those are baby Romaine lettuces in the foreground, and they are thriving.

I love baby bok choi, and so do the slugs. The bok choi are planted in a rather large bed of various types of lettuce and plants from the cruciferous family. They are the clear favorite of the slugs, which makes them sort of the sacrificial lambs of my garden at the moment. I did manage to get a few unchomped-on leaves to put in my salad yesterday. 

And the state of the compost bins is pretty sad:

Soggy and anaerobic. There are four of them that need to be emptied, aerated and relayered. 

I have no work scheduled for the next week, so now that it seems that I have a usable foot again, I will be able to peck away at some things that really need to get done around here, which will give my muscles a pretty good workout, too...

...in between torrential rainstorms, lightning storms and tornado watches. 

Garden Update: Not So Much

With the nearly nonstop rain and the leg/foot/ankle that swells up if I so much as look at it, as well as a nice healthy work schedule, I have not been able to get out and do much of anything in the garden. The weeds have taken over -- maybe permanently for this year. I'm thinking I'll just let much of everything go fallow this year. Our house and lot are starting to look seriously abandoned, and I don't even care.

But I am cutting asparagus and pulling a few scallions from time to time:

I do have some rather fabulous lettuce and other greens growing:

There's a fairly good bed of beets going:

And there's a nice bed of red and white Dutch onions, and more little lettuces, Swiss chard, and radishes that are all coming along quite nicely.

Though this little corner with a few spinach seedlings looks nice, I got my usual crappy germination with spinach and carrots.

Yesterday I went to the nursery and bought a bunch of veggie and herb plants, which is at least a start.

But by the time I got home and went out to consider planting them, I was a) driven in by the mosquitoes, and b) my leg couldn't take it.

I offered to throw a toy for Mr. Jefferies, and invited him to go inside to get a toy for the occasion, but he opted to bring out a rawhide bone and bury it instead.  

That dog. He is so smart, and he sure does make me smile.