Tackling the big issues...

I've been avoiding this topic for years. 



It's not pretty.



It's a problem that 6 out of 10 people face every summer.  EVERY summer!
And it's non-gender related....it's across the board; men and women, old and young, urban and rural. 


Zucchini.
*shudder*

A seemingly perfect vegetable, because it grows easily, has a gazillion uses, requires little care to produce...
Every spring, gardeners (and those who would never term themselves as such) plant at LEAST 5 hills, having some sort of winter amnesia about this little plant.  They seem to think that THIS is the year only one plant will make it, getting all nostalgic about zucchini bread like Grandma used to make, and that one hill is pointless, really. 

One hill of zucchini can feed a decent sized village in Mexico for approximately 3 months, non-stop. 
No kidding.
We ALL know this!

We are ALL in denial, in May, when planting our gardens!

We are ALL in despair, in late July/early August, when the harvest starts.

At first, it's sweet and happy.

"Oh, LOOK! A little bitty zucchini!  At last...something to harvest!"

And we bear it into the kitchen, chop it up in tiny little pieces, hide it in a green salad and feel quite proud of ourselves.

A couple weeks later, it's a desperate, crazy situation, not unlike dealing with the plant from Little Shop of Horrors, except in reverse.  Instead of demanding that you "Feed me, Seymour!", the plant grows to gargantuan proportions (even IF you stop watering the darn thing) and shoves its green fruits in your hands, pockets, anywhere there's an opening.  It's feeding you. Viciously.  Not just one plant, mind you...you planted something like 15 of them. (Three seeds to a hill, just like the seed packet says...moron...)

And THAT'S why you don't leave your car unlocked in Jordan, Montana from the first of August until a real heavy frost.  I was zucchini bombed when I was a single, starving young woman living on raman noodles and powdered milk.  I found an unmarked brown grocery bag on the front seat of my car one morning when I was leaving for work.  I was thrilled!  Free food!  After eating three of the 57 or so zucchini in the bag, I was cursing whomever may have left them. 

Because...and here's the funny thing...no one can bring themselves to throw away zucchini.  The vegetable has some strange power that controls your mind and won't allow you to dispose of them in any other way besides eating them.  It's true.  If you tell a stunned gardener or zucchini bomb reciepient to just pitch the dang green thing, they'll recoil and say something like "But I CAN'T!  I need to make something with it!"

True story.

That's why I've decided to do The Twelve Days of Zucchini, starting August 1st.  For twelve days, I'll post a new (to me) recipe for the obnoxious ingredient; something that may or may not be helpful, but it will at least ensure that you don't feel alone while drowning in your self-inflicted sea of zucchini!  (Take heart, brothers and sisters...we're all in the same boat, so to speak!)

For those of you who DIDN'T plant any, I urge you to lock all your doors and don't make eye contact with any garden-y type people who approach you with bulging coats and bags, and a sickly, frantic look on their faces...

How my garden does grow...

I have a few readers who really ARE into gardening, and I feel obliged (delighted) to keep them updated on the seasons in my yard.  These pictures are ALREADY 10-14 days old!  *sigh*

Without further ado...

Gaillardia (Indian Paintbrush) in front of salvia (Russian, Traci...*big wink*)

I love these two together...they're so bold! Very "July in the garden"...

And the birdhouse I love, but apparently no birds feel the same way...

Not one look, or even a perch, for heaven's sake!

(They will, however, build and rebuild and rebuild a nest in the end of our rain gutter. Pish!)

Ah, ladybug...looking a little bedraggled, so I'm assuming Maggie got there before me.

Forellenschluss!  See, Fontie? Spotted trout lettuce is the prettiest thing in my raised beds; thank you!

Except, perhaps, the ruffly lettuce sitting beside it...that's awfully pretty, too...

Happy faced little pansies, early in the morning.

Do you remember the movie The Sound of Music?  And the song Edelweiss?

"...every morning you greet me; small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me!"

Well, these are purple, but I think they're still happy to meet me.

This was a happy accident, letting a hollyhock grow in this particular bed.  I hope to repeat it next year, because it's simply stunning, in structure and color...

What do you think?

Nasturtiums just GLOW, especially against cilantro!

Here she is, again...

Alcea, you bring a smile to my heart!

We have grasshoppers so thick that they jump in waves in front of the lawn mower.  That is not an exaggeration.  I probably won't have much left after this week, except the tiny little tomatoes that I am praying over, daily.  WHY do they stay green so eternally long? It's not easy, being green!  So turn red or yellow or purple, or whatever color I planted but can't remember.

How is YOUR garden growing?

True Confession #372

(Okay, I skipped a few.  But 370 looks so....even.  For those who are keeping track of my true confessions, this will be distressing.  As will the content of this blog to my mother-in-law....she'll just count her blessings I live 5 miles away and call ahead everytime...)

Are you ready?




(Anything that makes my mother-in-law want to call ahead everytime she drives by my house has GOT to be shocking, don't you think?)

(It's not.  She's easily horrified by me.)

(And yes, she reads this blog.  And cries.)





I like to garden in my pajamas.

There. I've said it.

I don't INTEND to garden in my pajamas.  It just happens!
In the summer, I like to have my morning coffee on my deck and watch the sun rise and listen to the bulls and meadowlarks warble.  Sometimes our mama cat goes hunting and brings me something marvelous and dead, like a trophy meadow vole. That adds excitement, especially when the other cats find out.  But I digress...

I can't sit still long.  And the thought occurs to me, "Perhaps I'll wander over to the herb bed and see if there are any chives for eggs this morning."

Sure enough, there are chives.  But I notice the pansies I planted there are looking a bit droopy and their little heads are bending, sadly.  No one can bear a sad pansy, especially not the person who planted them with promises to love and care for them until the first frost! So I wander over to fill my big aluminum watering can, after abject apologies to the neglected plants with the assurance that I'll try harder.  (Usually, a cat lays on them while I'm apologizing, adding serious injury to insult.)

By the water hydrant, there are always errant plants....like YARROW....that are invisible during the broad daylight while I weed.  In the soft morning light, they almost charm me, but then I remember their relentless march into the lawn with intent to vanquish the grass and I handily yank them out. 

One shouldn't waste flowers...even weedy ones...and this prompts me to think I'll start a bouquet for the table.  I can't use the watering can to store them, because obviously that is in use. I remember an old jar in the garden shed and potter off that direction in the dewy grass, pausing to roll up my pajama bottoms on the way. 

At this point, I KNOW some of you are thinking, "Why doesn't she just go back inside and get dressed?" or even "Why doesn't she get dressed before going outdoors to have coffee?" 

If you are one of those people, you probably don't understand that once one is dressed, gardening is work.

By the garden shed is a bed that is sad, sad, sad.  I cover my eyes as I pass, trying not to look at it squarely.  I'm not prepared to apologize to THOSE plants quite yet.  But in the garden shed itself, I usually find whatever it was that I was after (despite my husband's despair over my organizational method) and bonus treasures, too!

A left-over seed packet with 3 scarlet runner beans in it! I can't have random seeds lying around, without a home, so I gleefully rub my hands together thinking of the perfect spot.

(I now have a my coffee cup and it's cold contents, the half full watering can, a couple stalks of yarrow, an old jar and a seed packet. Good thing my pajama top has a pocket, huh?) Off to plant the runner beans by the garden gate.  Where I find that odd petunia from the greenhouse that didn't really fit in anywhere. Except there's a pot on the deck that's looking sorta empty....

And so it goes.  This all takes place before 6 a.m., and it's the most fun I have all day. (Which is a sad commentary on my life, really.)

By the time the rest of the family wakes up to turn up their noses at the eggs 'n' chives, I've mended relationships with most of the annuals, made outrageous claims to the crowded perennials, cautioned a tree I call the Wart that it's really and truly his last year again if he doesn't shape up, found a toad for Maggie and scattered seeds all over. 

All in my pajamas. 

She DID it!

I can't believe she did it. The Fontologist planted yarrow seeds, despite (and maybe because of) the dire warnings! And then posted a comment on the Friends Don't Let Friends Plant Yarrow post. Can you BELIEVE that?!!! Go read it for yourself. I'm so horrified!

I've been out in the beds, cleaning out dead foliage and seeking signs of greenage. I have plants for give-away. If you want iris, ribbon grass, sidelcea, tarragon, chives, blue fescue, salvia....bring a box and you can have a bunch. And I'll throw in some yarrow, too, if you dare! Every year I give away plants, my friends suspiciously poke in the piles and ask, " Is this one yarrow? No? How about this one?" They are getting smarter about free plants.

And I've been reading Lauren Springer Ogden, once again. She's my gardening guru, horticultural heroine, revered plantswoman. Her Undaunted Garden book is the one with the pages stuck together by drool, and little sticky note markers and underlined passages. Barbara Damrosch was the garden writer I cut my teeth on, and she also commands a lot of respect in my house. Rob Proctor, who co-authored a book with Lauren, is just plain fun, and I'm not sure he's still with Denver Botanical Gardens, but if he is, and I get there, I'm getting his autograph.

Well, I'd better go dump the Kawasaki Mule and shed her, and get some pea and lettuce seeds in the ground before the moisture hits.

She planted yarrow. And I thought we were going to be such good friends....

Friends Don't Let Friends Plant Yarrow!

(Mugshot of the offending plant)

That's right. At least in my book. This post is in response to the hilarious comment left by Lori on my last post. There was a frantic tone, in her comment, and I wanted to address the issue right away, so she would be able to burn the yarrow seed with peace of mind.


I was suckered into Achillea millefolium by the assurance that it was easy to grow. So easy, in fact, that even beginning gardeners with no experience whatsoever can get it to prosper and flourish! (I now know that if that sort of description is attached to a plant, it indicates a weed. Really. Because if even a fool can grow it, which you would have to be to choose this plant, that means it can grow itself.)


And it looks SO pretty, with feathery leaves, strong stalks and teeny little blossoms all bunched together in a nice little bouquet! Under that innocent facade is a plant that spreads by shallow mats of roots, copious amounts of seeds and will root in any old teaspoon of dirt or gravel. It has taken over my flower beds, despite digging it out every year as completely as I can, cutting off the heads of the survivors before it goes to seed and gingerly spraying it with white vinegar.


I have nightmares that it will slip into the house, some night, while I'm sleeping, and attach itself to the dust.


My friend, J---, who used to sell it to me, cheap, along with the other plants, told me later that it had taken over in her yard too! That was sweet justice, to me, but we made a pact to tell every one not to plant it, henceforth. Friends don't let friends plant yarrow.


I indoctrinate all my beginning gardener friends, then the next spring, offer them "divisions" of the stuff. That's how I know if they are really listening to my advice. If they accept the yarrow, with the iris tubers and the chrysanthemum divisions, I lose all respect for them, and dont try to help them further. They will be calling in a few years, whining about the creeping crud, invading their posie patch and yard. And I will certainly empathise with them, then tell them to pass the word.


Friends don't let friends plant yarrow. You've been warned! Take heed. If it grows that enthusiastically and vigorously in Eastern Montana, where the soil is clay, the water is alkaline, the temperatures range from 100+ degrees in the summer to -40 degrees in the winter, you know it's bad stuff.

Green fingers, brown knees, red face...

My virtual friend, Michelle the Fontologist, had a great post this morning, about gardening. I'd include a link, if I had a clue as to how to do that, but you can look her up on my side-bar of friends and family. I've been studiously avoiding the topic of gardening because, well, it's hard to write about it without getting tears in my eyes when there was snow in April, here! You have to get down on your hands and knees, with your nose 2 cm from the dirt to find anything green on the prairie or in my flower beds. I did that, this afternoon, and found the bravest columbine sprigs! (Or, for Anne, Aquilegia vulgaris) So now I can write about it.

Do you garden? And by gardening, I don't mean just vegetables and useful plants. I mean, do you grow ANYTHING, in a can, a boot, a well-composted bed, sandy knoll, gumbo hole? Do you cultivate?

AND (to me, this is the more interesting question) why do you garden?

So, here's my story. (Yeah, you were just waiting for the big reveal, weren't you? I hate to disappoint followers, so here you have it.)

I really didn't have much to do with gardening or flowers growing up, because we had wicked gumbo ground, alkali water and my mom wasn't all that interested in growing things, I guess. I'm not sure. With those conditions, it had to be discouraging. We did little vegetable gardens, but didn't have a lot of success.

I had a boyfriend whose mother had the most glorious yard and garden, in North Dakota, on the Missouri River, and that was the first time I ever understood that gardening could be more than just to fill the pantry with jars. She had lovely flowers, and really, really enjoyed the whole process.

When I married Wayland, we moved to the ranch after about 9 months, just up the road from my mother-in-law and the Cohagen Botanical Gardens (my title, not hers). It was intimidating, to say the least. AND on top of that, we moved into a little trailer house on a prairie hill. With no existing yard. No native trees. No old homestead flowers. It was the pasture! We didn't have a fence!

My first stab at growing something was a black feed tub with petunias planted in it. My puppy, Molly, dug it up and I cried. The next try was to plant sunflowers in a circle around a birdbath, sitting by the house on prairie ground....which, as I write about it, probably looked pretty funny! Only two sunflowers grew, and not even big enough to flower. One day, when the guys were here building the fence, my father-in-law handed me one of the sad, sad little sunflower stalks and told me that he'd gotten the weed out of the yard. I didn't cry, but I wanted to. He felt bad, when I explained the situation, but there was no fixing it! I can't blame him, because in his yard, it WOULD have been a weed!

We ordered trees from the Conservation District. We ordered 120 trees, to plant in a windbreak. One day, my husband called me at the school I was subbing at and told me to pick up the trees on the way home. I was driving a Geo Prism at the time, and I informed him there was no way to get that many trees! I'd go back with the pickup. He assured me it was entirely possible. I pulled up at the fair building to get my 120 trees and loaded a black garbage bag of soggy sticks. I'm telling you, when I ordered trees, I thought I was going to get TREES! It all made sense, then, how they could sell us trees for $.98 each. I thought that was a bit much to pay for soggy sticks. The next day, we made 120 holes, planted 120 sticks, and today a strong 89 of them live. And look like trees. (I'm STILL a little in shock, over this phenomenon!)

When I put in my first flower bed, I had it all graphed, proportionately, and had spent the winter researching my perennial options. I went to the nursery, and could afford about 4 of the 50 plants that were planned. So I spent the extra $5.00 at the grocery store and bought about 5 packets of annual seeds. Little did I know that those little packets would fuel a gardening disease for which there is no cure!

My mother-in-law, sensing some desperation on my part, offered me portions of her plants. Things like iris, hardy geranium, daisies, and, because I begged, johnny-jump-ups and yarrow. Looking back, I can't believe she could keep a straight face when donating those last two, but she graciously sent them with me. My friends know, now, that yarrow is an evil plant sent from Satan, and that the only reason the johnny's are tolerated is because theirs are the first bright little faces I see in the spring and the last bright little faces I see in the fall.

Now, I garden because it's balm for my heart, and it's constantly surprising and new, and comfortingly the same. I have old friends, like the daisies and irises, and new friends, sedum and lime basil. I long ago scrapped the graph, and now plant lettuce in with the annuals, and beans with the zinnias, because I like their funny shapes and contrasts. And I like grazing as I weed. My beds are messy, and that's distressing sometimes. I forget how topsy-turvey things can get, and promise that I will, next year, more clearly define the territories. I grow sunflowers every year, in remembrance of the ones that perished at the birdbath. I grow scarlet runner beans because they are beautiful and the one annual hummingbird that flies through adores them. I grow hollyhocks from seeds I took from the Texas Tech botanic garden AND from those growing behind the old hospital.

So, do you garden? How did you get started? Why do you do it?

Seed Swap Sunday

Well, it was supposed to be Seed Swap Saturday, BUT better late than never, right? Here's what I'm going to do. I'll list the seeds I have for give-aways and the seeds I'd like to get my grubby hands on. If you see anything that interests you, leave a comment. We can email addresses, then, and I'll put the seeds in the mail on Wednesday, when I take Maggie to preschool. Also, if you leave a sticky note on the fridge door (comment), I'll put your name in a drawing for a reclining ceramic frog. He's cute, kitchsy, and small enough (5 inches) that he won't make the neighbors groan if you put him in a flower pot!

Here's what I have:

1. Super Sugar Snap peas (Doesn't that remind you of Sugar Smacks cereal?)
   
2. Blue Lake bush beans
   
3. Short n' Sweet carrots (Grows in heavy soil...mine is sandy. I think Maggie threw those in the cart last year.)
   
4. Peony poppies
   
5. Cosmos
   
6. Zinnias
   
7. Sugar Sprint peas
   
8. Ruby Queen corn
   

Here's what I'd like:

1. Sweet peas (Do you think I've been buying the wrong kind of peas?)


2. Forellenschuss lettuce


3. Pinapple tomatillo


4. Four o'clocks


5. Anything that is vine-y and annual...but NOT morning glories! (That's for Eric Miller...)
   

And, if you have any compost tips, I could use them. It's always too wet, too dry, too green, too brown, too fluffy...never steaming and black. That's my goal and I'm failing miserably.