Hush Little Mama, Don't You Cry...

Sometimes you can't ignore symbolic occurrences. Sometimes they are so blatant it is eerie. Using some input from readers, I learned that my birds were Mockingbirds. The thought of Mockingbirds in my garden was so sweet and fitting as I used to sing, Hush Little Baby to Jeffrey and Carly to help them fall asleep.  I paid close attention to my bird babies for days marking their growth in my mind and always curious as to when I'd find them missing while busily preparing for my son's graduation and noticing his growth and signs of strength. I beamed with pride when my baby soared across the stage preening his feathers clutching his diploma with pride dripping from his exaggerated smile.

Hush Little Mama, Don't you Cry...

The day of Jeffrey's graduation party, I was excited to share the Mockingbirds with anyone who cared or perhaps had been reading this blog. Nature's gift struck again when I discovered the babies left their nest sometime that morning. The nest was empty. Empty nest. Need I say more? The abrupt symbolism hit me over the head like a brick. You can't avoid that. Mother Nature was surely sending me an astounding message. Mother Mockingbird was okay with her babies taking off and I was to be okay with mine. Okay. I get it. Loud and clear.

It's amazing what happens if you are paying attention. Its not always easy to pay attention while traveling at the speed we all do. I am grateful that I did catch those precious moments in my garden this Spring.


Moving along...
Last night we got back from Santa Monica, the end of three weeks of non-stop adventure with family and friends which began around Jeffrey's High School graduation. I spent two hours watering the garden. It was like visiting an old friend and finding out how they've grown and what challenges they've had to face. I watered plants dead-heading where necessary, admired flowers or the beginning of fruit,  harvested my first zuchinnis, trimmed back leaves filled with aphids or eaten by snails and admired the tremendous growth that occurred all over the place. That's why I love gardening. Things are continually changing. Its always a feast for the eyes.

Gardening Notes:

- My tomatoes are large. The Yellow Pear is towering over the cage already and I am pruning it back generously this year. 

- Aphids took over a few of my Chard plants so I trimmed them way back and gave them a power wash hoping that new growth will be unaffected. 

- The grapes look fantastic. They are nearing marble size and plentiful. I am fantasizing an amazing photo opportunity this Fall. 

- My strawberries weren't watered well enough during my absences and the whole pot is dried out. It's okay. I can't expect that there won't be some death during the last three weeks. 

- The hydrangeas are out of control beautiful. They're getting close to the ones I marvel at on Long Island. 

- My mint barrel was taken over by Lemon Verbena, which obviously seeded itself from last years plants I have since pulled out. I learned this the hard way when I announced to a large party that we were going to make Mojitos with my Mint, only to find that the pot was filled with something that resembled mint, but didn't taste like it. Oops...

-The worms seem to be doing well. They are still moving around in there and that's all I can really report. So far, I don't see anything even close to a material I'd put in my garden. 

- I carefully placed the Mockingbird nest in the corner of one bed as a Memorial to my experience this Spring. The three peppers that are close to the nest were covered in bird poop. Do you suppose? 

I had to bathe them carefully to remove all the white spots on the leaves. 

Beautiful Cookbook: 

My mother-in-law bought me a gift while she was here. We were at Chateau St. Jean  (our favorite winery together) and I was admiring a cookbook. She said, "Let me buy this for you". Typically, I would never say, "Okay" as that feels like it exceeds the limits of what is appropriate. However, this time, I heard myself enthusiastically say "Okay" and I grabbed the cookbook. Its beautiful, informative and very, very fun to read. It's called,  ad hoc at home, by Thomas Keller. 

A Few Recipes:

Lots of people have favorite Pesto Recipes. This is mine. It was given to me by Tish, the woman I mentioned in an earlier blog who grew a very large garden on our property when I was growing up.
The e-mailed recipe is dated 9/27/2000.  I've used it ever since.

Pesto Dressing A La Tish

1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed

1/2 cup fresh parsley

2 cloves garlic minced

1/2 tsp each salt and sugar

2 T Pine Nuts

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

2/3 cups extra virgin olive oil

Put Basil and Parsley in cuisinart and mince well. Add minced garlic, salt, sugar, pine nuts - pulse to combine. Add vinegar and cheese - pulse to combine. Add the olive oil very slowly as the cuisinart is running so the dressing thickens. You can double this recipe easily. It keeps well in the refrigerator for a long time. I also freeze it in ice cube trays to use after basil season. Tish says, "Use it on everything!"

First off, Red Chard is such a beautiful leaf. I just harvested a bunch of it with some lemons and the first of the zucchini. I can't help but step back and admire the basket for a bit before I take everything in to wash and eat. It's the Martha Stewart in me.

The following recipe is from a gal I knew when I lived in Mill Valley. She has recently published a cookbook called, Get Naked Fast!  I've been making Diana's Favorite Green Juice Cleanse since I bought the book and I love it. So far, I haven't convinced anyone to love it as much as me, perhaps because they are afraid of drinking vegetables.  If you have a juicer and you're into experimenting, try this recipe. To me, it tastes like V-8 without the sodium. I could almost add vodka, but then I couldn't take the wrath that would follow. Not to mention, it would defeat the purpose of the drink. Diana's message is: "No Dairy, No Wheat, No Sugar, No Meat, No Caffeine and No Alcohol". I can adhere to most of that, most of the time. Okay, some of the time...

Diana's Favorite Green Juice Cleanse

3 cucumbers

2 bunches of celery

1 bunch parsley

1 bunch rainbow chard (I use my Red Chard)

3 green apples

3 lemons ( I don't put a lemon in my juicer, so I just squeeze the juice of one lemon)

2 fennel bulbs 

Do not remove any parts of the vegetable or fruit. Push all the ingredients through the juicer. This fresh juice will last 2 days in the refrigerator. (I've kept mine for three).

Makes 4 quarts

It's officially summer. Things are supposed to slow down. So far, my summer has been anything but slow. I am hoping for a change in energy soon. Until then, I will enjoy the clear blue sky that blankets everything. I love that color. Another nod to Mother Nature.
I hope she follows my baby to Colorado.

It's Anyone's Guess

It's perplexing how a snail would know how to time his venture. Have you ever spent the time to actually watch how slow a snail moves? It should have been the Snail and the Tortoise, but the tortoise beat out the snail when the artists thought about book sales.  A snail has to time it's venture from some awesome hiding place all the way up the side of my vegetable boxes, into the dirt, then up the stem of a plant, out onto the leaf, EAT and then do the whole trip in reverse BEFORE the sun comes up again. That is a long distance to travel at such a slow pace. Maybe the little mollusks rev-up their motors in the evening. Several times I have gone out in the dark with a flashlight to examine the progress they are making. I rarely get to see them en-route, but I often do find them enjoying the rewards of their journey. I imagine that when they see me coming with the flashlight, they are saying, "Are you kidding me? I just got all the way up this box and now you're here?" No, I am not the smasher-type. I don't step on them and twist my ankle to grind them in the dirt like some people I know. I usually just pick them up and heftily toss them over the fence to my neighbor's open field and smirk thinking how long its going to take them to get back over the fence and  into the box. And, seriously, they must have one helluva headache after that landing, not to mention the beyond repair crack in their mollusky shell.


And then this is what I learned... I read that if you toss them over the fence, they will most likely find their way back AND if their shells are broken, the crack is able to heal over and they survive. You are SUPPOSED to crush them into the soil as they add back nutrients. Who woulda thought? Furthermore, the best method of reducing your snail population is by hand-picking them late at night or very early in the morning while things may still be covered with dew. That's right people, hand-picking! How many can we catch in a night? I have resorted to hand-picking and a sprinkling of Sluggo every now and then, when I am distraught because my entire bean seedling is gone and their silvery trail leaves its evidence singing naaa-naaa na naaa-naaa.  Pam Peirce believes that Sluggo will eventually be considered an organic method as its ingredients are not harmful to the environment. For further information from Golden Gate Gardener on snails, Sluggo and snail hunting, read here.

It's time to venture through the Trellis. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you will notice the beautiful pink and purple flowers towering over the left side of the trellis. Make note of them, and read on...


As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, I am a tidy gardener when it comes to my vegetable beds. At least at the start of the season. Eventually, I will learn to year-round garden which would mean I'd have to tolerate a large, often yellowing, drying-out plant ending its career next to a beautiful newly planted seedling yearning for the sun. Someday I will be able to do that, but today I am going to show you all four tidy beds and their darling little ingredients. 


Ladies and Gentlemen, Bed Number One:

In this bed you will find Golden Wax Bush Beans, Red Chard, Arugula, Basil Fino Verde, Early Sunshine Yellow Pepper, Ancho Poblano Pepper, Spanish Spice Pepper, Pimiento de Padron Pepper. The peppers  are now staked like the one that you can see in the picture. It's possible that the peppers will shade the Chard eventually, but we will see. The far left corner has one Black Beauty Eggplant.

Bed Number Two is the Tomato Bed. In this bed you'll find Red Siberian from Carla, San Maranzo from Carla, Yellow Pear, Early Girl and one of Liane's Tomatoes (see "The Tomato, the Mother of the Summer Garden posting for the story). 

Bed Number Three is primarily lettuces right now. I've got Green Leaf lettuce, Bib lettuce and Collard Greens. The Fanfare Cucumbers are at the far end of the bed too shaded for you to actually see them in this picture. They will grow up on lattices that are currently holding up the tail-end of the Sweet Peas. Oh, wait till I tell you my pea story. There is a  Yellow Baby Watermelon (new to my repertoire) in the front right corner that will eventually consume all the salad green's space - about when it gets too hot for lettuces anyway. 

Bed Number Four has Bull's Blood Beets (nice name, eh?), Arugula, two more tomatoes, one, Green Zebra from Love Apple Farm and another of Liane's Special tomatoes. There is a Summer Squash in the forefront, which will overtake half the bed as it matures. And three Sweet Basil plants. I will add more Basil in a couple of weeks to stagger the   production. And check out the Green Seedless Grapes on the fence! I just planted them last year and they've really taken off. 

The view of all four together. Notice the piece of wood propping something up on the left box. Now read on...

AGGRAVATION TO ADMIRATION: I planted my Sweet Peas with all the other winter vegetables. For some reason, I can't find the little plastic label that comes in the seedling pack. The one that gives you planting information. The one that some people leave right next to the plant just to drive me absolutely crazy. Why would you adorn this beautiful, organic, colorful plant with a piece of white plastic? Anyway, as I was saying, I planted the Pea, it was slow to grow, THEN it started to flower profusely with out-of-this-world pinks and purples. I even took a picture of myself in front of the thing - something I rarely do.  THEN, it started to smell wonderful. So wonderful. I kept thinking I should pick those flowers and bring that smell inside. All the while, I was wondering where in the hell is the pea? THEN it came! Flat and hairy! Flat and hairy, people. What in the world? So aggravated! I think I  somehow planted an ornamental pea and not having the little plastic thing, I couldn't confirm my hunch. Well, more than a hunch because who is going eat hairy, flat peas? THEN, I decide its time to take the Sweet Pea down. Its a gardening embarrassment. It is taking up valuable real estate and its using my lattices needed for the cucumbers pretty soon. I start to hack up the plant, vigorously peeling it off the lattice, it starts to fall over and... STOP! There is a spectacular nest in there with two adorable little, light blue and black spotted eggs. OMG! I have babies. Just like that, I am responsible for the life of two birds. I stop in my tracks, admire these eggs and wonder, "now what?".  I decide that I can't possibly tear down Mother Bird's work (And no, these are not the crow's eggs. I honestly may have felt differently). I can tell she has put in numerous hours making this nest. She even found a piece of my paper towel and brought it back to her nest. Ahhh, and to think that my used paper towel will comfort my new babies. So Jeff and I carefully reconstructed the now bramble of a pea and drove support stakes into the soil so won't fall over and break the eggs.

We were worried that our human scent may deter Mother Bird, but Jeff saw her fly out of the nest! She is back. She is being a good Mother Bird to my two new babies. Am I going to actually see these little darlings all hatched? Or is a raccoon going to find them for breakfast? Or, are they too exposed to the elements now and they are going to fry? Oh geez, I didn't just say that. Fried eggs. No, I didn't mean that. I will keep you in the loop of the many goings-on out there. Its anyone's guess. 

Gardening Tip: Always keep those annoying plastic labels. OR, make sure to write down the exact names of everything you plant. This year, I am keeping the labels in a plastic bag. I just shove them all in there and include a piece of paper that reads, "Summer 2010". It doesn't seem like you really need to do it, until you can't remember what in the heck you planted! And believe me, that WILL happen. 

Garden Gossip:  Word has it that 1000 Redworms are being delivered to my house tomorrow. Next week's posting will feature the Worm Box and the Worm Delivery. I bet you can't wait.