a friend visits my garden

August 29, 2013

Today, my neighbor joined me in the Nottoway garden. Libby helped me harvest tomatoes, green beans,  and the last of the potatoes. She and I have similar ideas about harvesting techniques--she instinctively understood the importance of taste testing as one picks. This afternoon, Libby goes to her new school to meet her first grade teacher; she is thinking of giving him a potato and maybe a tomato. I told her that Mr. Armstrong will probably always remember the day that he got a potato from one of his new students.   

While there, Ginny stopped by and we had a chance to catch up. I confessed to eating some of her yellow tomatoes and green beans.

On the way back to Libby's house, we stopped by my house and she had a chance to play with Anne Marie's kitty. All in all, it was a good morning

Ms. Libby's sneaker gives some scale to the big guy on 8-29-13

all is revealed....







The mystery melon is turning ORANGE



Today, I spent a few hours at Nottoway; the mystery melon is getting larger and larger and turning orange. I think it is growing into a giant pumpkin. Everything looks fairly good-the eggplant is thriving, the tomatoes are fine, harvested several pounds of small tomatoes.

 

 

 

 Bev playing with a ping pong ball.

 

 

Beautiful tomatoes-San Marzano

 

Eggplants Palooza !

 

On Saturday, I made a quick run to the Nottoway garden since it had been a few days since I had been over. Harvested a lot of tomatoes and THREE eggplants. The mystery melon is growing and turning color. It must be a pumpkin.

While there, I saw a lady with a clip board inspecting the plots....hope we pass.

Death in the Garden

August 20, 2013

Non-dead chipmunk tomatoes

I don't know how the death occurred but I found a corpse in my garden. The striped body caught my eye as I was admiring my melon/tomato patch and really startled me. My first reaction was "danger, poisonous snake stripes"  but I realized quickly that it was one  dead chipmunk.  The good sized chippy was face down and spread eagled nestled in the base of a tomato plant. Out of respect for the dead, I do not include a picture.   Plus, I did not want to get close enough to the dead animal to take a picture.

Don't know what to do with disposal of the body because everything I can think of requires me to get close to the dead chipmunk. Because of the location of the body, disposal requires some adroit movements with a shovel or other big implement that could damage the tomato plants just as the tomatoes are looking close to eating; asking Ed to dispose of the body would probably make both of us  unhappy. Me, because the likelihood of damage, Ed because he is doing me a favor and the likelihood that I will yell at him.
 I did mention the issue of the dead chipmunk to Ed and suggested that he could help me out but he was non-responsive.

Where are the carrion eaters when one has carrion?

 

Tomatoes Galore

August 18, 2013




bean plant 8-17-13

 

Returned from Indiana, unpacked the car and headed for Nottoway. Watered and weeded and picked a ton of tomatoes. Took some pictures of the growing sprouted beans, glossy eggplant and the mystery melon. The eggplants start off as a sturdy light pink flower.

eggplant flower



 

Tom's departure

On Tuesday night, Frank, Monica and Colleen joined Tom, Ed and myself for a farewell dinner at La Dolce Vita in Fairfax. It was fun seeing everyone although sad to have to watch Tom and Colleen say goodbye.  In retrospect, it would have been better to have scheduled the dinner for Monday night. Live and learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farewell dinner at La Dolce Vita

The next morning, we left bright and early at 7am for Indiana and rolled into Bloomington about 6:30 pm. We had few stops only for gas and lunch. The drive wasn't too bad except for the PA turnpike. What a horrible road. We did run into some rush hour traffic as we approached Indianapolis. Bloomington is a cute town. We washed up and headed into town for dinner. There is a town square with lots of restaurants surrounding the courthouse. We ate at Grazie on their outside patio in the front of the restaurant. The wild mushroom ravioli was excellent.  

 

After dinner, we walked around a little but it felt cold and we didn't go very far.  The downtown is a few blocks from campus. We estimated that the downtown is about 5 blocks by 5 blocks and has lots of little shops and restaurants.
The campus is beautiful- most of the buildings are Indiana limestone and there are beautiful wooded areas, streams  and brick paths thru out campus. Lots of begonias and brightly colored flowers all over campus.

Tom's new apartment- living room



On Thursday, we were up and out early to pick up a Budget truck and drive to pick up Tom's "stuff" in Columbus, IN where the U-pack depot is located. We were back in Bloomington by 11am and had a late 2nd breakfast or early lunch at the Runcible Spoon as we waited for the rental office to open at noon. We unloaded the truck and the Subaru with a minimum of hassle. The apartment is in the middle of the first floor which required some walking but no stairs.

After getting everything unloaded, Tom and Ed took the truck back to Budget as I put stuff away in the bathroom and kitchen. I meandered over to the Kroger and picked up a few things. By the time Ed and Tom returned, we all decided to call it quits and for a while. After a nap and some rest time, we picked up Tom at the apartment and went to an middle Eastern restaurant  (Turkish?)  and had a delicious dinner in an outside patio that was very inviting- lots of vines and white lights draped over arbors. After a quick trip to a Bed Bath and Beyond for some "stuff", we dropped Tom off at his apartment. 

Friday morning, Ed and I packed up our gear and went over to Tom's place and helped move some recycling stuff and were finished by 11 am. We left for home  having decided to drive until we stopped. We ended up in Washington PA. Good to be home on Saturday.   

 

Bridge over a little creek in the middle of campus

Tom in the middle of campus

 

 

Some of the flowers on IU's campus August 2013 

 

 

 

Pizza





homemade pizza with homegrown tomatoes



Pizza dough from Whole Foods + Goat and Parmesan Cheese+ freshly picked tomatoes and basil sprinkled with olive oil and sea salt and freshly ground pepper = it was delicious. 

 

 

 

Monday August 12th

Today's harvest: an onion, tomatoes, and green beans .

After dropping Ed off at the Metro this morning, I made a visit to my wonderful garden at Nottoway. I do love being there.

I gathered up some tomatoes and watered the transplanted coneflowers, Stella d'oro lilies, sweet potato slips, and yellow and red peppers as well as the sprouted green bean seedlings and the newly sown lettuce (red sails), carrot seeds and green beans seeds that I planted on Saturday. Of course, I had to  admire the girth of the HUGE mystery melon. I think Ginny may be right about it being a pumpkin. Next time, I'll take a picture of it.

Flowers from home garden: better to pick them than have the deer eat them. there are phlox, black eyed Susan, and pink coneflowers. I love having flowers in the house.

August 3rd

Eggplant, one of Ginny's heirloom tomatoes, some garlic and the last of the onionsl

Stopped by the garden on the way home from brunch at the Johnson's house. The gladiolas, Stella d'oro day lilies  and  the coneflowers that I transplanted looked pretty limp. I had not watered because I was sure rain was on its way. However, no rain; Ed and I gathered some tomatoes and admired the melons, which seems to grow in girth every time I see them, even if its only a five minute from one glance to the next. The eggplants look marvelous but I did not have a knife to cut the stem, which is so thick that I am afraid to try to snap it and accidently uproot the entire plant.

Last night we had a good rain and I am eager to see if the cool weather and the rain have revived the transplants. Hope so.

Today I focused on my backyard and weeded for several hours. Collected several large bags/containers of debris. It was pretty weedy out there. I tried to tie up the volunteer tomato plants behind the azalea  bushes but ended up just uprooting them. I hope that removing the debris will reduce the number of mosquitoes. It looks a lot better without all those pesky violets. Tomorrow, I'd like to move some hostas and those green snake plant look-alike plants. They have flourished in the shady backyard. Unfortunately, the holly bush by the fence is getting so big that the hosta and the green spikey plants are getting buried.   I trimmed up the holly but need to move about 6 plants while the weather is still cool. Rain on the horizon on Tuesday.

I want to visit the Nottoway garden tomorrow and continue to clean up the beds, harvest the tomatoes and the eggplant, and plant some more seeds in addition to the radish and green beans. However, Anne Marie is coming up for a visit and I need to get the Subi from the repair shop and get to DMV to have Corolla  title lien released since it needs to be in AMDW's name.

Next week, I really need to buy some mulch and get some more cardboard to freshen up the garden paths.  

August 2, 2013

Italian Almond Tart : recipe from Williams Sonoma

The best laid plans often go astray. Meant to go to the Nottoway garden but ran out of time. However made a delicious Italian Almond Tart. Recipe is as follows:

pie crust


     Mix 1 1/2 cups of flour with 1/2  cup of butter  and 1/4 cup of sugar & 1/4 tsp salt   

     combine until looks like "rough cornmeal"
     add a mixture of 1 egg yolk . 1/2 TBSP of Vanilla, and 2 TBPS icy cold water -
     chill 30 minutes and roll out to 9 inch tart pan.
     Bake with pie weights about 20 minutes until not "wet".
Filling: With electric mixer
      - cream 1/2  cup butter
         add can of almond paste mix until smooth.
         add 1/3 cup of sugar  and two eggs- 1 at a time.
         Stir in 1/3 cup of flour.
 Put it together
     Spread 1/3 cup of raspberry jam in bottom of baked pie shell,
     add butter mixture
     sprinkle with sliced almonds.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.

We like it for dessert or for a breakfast sweet.

August 1, 2013

Potatoes harvested this morning

The original potatoes that these potatoes grew from had started to sprout this spring. Rather than throwing them into the compost heap, I planted them at Nottoway. This is the second year in a row I have managed to salvage potatoes from death row.

  It is lots of fun digging up potatoes; as Anne Marie said its like an Easter egg hunt with potatoes. When I dig up potatoes, I always feel as if there are lots of little potatoes lurking under ground that I missed. I think I need to "Hill" the potatoes so that they are easier to find. Next year!

I spent about two hours at Nottoway this morning. I cleaned up some of the beds by harvesting the potatoes and onions.

 After cleaning up some of the beds, I transplanted some Stella D'Oro lilies from home to the outside corner of the  Nottoway garden. At home, as soon as the Stella D'Oros bloom, the deer chow down on the flowers. Am tired of feeding the deer. I also transplanted some coneflowers from home. The walk I took with Anne Marie on Tuesday made me feel like a "Martha" -all work and no fun- because I realized I didn't have one flowering plant in the garden. So today, I added some plants that should provide some pink and yellow to the plot. I put them on the outside perimeter so people could enjoy them.

I also planted some Kentucky Wonder green beans in the outside beds so they could use the fence and the sunflowers to climb. I also planted some red Giant radishes in three rows in the large bed on the left. They should be ready in thirty days so I guess I'll plant some more next Thursday, and the following Thursday etc so that I'll have radishes ready to harvest for the month of September. Also planted a  few giant sunflower seeds along the fence line. The package said it  flowers in 90 days which would be the end of  October. Hopefully, these seeds will be productive- I'd like to harvest the seeds for the birds this winter. The sunflowers I planted in the spring were all decapitated. A little mysterious that only one from the spring  actually set seeds.