In the Garden…April

daphne on May 7, 2010

April 12, and our previously perky sprouts have called it quits.

All but that one little guy, who I think is an eggplant. Our over-zealous watering took out not only our nice handwritten signs, but much of our crop as well.

At least the tomatoes are still hanging in there —

Outside things are moving right along.  The snap peas are winning.  I think it’s their super-cool au natural trellis that keeps them reaching for the stars.

The rhubarb rules–

The garlic is doing great.

I overheard at the garden store that garlic and raspberries are a recommended pairing.  Maybe that’s why both these guys are going strong.  I love the look of these early raspberry leaves.

It seems I might have had some slight miscalculations when plotting out our square foot garden, and now I can’t be sure if this square is carrots or onions.  I had been 99% sure it was carrots, until these sprouts poked through —

They do not look like the frilly tops that I associate with carrots.  Any chance they are onions?

Noooooo! Not My Squash

daphne on September 8, 2009

The same deluge that’s been teasing out the ragweed and the thistles in miserable numbers has been working wonders on our garden.  Instead of popping out with one of two nuggets of goodness, vines are bursting forth in clusters of fruitfulness.  I should be pleased. I should be grateful.  But I’m sulking.

Sure, the tomatoes are tantalizing

And yes, the raspberries are remarkable,

And I suppose we are enjoying the piles of purple potatoes,

But it’s not enough.  Remember Big Bertha?  That feminine nugget on which I pinned all my butternut hopes and dreams?

She is no more.  She was my lone female, and now she’s gone before the bees even had a chance to do their business.  It’s not good.  There comes a time in every woman’s life where she has to draw the line.  She has to say Enough is Enough.  That time, my friends, has come.

Incensed, I marched inside and called the extension program over at Colorado State University and left a message about the peculiar gender trends taking place in my back yard.  Surely there is a PhD student out there just waiting to tackle my plight, restore balance to my backyard, and write an award-winning thesis to boot.

Surprisingly, no student was readily available, so I spoke instead to a master gardener.  Now perhaps under other circumstances she’s a decent human being.  But good intentioned or not, she had the audacity to suggest that perhaps my soil was nitrogen-heavy.  Or phosphorous-light.   She doesn’t even know us and here she casually insinuating that my garden has a chemical imbalance?  Pah-lease.  At least she didn’t second the opinion of her colleague, the scientist who gently offered that some squash, not necessarily mine, but some do show hermaphroditic tendencies when they get toward their terminus.  Really? You want to go there, do you?

It was hard to hear at first, but I am nothing if not a caring and nurturing mother gardener.  And so I will ship off a sample of my sweet innocent, albeit potentially imbalanced, soil.  I’ll send it out there into the science world to be judged.  I will do whatever my baby needs to be make it in this cold, dark, mean world.  Especially if that means my garden is happy.

Because if my garden is happy, then I am happy.  Mmmm, I am just about as hungry happy as a clam with a mouthful of my favorite butternut squash pasta. Have you tried this ambrosia of a dinner yet?  It is time. It’s delicious. It’s easy.  It’s wonderful.  And if the squash gods aren’t shining down on you, it’s ok.   Someone, somewhere is having success growing the gourds.  Pick one up at the farm stand.  It’s even, gulp, worth a trip to the market.

Shortbread Cake with Peaches and Raspberries

daphne on August 27, 2009

I adapted this recipe from the Stone Fruit Tea Cake recipe in Gourmet magazine (because raspberries make it taste better, and my name sounds yummier.)

Ingredients–

  • 2 cups diced and peeled peaches (about 2 large peaches)
  • ½ cup raspberries
  • 2 ¼ cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 Tbls vanilla extract
  • 1 Tbls turbinado sugar (optional)

1. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

2. Cream sugar and butter for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.

4. Add flour mixture and stir until just combined in a sticky dough.

5. Wrap in plastic wrap and smoosh down into a 1 inch disk. Freeze dough for ½ hour.

6. Preheat oven to 375°. Butter a round baking pan.

7. Divide dough in half. Spread one half the dough evenly on the bottom of the pan. Spread the fruit over the dough. Break the rest of the dough into 4-5 inch pieces and place on top of the fruit (they will spread and mash together.)

8. Sprinkle turbinado sugar across the top.  This is optional–it is not needed for taste since the cake is sweet enough, but it does add a little glitz and sparkle to the top of the cake, you know, if you’re serving it to princesses.

9.   Bake 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool a little before serving.

Footloose and Sneezy-free

daphne on August 22, 2009

Thank you to all for the plethora of suggestions on how to beat the seasonal snotties.  I take it you were not impressed with my plan of barring the doors and windows and never venturing forth into polite company again?

Worries over me becoming a hermit are groundless.  Why just today I strolled out through the door and into my garden.  I made it almost 5 minutes before the allergens launched their merciless attack.  And despite the onslaught I lasted another half hour past that, long enough to photograph the progress of the garden.  Because, yippee, we are making progress.

Not only have the cucumbers finally gone co-ed, but they’ve been (getting) busy.  They are not big, they are not ready, but they are going to be tasty. . .if they reach their teens before the first frost. (Note, objects taken at extreme close-up may actually be just a tiny fraction of apparent size.)

Not quite as far along socially are the squash vines.  Still, credit where credit is due–they too are showing signs of leaving bachelorhood behind.  Here, without further ado, is our first female flower.

Allow me to introduce you to Big Bertha, our beautiful butternut babe-to-be.  I am expecting big things from her, assuming some studly male steps up and does his duty.

I am impressed by the perseverance of the rainbow chard.  I had given it up as gone to the bugs when we returned home to find the leaves holey and frail; but when I trimmed them back new growth sprung forth.  Looks like the cucumbers may have someone to play with after all (you know, on my salad plate.)

The raspberries are numerous and ripening fast–

Ahh, and the tomatoes.  The tomatoes are hanging heavy.  Really heavy.

Is it wrong to think that it might be time for my produce to get a bra?


Welcome to the Jungle

daphne on August 10, 2009

We put in some time in the garden this weekend, and I think I finally understand those people who think slapping bugs and pulling weeds is relaxing.  It was delightful. I sat myself down in the wet dirt and wrestled with the overgrown jungle in our backyard.  There was no traffic concerning me.  I didn’t have to worry about finding a smoke-free room with two beds somewhere on the safe side of some random town.  After weeks out on the open road it was terrific to be hemmed in by strawberries plants in the midst of staging a coup to overtake the yard and towering 6 foot high raspberry bushes.

Also standing strong was the rhubarb.  Back in June, as we were getting ready to leave town, I judged it done and planted squash right on top.  But clearly I was premature in writing off the rhubarb–

Before I get all puffed up about the glorious successes in our garden, I admit one major disappointment.  Though the vines of the pumpkin, the squash and the cucumbers are gorgeous thick twists heavy with flowers, I worry that when push comes to grow, they will not produce.  NO FEMALE FLOWERS.  AGAIN. Now, I like hanging with guys as much as the next sorority girl, but I’m begging for a nice nerdy science guy out there somewhere willing to explain why inside the house I make all girls, but outside the house it’s one bachelor party after another.  Please?

At least I have some producers to appease me while I ponder the infinite questions of vegetable sex.  Our tomatoes did just fine without us.

Even the rainbow chard that I thought would never show poked it’s head up.  In our absence the bugs had a feast, but at least I can feel good knowing that the little critters received a healthy dose of vitamin-rich antioxidants.

We got potatoes! These truly were the easiest things to grow.  I stuck one rotten looking spud in the ground, cruised around the nation for a couple of months, and Wham! Bam!  French Fries Ma’am!

And finally, after 7 weeks of gifting our CSA share to the happy, healthy Redfern family, we finally got our hands on some local, farm-fresh veggies

We started with the eggplant. According to Dave, a self-acclaimed afficienado, the eggplant parmesan I made that night was the best he’s ever eaten.  I take full credit, gracefully.  Though real credit is probably due to the fact that the eggplant was the freshest we’ve ever had.  Freshly-picked eggplant–ours was picked 24 hours beforehand–is much sweeter and holds far less water.  The less water in the eggplant, the less of a bitter aftertaste.)

Rain clouds, rhubarb and cowboy boots

daphne on June 7, 2009

On the plus side, the unexpected plethora of water falling from the sky has turned our arid yard into a backyard jungle.  It’s just been a bit unfortunate for my little swimmers, who have been turning blue with cold while dodging thunderstorms at practice.  Acadia addressed the issue by pairing her swim suit with cowboy boots. That girl isn’t just trendy, she’s practical as well.

Sure it’s muddy and chilly, but oh how the garden does grow.  Check out this rhubarb plant from the Cretaceous period–

It’s not really prehistoric, but I do think it was sizing up my children for its lunch.

That Brontosaurus rhubarb plant isn’t one of mine.  We admired it in the yard of artist Tiffany Koehn, who gave us a personal tutorial on glass blowing.  She makes gorgeous jewelry and lamps in outrageous colors like these–

She let the kids pick out colored glass to create their own charms,

and even gave them each a chance to take the blow torch for a spin.  No, Mom, I’m kidding. Tiffany kept a firm grasp on the torch while we watched from a safe distance.

Meanwhile, back at our ranch yard, the potatoes have been eagerly soaking up all the rain.

I can’t imagine what’s doing beneath the dirt, but a few more days of precipitation and we’ll be climbing those potato stalks to a castle in the sky.  Not far behind are the strawberries, which are still rock hard and green, but crazy plentiful this year.

I have told them that we’ll be hitting the road soon and I expect ripened berries within the week. Likewise with the raspberries, which are all abuzz with bees but remain curled up in small green nubs.  They also seem determined to ignore my schedule and start ripening just about the time we load up the car.

Come on garden.  I’m not asking for much.  Just a taste of your sweet fruit before we leave town, and a little bit of respect for my schedule.


Roly-poly pavilion now open!

daphne on May 13, 2009

On Saturday morning, while I was busy disengaging the wild raspberries from the strawberry patch and moving weeds to make room for rainbow chard seeds, my daughters had more pressing matters at hand.  The pine needle roof of the fairy home, constructed specifically to allow for shade and breezes, had blown over. At least now we had our answer as to what was keeping the winged nymphs from moving in.

The girls set right to work…but you know contractors.  No sooner had they promised to address the structural issues that had befallen the fairies then another job demanded their attention:  the roly-polies had arrived, and they needed a pavilion. Stat.

Ahhh the roly-poly, characterized by an ability to roll into a ball when disturbed.  Not that I am criticizing.  After all, I’ve got access to happy hour.  Who’s to say that without that half-priced vodka tonic I wouldn’t be curled up in a ball myself?

The girls whiled away the afternoon, attending to the myriad needs of the bugs of our backyard.  Girls will be girls, you know.  And for my girls, even the smallest moth deserves healthcare with respect. Which explains Kira’s rage at her father, who, as she reported to me during my absence, “refused to call an entomologist,” despite her beloved moth’s “near-death state.”

I know. I can hardly believe I’m married to such a cold-hearted snake.  Refused his children the right to see an entomologist?  What kind of monster indeed?

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s my fault for setting the bar too high when I phoned in for back-up from the Humane Society to help out with that baby bird last year.

Or maybe Daddies just don’t understand the special bond between a girl and her moth.

Changes in altitude, plenty of attitude

daphne on March 23, 2009

This weekend brought not only the first day of a spring break full of sassy pre-pre-teen attitude, but also the first day of spring.  Eternal optimist that I’m known to be, I chose to focus on welcoming the new season, and not on the emotional trip that is repetitive eye-rolling.  I’m a glass half full kind of gal that way.  Anyway, first day of spring…picnic time, right?  Well, that’s pretty much what we did. Only we did it slope-side.

Because one of the key benefits of waiting until mid-March to hit the slopes for the first time is the beautiful sunshiny weather.  And really, with skies so blue and trees so green the dark brown stink eye from my eight-year old pretty much just rolled right off my back.

Once we sat out the time-outs and got the group up the mountain, there really were no complaints from the happy campers.  At least during the second and a half that it took to snap this picture.

Even old grouchy eyes set her attitude aside for a little while.  Long enough to flash me this smile on the chairlift.

With smiles all around we thought it best to call it quits on the early side, get out before things got ugly.   Theoretically that is.  We actually called it quits when they sank down into the mashed potato-like late season snow and couldn’t muster the power to get back up.  The whiny sirens of tired children rang out across the mountain-tops, and we packed it in.

Which got us back home with plenty of time to hit the yard and get down to work.  We raked and snipped and watered and cut back the beautiful dried grasses so that now everything looks pretty awful.  Dried out and shriveled up and just waiting.  Brown ugly springtime.  Well, except for the rhubarb.  I know rhubarb and I have our history, but I really have come to love this stuff.  It’s predictable. It’s tasty.  And up it pops, no matter what—

The raspberries are putting out their buds too.  It is interesting that even as I renew my pledge to pay more attention to the healthy vegetables in my life, it is the sweet dessert ingredients that never fail me. They require nothing, and they deliver year after year insisting only that I promise to eat my dessert.

And that’s a promise I’m willing to make.

Pick a peck of pumpkins

daphne on November 10, 2008

Disclosure: I don’t know how all those bloggers out there stay on top of things. I write the stuff down, really I do, but then there were election results to check 157 times a day (phew, anyone else happy that that’s behind us?) There’s the laundry to swap out, and then it’s time for swim lessons and dinner, and well, here I am weeks later and that brilliant piece o’ literature I prepared is all yellowed and crinkly.

So for this post I’m going to take you back, back a few weeks when the weather was still on the fence and I was feeling crabby about the sunshiny threat of an eternal summer. Back when the innocent days of early October beckoned our family to the pumpkin farm…

I was thinking pumpkins and spiced cider, but the wishy-washy weather felt differently, rearing its sunny head to the delight of the raspberries and other evil pollen producers that extended my sneezy season well beyond the limits of what a rational person should have to bear.

Lovely, yeah; sweet, sure. Everything coming up floral; frankly, I’m over it. Hello? Ice and snow? I’m bumping up against the legal limits for Sudafed purchases here.

Still, the unseasonable warmth did provide a nice opportunity to hit the pumpkin patch unburdened by heavy coats and muddy boots. The corn maze was high and the wheat was a’waving as we met up with Uncle David and cousin Felix to pick a perfect gourd, or five.

The children frolicked in the corn and fed some chickens. And occasionally gave in to mom’s irritating requests for pictures.

We came. We picked. Maybe we whined a little bit but that’s only because it was really hot and the hay was poking through the flip flops and come on when is it going to be time for lunch? You know, pumpkin patch perfection.

After all, Acadia found this guy, and he kept her pretty busy.

Still life with Squash

daphne on October 24, 2008

Beautiful right? Like something you’d see hanging in a Parisian museum between a reclining nude and gaggle of ballerinas.  Just don’t look too closely or you’ll notice for sure the wine glass towering above the tiny squashlings. Shortly after I snapped this shot I downed the glass of wine.  I wasn’t exactly drowning sorrows, but I felt plenty bad that all of my hard work and eager anticipation was for naught.  Especially given my active involvement in squash reproduction back in the heat of the summer.  Well, upon serious consideration it looks like next year’s sex 101 will take place early in the spring. I’ll just clear the March snow from the garden and get to work, that’s all. Seems there’s credence after all to those birds and bees getting busy already by April and May.

Here’s the harvest from today, the thing that’s got my panties in a twist.

There you see my squash babes, some barely larger than a berry, growth halted and flesh withered from a day that began at close to 20 degrees and despite a blazing Colorado never heated up.  The berries could care less.  The squash, (and my toes) have called it a season.

As I am relatively new to the greenish thumb club there is something I don’t understand.  How is it that the raspberries are still going strong long after the time to toss them into a crisp has past? Why are my fledgling squash floundering just as the time comes for their ultimate sacrifice in autumn soup or my favorite pasta?

And of course, the age old question returns with gusto: how in the world will I keep my toes warm until flip flop season comes back?