Floored.

There's no grout yet, and the floors of the foyer, dining room, and laundry room are yet to be done to match, but here's the new kitchen floor:


We think the porcelain does a great impression of wood.

Had a great time not being near a computer all day the last two days. We'll see if I repeat the feat tomorrow. Lovely niece and I have been making progress on wedding-related decisions. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you. It's great girly fun we're having here.

Rapid subject shift: Backyard farm report. The three of us split Unintentional Cantaloupe #1 this evening, and it was quite good. UC#2 fell off the vine this morning, looking near-perfect, so it's in the fridge now. (The seeds must've come from last year's compost, because we didn't plant any. And dang if they aren't working out better than they did last year, when we tried to grow them on purpose and the birds kept eating them.)

Farm report: Current totals

Corn: 12 ears harvested (That's more than last year's total yield; unlike last year, ants haven't shown up... yet.)

Cucumbers: 15 harvested (topped out at 20 last year, when The Blight hit)

Squash: 7 harvested, including these three:


As you can see, one was hiding from us under some leaves and got a little too big (click to enlarge the photo if you want to see actual size). We plan to cook it up tomorrow night and see if it affected the taste/texture.

Under produce watch:
A surprise cantaloupe vine has emerged (likely from the compost we made last fall). We originally thought it was a misplaced cucumber, but now it's sporting a 2-inch proto-melon.

Under odd critters watch:

We found this guy (or girl) on a cucumber vine this evening. I suspect he's a pest, and am blaming him for some wilted leaves. Am I on target, anyone?

Farm report and hodgepodge

- We harvested 2 ears of corn yesterday. Might eat them tomorrow.

- Gave in and planted new okra seeds.

- At last count, 13 marigolds have sprouted in cups.

Now, for the hodgepodge:

- Somebody I know got engaged, and I can't say who yet.

- Somebody else I know is planning stuff, and I can't say who yet.

- It's quite possible that another somebody else would see that last statement and think I meant him or her, when I actually mean someone completely different. There's lots happening out there, ya know.

- I'm busy on The Alpha's birthday this year, and not because it's his birthday.

- I'm hosting my small group meeting in the morning, so I'd better get to bed.

Farm Report '09: The Preview Interview

I'm finished with Annual Conference #2. Time for something non-churchy.

You know, I've interviewed a dog or two on this blog, but don't know that I've interviewed anyone with opposable thumbs here. (FYI: Blogger's spell check feature does not recognize "opposable." Or the possessive of "Blogger," for that matter.) So, here's a Q&A with The Alpha, prompted by the tableau pictured here:


Q: Just to get readers up to speed, we've heard that marigolds help repel bunnies from gardens. And we agreed to plant some marigolds, not just to repel bunnies from the garden, but also to try to keep them out of our whole back yard, where they have a history of getting eaten.

A: Yep.

Q: So you bought 3 seed packets and some soil, and paper cups.

A: Yep.

Q: When I came home, you were planting. We wondered where to keep the paper cups while giving the seeds time to sprout without dog interference. Hence, the windowsill. What other research did you do?

A: Research? I just started sticking dirt in cups and seeds in dirt.

Q: Oh. Okay... So how's the other stuff going?

A: What other stuff?

Q: The crops.

A: Oh, we're about to have squash. We're starting to get some little bitty baby pickles. Some of the corn's gonna be ready to harvest in a few days; some of the silks are getting dry. So pretty soon we'll have some somethin'.

Q: No further word on the okra?

A: There has not been okra one. I don't think you can keep those seeds more than a year. I'm sure we could buy new seeds, plant two, and get more okra than we could eat.

Q: Well, thanks for gardening.

A: Okay... you're welcome? All I've done is stick seeds in the ground and pour water on them.

Q: That's more than I've done.

Surprise Farm Report

So, back in June we had proto-cantaloupes. And then we had bacterial wilt. First, it took out the cucumbers, then it made its way over into the neighboring bed and ruined the melon patch. (And before that, a squirrel took part in some under-ripe chomping action, too, which didn't help matters.)

Lately we'd been noticing some growth in the melon patch, but we didn't really want to look at it too hard, lest it get our hopes up again. Cantaloupe seeds remained the only thing we'd planted that hadn't yielded anything edible.

Then, this evening... we noticed that something had gone from greenish to whitish. And The Alpha bent over it to have a closer look and said, "They say when it's ripe, it'll just gently pull right off the stem."

Like that.

Because it did.

Here it is:


(Sorry I didn't include anything to show the scale, but think in terms of a really big grapefruit, and you're almost there.)

We'll probably wait until Wednesday or so, but it certainly seems ready to eat.

Forgetting to check on the okra...

...is a Bad Thing.

We now have a case of Okra Madness.


(Dinner fork and The Boy included in the frame to illustrate scale.)

Okra Madness includes Teh Itching from forearms to fingertips.

LOTS of Teh Itching.

Have already washed hands twice. Need to go to work soon, and not be itching when I do.

Ladies who are coming over tonight: Forget ordering pizza. We are having okra.

Harvest update, window dog, and saying no

Whoo-hoo! New camera! No more pink streaks through our photos.

Yesterday, we had a first in our gardening: we picked some tomatoes before they got eaten by birds or squirrels (we're not sure which, but they've gotten several).


And today, another first: Beans! See, we took some beans from our bag of dried beans that we use to make black bean burritos, and we put them in the ground, and we already have more beans than we put in the ground!


We just let 'em dry on the vine, then shelled them for storage. So far we have something like 30 beans. Not much, no, but we aren't finished yet. This is way too exciting. Farmers everywhere would get a good laugh out of the likes of us.


You may have noticed the okra. It's now officially old news. I'm glad The Alpha has finally developed a taste for the stuff, because it's plentiful. I saw ants on one of the plants today, though. Ants... on... plants... not good. Last time, they stole our corn.

And we're not even going to talk about the cantaloupe catastrophe. No, we aren't. Instead, here's a nice early-morning picture of The Boy at his post in the dining room:



He's a good 'un. On tonight's walk, he was actually complimented for his good behavior -- twice -- and for his good looks, too.

In a completely random change of subject, I've been thinking lately about how hard it is to say no to the good things that come your way at the wrong time, or just when there's no room in your life. (Mid-Life Rookie? Will Smama? Thanks for putting the situation into words.) But I'm learning to do it.

In fact, I just took a break from writing this post and sent the e-mail declining to serve on a committee that I really would've enjoyed -- if I actually had the time to show up for it. A few months ago, similar situation: I declined to serve as chairperson of another group I work with. And just a couple of months ago, I declined something exciting but unbloggable. And you know what? Life is still good after having said no.

I'm just sayin'.

Lesson in okra management

(For the first six or so years of my life, I thought it was "okrie." That's how Memaw always said it. And she always cooked a "mess" of it. And she grew it in her front yard, down by the corner stop sign, and nobody thought anything of it. Besides, she was the neighborhood association.)

We only have a few okra plants, so I'm not sure we will get a full mess of okrie out of our garden. But we did learn today that, with our tightly-packed planting area, you can miss some things until after they've grown past the right size for picking. Case in point:


According to our nifty little book and the back of the seed packet, this one is about the right size for harvesting. But that wasn't the one we saw that got us started picking. It was this one:

This one, it turns out, is a little bigger than recommended. We could've picked it a few days ago, but it got ahead of us.

And then there's the one we didn't see until we really started rooting around the stalks between the tomato plants. We wonder how on earth we missed something this big:


According to our limited knowledge, this one is past its peak and likely to be tough. We wonder if they mean that for the people who boil okra, not for people like us who plan to cut it up, shake it in cornmeal, and pan-fry it.

No, these three do not constitute a mess of any kind. That is, unless you squish them up and get the slime all over you.

Tonight's supper

What you see here: slices of two yellow squash. Squash that grew here in our backyard. In suburbia.

We dunked the slices in egg, then in flour and seasoning, then pan-fried them. This, Internet, is the absolute best way to have squash. The Alpha, normally not a squash fan, ate his full share of this batch. (My grandmother might've called it "a mess of squash" rather than a batch, but we might not have had enough to qualify as a "mess." It was plenty for just the two of us, though.)

Also note the wooden fork being used to turn the squash, which was carved by my father-in-law. Nifty, eh? He does spoons, too. We keep telling him to start working craft shows, but he won't do it.

We may only be on a fifth of an acre, but we're trying to live closer to what little land is available. And this evening, the results were yummy.

Of gardens and gone-ness

I like squash. It's crunchy when raw, delightful when thinly-sliced, lightly-floured and pan-fried, and we are growing some in our backyard. Moreover, The Alpha doesn't particularly like them, so he only had one bite of Squash One, pictured below with Cucumber Two:

(If you click for the larger image, they're pretty close to Actual Size.)

I ate Squash One raw, sliced up and sprinkled with a little bit of Greek seasoning (no, not made with actual Greeks). Now I have a tummy ache. I hope it's just my body freaking out because I ate something so fresh and good for me. This reaction hasn't happened with the cukes, though, and they fit the same two categories, don't they?

Seems that our squash yield won't be quite match the stuff of legend. Most of the plants aren't doing too well. We may have another squash to harvest tomorrow or Thursday, but after that it'll be a while. The good news: the cukes appear to be gearing up for some serious bounty. So much so that The Alpha might attempt pickling a few.

They are the pickling variety, but not because we planned to pickle them. It's because they're the kind my mother used to grow, and thus the kind I like to eat -- chilled, peeled, and sliced in half lengthwise with just a dash of salt on top.

Today it's been exactly two decades since my mother died. Some years, it's a tough day. Hasn't been so bad this time. I realize there's no way I'd have a garden in my backyard if it weren't for The Alpha -- it's his project. But it still helps me feel a connection to my mother, whose plants all followed her to the earth (the rest of us aren't so green-thumbed). I faintly remember my dad bringing some of the last produce from her last garden back to cook at my grandmother's, his mother's, house (I never went back to our little house myself, using my supposed tender age to my advantage and letting adults clean out the temporary dwelling that was supposed to be allergy-free and make her well, but didn't). I think I at least helped with eating it. I think there was eggplant, which we would have sliced up and fried like yellow squash. And probably tomatoes. Because there were always tomatoes. I had not yet acquired a taste for them at twelve, though.

But now we have tiny little green tomatoes on huge plants that I didn't realize would be five feet tall. And when they turn red, if the bugs don't get them first, I'll help eat them. And then later we hope we'll get to really enjoy that cantaloupe (if it didn't get cross-pollinated and decide to taste like a cucumber... the cucumbers don't taste like cantaloupes, so that's something!). And then okra. And maybe beans, if they ever flippin' DO anything... meanwhile, The Alpha is already considering expansion for next year... root vegetables.

So, I don't really know where I'm going with this post. I'm just sayin'.

Weekend assortment

• Yesterday seemed a little too hot to have really high-quality time at the dog park. Angus and new buddy Frodo did have fun though, and rode well in the car together. Next time we'll just skip the drive and let them play here. Better climate control, and lower chance of stepping in poop.
• That cucumber? It got bigger. It got picked. And it got eaten. And lo, it was crispy and yummy.
• Sang a Trout Fishing In America song in church today.
• Going on a worship field trip this afternoon. With most of the band coming along.
• In the middle of a true crime novel that includes several people I know in real life. Surreal is putting it mildly.
• Had a sanctioned graffiti session on the bare floor of our under-construction sanctuary.
• Saw two German Shepherds being walked. Still miss my girl.
  
• Said "no" to an offer of ice cream yesterday. Yes, I'm feeling okay.
• Don't think I would say "no" today. Waiting for my opportunity.
  

Pitfalls of pretending to farm

Sometimes you get more disappointed than expected when the corn is finished, and half of it got ruined by stupid ants who ate corn that wasn't theirs, and this worm:


While we are normally not advocates of capital punishment, we did try offering the worm to The Boy to eat. After a tasting that resulted in the demise of the worm, he ultimately declined. (I suppose I should point out for new readers that The Boy is one canis familiaris, not a humanoid. He licks himself. He swallows bunnies whole. Eating a worm is not really much of a stretch.)

Not all is lost, though. We did have perhaps half a dozen good cobs of corn (have eaten four so far, and some more await in the fridge), and look what we spied this afternoon:

A cantaloupe-to-be:


A cucumber (which The Alpha says is all prickly! maybe that will keep the pests away):


Two ProtoMatoes:


And here's one of several currently teeny squash!

(If you have any tricks for keeping bugs from eating all of these goodies, let us know in the comments. We're new at this.)

That concludes the Farm Report. Back to you, Internet.

Corn harvest update

Tonight was our second night of eating corn from our own garden (click for close-up):


And yes, it was yummy again!

Today was also when we got our first big gardening disappointment. See this pretty, pretty ear of corn?


Looks pretty sweet, doesn't it? You could really enjoy getting stuff stuck between your teeth if you were feasting on corn such as this fine specimen.

Except...

...look at the other side of it.


Ants did this. ANTS. They ate the shuck, then got all into the kernels and ate those, too.


There's nothing in the book about how to keep ants away from your corn (we are suburbanites, not farmers). We have the anti-bunny fencing, which seems to have worked so far. (Either that, or The Boy is eating all the bunnies on their approach... and if that's the case, we just don't want to know.) We wouldn't really mind if a crow got our corn... after all, we are scarecrowless.

But tonight we were forced to take anti-ant measures. Our first tactic is to attract the ants to something else besides the corn (and that something else happens to include borax). Hopefully, this move will save the rest of our meager harvest.

And, coming next: cucumbers and squash!

Meetups and mini-farming

Just a very quick entry this morning... Zorra asked if there were pictures from this weekend's meetup; no, there aren't, but we did have a nice time! Missed having Mary Beth here, though.

One fellow RevGal blogger who shall remain anonymous went out for a look at our garden, and confirmed that yes, some of the corn was nearly ready to harvest. And yesterday, The Alpha harvested two cobs and cooked them for supper! We ate corn that we grew! Here in suburbia! And it tasted great!

I'm sure we'll harvest another couple of cobs for supper today. I'll try to remember to photograph the momentous event.

Inch by inch, row by row...

After 8 years of living in the same place, we finally decided to try to grow some food. You know, so we will be self-sustaining in the event of having to hunker down after a zombie invasion or some such.

Well, mostly The Alpha is the one trying to grow some food. I try to stay out of the way, as I do not seem to have inherited my mother's nurturing way with plants.

See our corn stalks? And our corn silk? You may have to click for the larger image to see the corn silk. (I didn't know silk showed up before the ears.) And our bean plants below the corn?

Here are the tomato plants.

Here are some cucumber and okra plants. I'm glad I remember which seeds went where, or it'd all be a surprise to me when stuff starts producing.

And here are the cantaloupe plants. Which look an awful lot like cucumber plants. And not just to me -- I've been told they look that way to bees, too. And that the bees will cross-pollinate our cucumbers with our cantaloupes, and we could wind up with cukealoupes. Or cantacumbers. We'll let the Internet know if that happens.

Also note the presence of The Boy, whose tail made a special appearance in the above photograph.

Re: this post's title, there are those in the band who hate "The Garden Song" (chief among them our drummer, who really doesn't get to do very much on that selection). But around here, we love it. Especially this version: