funnystrange.com

This evening we had our first zucchini from the garden! Four small ones turned out to be just the right amount, when Georg sauteed them with onions and mushrooms and peppers. They say that when you grow zucchini, you should always try to pick them small. Otherwise you end up inundated with humongous zucchini, foisting them off on people and so forth.

The zucchini plants have some pests. Not the evil squash beetles yet; it's cucumber beetles, which are smaller and apparently not as destructive. I mixed up some Neem oil and sprayed them. After we picked the ones we ate, of course! I saw the beetles hiding in the mulch so I sprayed the mulch good too. I hope it helps.

We've been hearing the owls a lot lately, and tonight was no exception. It always makes me happy to hear the owls. They've been moving around a lot from the sound of it. I suppose they're hunting & that's why we hear them from all over.

Tonight after dinner we did see something unusual: a deer! We heard Jane barking again, and our first thought was, oh crap, the snake again. We went outside and saw that she was standing at the fence looking out, which suggested it probably wasn't the snake. It's pretty dark out here at night, but there is one street light, and we could just make out the deer, standing in the middle of the yard a couple of houses over. At first I thought, "hey, did they put in a deer statue without our noticing?" They already have a fake mini wishing well so a deer statue wouldn't be a surprise. But then the deer moved its head and we knew it was a real deer.

There wasn't much more to the interaction. We stood there watching the deer, the deer stod there watching us. Eventually we went inside and the deer took off. At least now we know what's been eating the tops off our sedum down by the road.

All in all I think this has been the best day ever for Jane. First a snake, then a ride in the car, then the snake again, and then a deer! What a day! Then again, as the Onion reminds us, best days aren't that hard to come by for a dog.

This morning we met our newest neighbor: a 5 foot long black rat snake. I know what you're thinking, people always overestimate the length of snakes. Well, this guy helpfully stretched out next to a concrete block wall, allowing us to measure him with fair accuracy.

When we first saw the snake, his whole body was crinkled up in this weird pattern. That actually made him easy to identify. He lay perfectly still while we stood there trying to figure out what to do. Then Georg went inside to research the snake, and I walked around to the other side of the garden. At which point the snake disappeared. Kind of freaked me out, until I saw his tail disappear into a watering can. It must have looked like the perfect hiding place for a snake.

Black rat snakes aren't venomous and only bite when they think they're being attacked. Still, we put heavy jeans and shoes on just in case. We got a large clean trash can with a lid, scooped the watering can inside, and slapped on the lid. Then carried it over to the empty lot behind the house and dumped it over the side. Poor snake! He fell partway out of the can but he didn't move. I brought Jane over to the fence near the snake, to try and scare him into heading the other way when he was finally ready to travel.

I had a few errands to run and it wasn't that hot, so I took the dogs with me. We had only been home for a little while when we heard Jane barking again. Sure enough, that danged snake was back!

This time we had a plan to put him in the trash can, drive to the Eno park (about a mile up the road) and release him. There must be plenty of wildlife in the park for him to eat. We spent a little time trying to coax him into the other watering can, when he suddenly decided he was tired of us and slithered off into a hole in the retaining wall between our yard and the next.

I guess that must be his home. He went straight to it, so he must have known the spot. Once I got over my horror at the sheer size of the beastie, I had to admit that the black rat snake is actually not a bad snake to have around: a non-aggressive, non-venomous snake who eats rodents. And we've got a lot of those.

My only concern is that Jane may try to play with him and get bitten. We discovered the snake in the first place because Jane was barking at it in her "Hey! Pay attention to me!" voice. However, we're willing to live and let live if he'll stay out of Jane's way. Which I hope he'll want to do after today. Poor snake. I feel kind of bad for him. He must have been scared.

It was kind of neat to watch him watching us: while he was hiding in the can, every once in a while his head would peep out, spot us, and sink back in. Then later, when he was lying by the wall, I watched him scope the scene: he'd hear us and get all crinkled up, then when we were still he'd wait a few minutes, stick his tongue out a few times, then gradually relax his body and start moving. Then someone would make noise (usually Jane) and he'd freeze and crinkle up again. I read online that the crinkling is a response to stress.

I forgot to mention that Jane really impressed me today. When we saw her barking at the snake, we only had to call her once and she immediately came to us. How many dogs would abandon a live animal right in front of them, on the first command? Well okay, a super well trained dog definitely would. But Jane never even finished beginner obedience classes. And she still minded us without any complaint or hesitation today. We spent several hours dealing with that snake, and never had a single problem with Jane. She is the best dog! (I suppose Thirteen is even better, since she spent the entire incident sleeping inside and never even saw the snake.)

Famed mail order nursery Bluestone Perennials is having an end-of-the-season 50% sale on everything until June 1! The prices are outstanding: packs of 3 perennials for $6 - $7. I didn't go crazy, but I did order a few things. Mostly blue and white flowers, which we're trying to get more of in the garden.

It's kind of getting late in the season for planting perennials, especially little mail order perennials. I think we might just  stick them into a bare spot in the vegetable garden where they'll get regular irrigation. Maybe even leave them in their pots and sink the whole pots into the veg beds. Then in the fall we can find permanent homes for them in the flower garden.

I have to plug the Durham Garden Center on Hillsborough Road. Georg heard a radio ad for them, and we went out today. It was great! A really nice selection with excellent prices. It's not as big as the plant section of a big box store, but way more of their stock is the kind of plants I like. They had some things I had never seen before, like pink verbena-on-a-stick.

They also sell pots -- not that many but again, mostly in styles that I like. They even have rough dishes and troughs made of a course concrete mix, like hypertufa (although I don't think it actually was hypertufa). Really pretty! I'm going to look around the yard and see if we have a good place for one of those. And they have a small indoor shop with organic fertilizers and pesticides.

I'm so happy to find a good nursery with good prices that's 5 minutes away instead of 45 minutes. Since they're so close, we didn't have to load up like we would at the farmers market. We got a few things: two packs of gazanias (which I think are among the cutest annuals out there, and I don't understand why they aren't as popular as petunias or marigolds), a pack of white-and-green shade annuals for the new bed, an african daisy with really interesting spoon-shaped petals, an ice plant with yellow flowers, a "ham and eggs" lantana, a peach verbena and a hardy geranium.

In the fine tradition of directions that make no sense to anyone but me: take Hillsborough as if you were coming to my house, but instead of turning onto Cole Mill, keep going. Go past the part where Hillsborough runs parallel to I-85, past the transmission shop that was so nice to me a few years ago, and it's on the right, just past the office of the persnickety plumber who redid our bathroom. If you get to Sparger you've gone too far.

Yesterday we went to the big open house at Plants Delight. It was great fun, as usual. The best part is their extensive garden, where you can see how the plants look massed together, and in combination with other plants.

We only bought a few things, that we haven't seen anyplace else: a hardy fuschia (wow!), a bright blue hardy geranium, a spreading ground-cover-ish perennial called fringed campion silene, a crazy-cool phlomis with a tall stem and a series of yellow pom-poms of flowers, and best of all, a cross between hardy amaryllis and crinum lily called amarcrinum.

Today we finished adding soil to the new bed, which is looking nice if I do say so myself. The zinnia seedlings are starting to come up and we're slowly filling it in with other plants. The big thrill of the day was that Georg put a drip irrigation system in the vegetable garden. Yay! While he was doing that I planted everything we had bought yesterday. I didn't want the amarcrinum to suffer the same fate as our hardy amaryllis (eaten by voles! Heartbreaking!) so I made a wire cage to plant it in. It was kind of a pain to clip all those wires, and I tried to do a good job of folding all the cut edges in so no one in future will accidently cut themselves digging in that spot. I accidently made it way too big, but what the heck, now the amarcrinum has lots of room to grow. At Plants Delight they had an amazing clump of hardy amaryllis. I can dream that someday our amarcrinum will be like that.

ps: I almost forgot: we have a tomato! One tiny little green Early Girl tomato. Today at lunch we had a salad with mint, green onion and sugar snap peas from our garden. I have to say, just-picked sugar snaps are a revelation. Almost a different vegetable. It's like the first time you eat a home-grown tomato. I think it's partly because they're so fresh, and partly because we're picking them younger than the ones you get at the store. My only regret about the sugar snaps is that we didn't plant more! Each plant doesn't make that many peas. We might only get one or two more meals out of them. Next year I'd like to plant two or even three times as many.

It's been 2 months since the new roses were planted, and today Georg and I took a gander to see how they were doing. It's been raining so much that we haven't needed to water them, and so I hadn't taken a close look at them in a couple of weeks.

Mme. Alfred Carriere: Dead, dead, dead. Our one major rose failure. My fault entirely. I had ordered 5 from Ashdown, and they shipped four in one box and one -- this one -- in a small box by itself. The other four kept themselves moist enough, but Mme. Alfred Carriere dried out more by itself. I didn't realize this, or didn't realize how important it was. I watered them all at the same rate, which wasn't enough for poor Mme. Alfred Carriere.
      By the time I realized what was going on it had died back mostly. But three little shoots of new growth showed up, and I thought it was going to be okay. Then we had that hard freeze over Easter. All the new growth froze off, and it's been dead as a doornail ever since. Alas!

Crepescule: Has bloomed several times already, with three more buds ready to open and several more tiny buds. It has lots of new growth, seems to be growing fuller rather than throwing out long canes. It will get more sun when it grows taller, though it seems to be doing fine now. A touch of powdery mildew, nothing to worry about.

Colonial White (Sombreuil): The smallest of the roses that survived, it's doing well. Has two new canes up. May not flower this year, but that's okay!

Awakening: Looks great. Growing fast, sending out lots of sturdy canes. Only problem is, they're growing straight up. We want them to hang down and cover that slope. No big deal, we can peg it -- bend the cane down and attach it to a peg in the ground. In fact I should do that soon. I hear it's easier to do when the canes are young and still flexible. It has one big bud that will open soon.

Reve D'or: I think this one is doing best of all the Ashdown roses. Growing fast, in just the shape we want, has bloomed several times. I need to weed around it though. I'm going to try and do that tomorrow.

Secret Garden Musk Climber: These two came from Roses Unlimited and were planted much later (one a month ago, one only two weeks ago). They both look fine and are starting to send out new growth. Though of course they haven't had time to establish as well as the others. No flower buds yet. I've read that you're supposed to pinch off the flowers in the first year, so they put all their energy into root growth. Yeah right! I couldn't stand to do that.

Cutting: Two weeks ago I knocked a small branchlet off one of the Secret Garden Musk Climbers, and tried to root it. It's supposed to take two to three weeks, and I think it is starting to take root. It doesn't look at all wilted, and when I gently tugged on it, there was resistance. If it hadn't rooted, I guess it would have pulled right out. My only concern is that the leaves are turning yellow. Maybe it needs more light? Tomorrow I'll move it into a spot that gets some direct sun.

Mystery Rose: Cleaning up some debris on the sunny side of the house, we found a mystery rose growing against the wall. It must have been there all along, and I don't think it's ever bloomed. The plant looks healthy though. I'm going to give it this year and see what it does. If it doesn't bloom, or we don't like the flowers, we'll dig it out this fall. (The rose people call that "shovel pruning.")

I finished the path! Fourteen bags of mulch in all.

The hardest part was moving Tiki Man. He weighs 180 pounds and I probably should have waited for Georg. I just really wanted to do it myself. I had a hand cart -- which we found in the shed a couple of weeks ago! We have no idea where it came from or how long it's been in there. Maybe it came with the house? Anyway, good thing we didn't buy one.

The hardest part actually was when Tiki Man tipped over and I had to lift him up. Well no, the really hardest part was when he tipped over the second time. I almost gave up then. But I got him upright, wiggled him into place and then stuffed more dirt under one side so he would stand up straight. I think maybe I should plant something in front of him. Maybe nasturtiums.

The Massive Archiving Project is done, at least the copying phase. My friend Joe's duplication equipment made things go about 4 times faster. The burn time is about the same as my computer, but my computer only has one drive. Not having to rip to the hard drive, then burn onto a blank doubled the speed. Plus Joe has two duplicators, doubling the speed again. I spent about 11 hours over there last week! I hope I didn't wear out my welcome.

Next we have to make labels. Which might turn out to be even more time-consuming of a job. Because I am a perfectionist who isn't happy with the labels iTunes prints, oh no. We can't do anything the sensible way. (Well, we did the duplication the sensible way. But not the labels. Definitely not.) I have a label template set up in Quark Xpress that I really like, and I'm trying to figure out how to import label information from iTunes into my Quark template. My main problem with the iTunes labels is that they lack key information, like composer, featured artist (i.e. if it's a duet with a guest singer), and label (i.e. Capitol or Decca. Too many uses of the word "label" in that sentence).

Today I was tired after all that copying yesterday, so I only did a little yardwork. Put in a few eggplants and a purple verbena, and made a path from the sidewalk to the vegetable garden. Well, I didn't get the path finished because I ran out of mulch. I always drastically underestimate the amount of mulch I'm going to need. If I think I've got way too much, I'll run out. And if I think I've got it just right (as I did today), I've got less than half what I need.

So I weeded the path -- this was the hard part, digging out those hateful vines -- laid down landscape fabric, and put down the mulch I had. This evening Georg got more mulch, which I'll put down tomorrow. It will be a nice path when it's done, I hope!

For dinner we made a sort of hash, with leftover chicken and fresh vegetables. Including an onion from the garden, and the rest of the spinach. It was all bolting so we pulled it all out and cooked it. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. We'll plant it again in the fall and hopefully we'll get a couple of months out of it again.

I was reading an article somewhere -- it doesn't matter where, somebody runs this same article every spring -- about how everyone wants to grow vegetables and then people inevitably realize that with all the money and labor they sink into the garden, they are growing tomatoes that cost $5 each or what have you. I think that, first of all, equations like that are meaningless because few people grow food crops to save money. A suburban gardener isn't a small farmer; they're doing it for fun! Just like the reason I make clothes: so I can have exactly what I want that fits me right, and because I like sewing. That's pretty much exactly why I grow vegetables. So I can have unusual varieties, that taste good and fresh, and because it's fun.

Secondly, those appalling cost analyses of your home-grown produce are only that appalling in the first year. When you add up buying soil, the lumber for your raised beds, tools, tomato cages, fertilizer, etc etc etc ... yeah, you're spending an awful lot of money and you haven't even bought your plants yet. Not to mention the backbreaking work of creating the beds.

But the costs -- both in money and labor -- drop enormously in subsequent years. (And I also think the harvest gets better as you gain experience, which further improves the equation.) This year we spent ... well about $3.50 on compost to add to the beds, and how much on seeds and plants? Probably about $20 total. No, wait, I splurged on those fancy-pants fingerling potatoes. Let's say $30. I think that's a fair investment for as much as we're getting.

I got so wrapped up in the bolting spinach problem that I forgot about today's garden work. Well, this morning we planted the last rose out front by the road. Again this meant a lot of bed preparation. Mostly weeding. I had to use the mattock because the roots of those weeds are so entrenched.

When the rose was in we went to work on a new bed at the end of that bank. When we tilled up there a couple of years ago, and planted all the dayllilies, we just didn't go all the way to the end. And the last few feet on the end got all nasty and weedy like the whole bank used to be. Today we dug up the most aggressive weeds, covered the rest with cardboard, and piled a thick layer of soil and leaf mulch over top. It's a small area -- about 4×5' -- but it's been looking bad for a couple of years now, and I'm so glad to finally have it dealt with. In theory it should take a year for the cardboard to break down, which should be enough time to kill the weeds underneath.

While planting the rose, we accidently knocked a branch off of it. I had read that roses can be propagated from cuttings, so I figured I'd try it. It was kind of ridiculously easy. Just strip the bottom few leaves off, score the length of the stem, dip it in rooting hormone, stick it in potting soil, water and cover with a plastic bag.

My only concern is that I didn't do the rooting immediately, I spent some time reading about how to do it, and during that time the top of the cutting wilted. I read that wilted cuttings are less likely to take root, and I really hope I didn't let it go too long. I misted the cutting to try and rehydrate it. I hope that was enough!

By this point it was time for lunch --great salad at Nosh, yum -- and Divaville. After the show I went back out, sowed sunflower seeds in the new bed we made this morning, and did some more weeding. It was easier to work in the evening, much less hot. The weeds grow so fast out there! I got the weeds cleared from two of the roses, which leaves two more to do. I still want to go back into the bed and weed around the daylilies, but the critical weeding -- the part that 1. can be seen from the road, and 2. is in danger of smothering the roses -- is mostly done.

Whew! I guess we got a lot done. I didn't even mention how Georg bought a four-way splitter for the outdoor faucet and completely reorganized our hoses and soaker hoses. That is going to be so nice, to have easy access to water wherever we need it. The only place we'll still have to lug watering cans to is the roses way out front.

Another wonderfully productive weekend. We started out by emptying the shed of paint cans and old cleaning products, and taking them all to the hazardous waste collection place out by the dump. Which is free! I had no idea. I guess they make it free to encourage people to do it. If they charged, people might hide their old antifreeze cans in the regular trash or something awful like that.

Next we went to the dump. Where they had free compost! They called it "leaf mulch" though I wouldn't call it mulch. Really more of a light compost made of leaves and sticks. It did have chunks of stick in it, but very few bits of plastic trash. Which the regular compost is unfortunately rife with.

Back home we spent the afternoon planting the gardenia by friend Joe had given us. It doesn't sound like that much, but we had to start from scratch and create a new bed for it. The soil was horrible solid clay. With a scruffy old rose growing there, that had to be dug out. And the location is right under the electrical meter and breaker box, so we had to be very careful not to dig too deep and cut a line. And just in case the job wasn't enough of a pain, at some point in the past we had piled up a bunch of old bricks and concrete blocks there to get them out of the way.

So basically, we had to move a big pile of concrete, then dig a big hole in heavy clay, but carefully, carefully, then remove the clay, and then finally we could plant the gardenia. I hope it likes its new home! It's a nice sheltered location against the southwest wall of the house.

After that I took a rest during the hottest part of the day, then went back out and planted a flat of marigolds that I had bought a couple of weeks ago. We also watered, which was a good opportunity to walk around and see how everything is doing. We were pleased to see that the potatoes are starting to come up, sunflower seedlings are starting to emerge, and best of all, two sugar snaps and two tomatoes have flowers! Woo!

On the downside, the spinach is bolting. I knew it would happen when it got hot, I just hoped it wouldn't happen quite so soon. Oh well, we've had several good meals from the spinach and it looks like we'll have several more before it all goes. It creates a slight dilemma though. We had planned to plant pumpkins in that spot after the spinach was done. But we don't want to plant the pumpkins until early-mid July. I hate for that spot to go unused for two months, but what can we plant there for such a short time?

We might try greens and put a row cover over them. Shaded from full sun they might do okay. Any other suggestions?