In Other News....

I have an unusually long blog to-do list!  Finish posting about our Lake Louise trip, post pictures from Christmas, take photos of Clara's crocheted blanket and show it to you, and, er, give the blog a true makeover.  It's all taking a backseat for at least a week, because our computer has gotten to the point where it's not all that reliable anymore.

Yes, our dear old MacBook Pro is an ancient seven years old and is feeling its age.  It freezes and does crazy things more and more often, the fan is about to die, and there's a crack in the frame around the screen that's getting bigger and bigger.  It will tolerate light activity, but whenever I start opening large files (like photos) and working with several at once while simultaneously working online, I am loudly informed by Mr. MacBook that all is not well.  So we finally took the plunge and ordered a new computer.  Until we get it, I plan not to mess with all that photo business.

In the meantime, I'll share with you one of my afternoon projects for today: planning my garden!

I just realized yesterday that I need to get started planting my tomatoes if I want to have the seedlings in the ground by Valentine's Day or just after (which is pretty freeze-safe here in Houston).  Some of my larger tomatoes took for...e...ver to develop and ripen last year (I'm talking to you, Brandywine and Cherokee Purple), so I want to get them started as early as possible.

Today, I pulled out all my seeds, sorted out the ones I want to replant, and went online to rareseeds.org and southernexposure.com to order a few new items I want to try.  Here's what's going in my main garden bed, alongside the driveway:

• Herbs (basil, oregano, chives, etc.) and green onions.
• Zucchini (possibly a type with solid rather than hollow vines to discourage pests)
• Cayenne peppers
• Marigolds--as far as I can tell, they did a good job of repelling insects last year

And tomatoes, of course!  My specialty!

• Cherokee Purple (even though the squirrels got some and they took forever to ripen, they truly were remarkably delicious)
• Pink Brandywine
• Yellow Brandywine
• Hungarian Italian Paste - or perhaps a Black Cherry - depends on how much space I have
• Yellow Bell, which is a yellow paste tomato.  How fun would it be to make yellow marinara?
• Red Currant (tiny but prolific)
• Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherries
• Blueberry Tomatoes (they are actually blue!)

And, if Nathan is very, very nice and installs raised beds and trellises all along our back fence, I'm going to go wild with vining veggies and melons!

• Running Conch Cowpeas
• Purple Hull Peas (maybe)
• Butterbeans
• Christmas Butterbeans (called so because they are speckled with red)
• Kentucky Wonder Beans
• Bush Slicer Cucumber (which is not a bush plant at all but vines like crazy)
• Lemon Cucumbers
• Mexican Sour Gherkins, which are the cutest vegetable ever because they look like tiny watermelons
• Watermelons
• Ananas D'Amerique A Chair Verte Melon (Thomas Jefferson grew these, and the reviews are stellar)

So that's the plan.  I hope it bears fruit! ;)

Minty

Early this fall, I took a couple of cuttings from my mint plant and rooted them.  It is just the perfect variety of mint for mint iced tea, and I didn't want to have to find just the right variety again next spring (yes, that's me at the store going from herb to herb, tasting tiny pieces of leaves) when I could just keep my own alive and replant it.

My little cutting has grown into this (yay!):

In October, while Nathan was out of town on business, I roped my dad into helping me with a major landscaping project.  Our front flower beds were horrendous, mostly because nothing would grow well because of poor soil (lots and lots and lots of clay).  So Dad and I rented a tiller and bought truckloads of compost and mulch (literally--"truckloads," plural).  And we spent all four hours of our tiller rental doing serious manual labor.  In the rain.  Truly, the last time I worked that hard was when I was actually in labor.  We--and the driveway--were covered in mud by the end of it all.  It was major.  In a nutshell, we tilled everything to loosen the soil, pulled out rocks and old roots, dug out a certain amount of "bad" soil, then tilled in some compost and fertilizer.  Now, that sounds simple, but it involved lots of hard work.  The next day, we went through and planted my new azaleas, seasonal flowers, and my Meyer lemon tree.  Then, later, I mulched the flower beds and my garden.

Because we started with a clean slate only a few weeks ago, and because of a generous layer of mulch, there haven't been many weeds.  But the other day, as I was walking by, I stooped down and pulled a little sprig of green that was poking through.  As soon as I pulled it, I thought, "Hmm.  That kind of looked like mint."  I sniffed my fingers.  Sure enough, it was.  Only it wasn't in the spot where the plant had been.  It was a few feet away.  I looked more closely, and I noticed a few more sprouts, spread all around.

Oh no.

Oh yes.  Basically, I did not pull up my mint thoroughly enough, so when we went through and tilled and redistributed the dirt, etc., basically what we did was to chop it into tiny little pieces and plant them all throughout my flower bed.

We are probably going to have a particularly minty summer, y'all.

This and That

I'm thankful that Noah and Jane love their baby sister.

Wondering what Noah's up to now that school is out?  This should give you an idea of his everyday adventures in Inventionland.

A blush of color in the garden.

Which became this:

Nathan taking Clara for a swing one evening before bedtime.  It was her first time, and she very much enjoyed it.

She wore such a pleasant smile the whole time.

See?

 

 And my Clara playing Peek-A-Boo in the cart at IKEA about a month ago. :)

Where's Clara? from Lauren Benesh on Vimeo.

Today's Little Harvest

Here's my little harvest from today:

I'm thinking of pickling the green beans.  Seems like it'd be a nice little something to put in a salad.

I'm getting lots of little cherry and grape tomatoes already.  I think I'm going to make a tomato and goat cheese tart with dinner tomorrow.  Yum.

I took my fancy new camera out into the garden today and took some pictures of the tomatoes developing.  There's something about discovering then watching the fruits and veggies in the garden develop; it's an exercise in hope and expectation.

A huge Cherokee purple.  This will turn pink/purple when ripe.  If I were to pick this today, it would be big enough that I could barely balance it in one hand

Brandywines, plugging away.  They're about the size of my fist right now, but they can reach two pounds each.

Sweet millions, which are prolific and grow in bunches.

Mortgage lifters.

I think I might need some more tomato recipes. :)

Cayenne peppers.

What is up with my zucchini?  I have never had any luck with zucchini, for a reason I cannot figure out.  But this is the weirdest thing--it's like they said, "Oh, I give up.  I'll go ahead and turn yellow and die.  Oh, nevermind.  I'll go ahead and grow and get green and fat."  So the tip is the size of the original little veggie on the plant, which in my garden usually turns yellow and falls off, except this time it didn't.  Somehow, it just kept growing, with the remainder of the zucchini evidently ignoring the fact that it has a completely undersized nose to it.  Weird.
*UPDATE* I had vine borers.  Nasty, nasty vine borers.  Goodbye, zukes. :(

Chives with pretty purple flowers.

We were out of town for five days and came back to find that the cucumber has doubled in size and climbed the trellis I was going to return because it was too small.

Tiny cucumber forming.

Well, that's all, folks.  My regular (or irregular, as the case may be) garden update.  :)

Garden Update

It's 9:30, and the kids are all asleep.  Here's a list of the many things I could/should be doing right now:

1. Blogging about my garden (check!)
2. Blogging about Jane's birthday or updates on the kids
3. Cleaning the kitchen
4. Crocheting Jane's neverending blanket
5. Finishing my book for book club (almost done!)
6. Cleaning out a set of cabinets to collect stuff for next Saturday's garage sale
7. Working out 
8. Resting (something I'm sure all mommies of several small children don't do enough of)

I have to say, not many of those things are unpleasant!  With three little children, my days are very full, usually of things that fall into the "necessary" category.  Fridays are refreshing because by the time they get here, I am so ready to have a day full of things that are on my list but are all more or less pleasant--that's a blessing. Anyway, since today was a special day in my summer garden, I'm here writing about that.

The reason today was good was because, voila, I harvested our first little tomatoes:

Now, I don't think I told you all what happened to all my lovely heirloom seedlings.  Well, we had some painters come in one day, so I set my seedlings outside to get them out of harm's way and ended up putting them directly into it in the form of too much sunshine.  Although I had been hardening them off a bit, they weren't ready for all that heat, and they dried up and withered away, never to recover.  I was pretty upset about it, considering all the care I had put into those dang seedlings for nearly two months.  But eventually I threw my hands up and went and bought plants.  I did end up getting a variety of heirlooms I think I'll be happy with.  Not so much disease resistance as the first selections, but in the end, I decided that I was having more trouble with overwatering than disease.  And so far, the pests are more or less leaving them alone, save one plant that's being pestered by caterpillars. Even my Brandywines already have fruit on them, and they never fruited all summer long last year!  I really hope I get some of those beauties.  I also have a Cherokee Purple, my trusty Husky Cherry Red, a Sweet Million (pictured) and a Sweet 100, a Mortgage Lifter (the name has a wonderful story behind it), and maybe one or two others.  I had really been hoping for some paste tomatoes, more color variety, or something interesting like red currant tomatoes, but it just didn't work out.  Oh well.  Maybe next year.  I think the variety of beefsteaks to cherries will be good, especially compared to last year.

My zucchini are starting to produce, as well as my cayenne peppers. (I'll have some to eat with my tomatoes, if all goes well! Last year, they matured at different times.)  And the herbs are doing well.  I even planted a tiny okra plant because I learned that they are related to hibiscus and have nice flowers.  Well, my plant is stunted or something, because it's about to keel over from the size of this one okra that's growing on it--so funny!  It's definitely not in there anymore in hopes that it'll beautify the garden, that's for sure!

All in all, things are going well.  Looking forward to more and more goodies coming our way from alongside our driveway....

Cheap Therapy

I read a quote somewhere online the other day that said something like, "Gardening is cheaper than therapy.  Plus, you get tomatoes."  It made me laugh, because, truly, that's a good summation of my first year gardening.

We had just moved to Houston from Boston, and as I lamented with true disgust the Houston summer heat, my friend, Courtney, told me to plant a garden. "That way, you'll appreciate Houston's long growing season," she said.  For some reason, the idea of gardening took hold, and Nathan and I went to town learning about it.  In the end, we had put a whole lot of work into the little plot that we worked that summer, even though we were only in that house a year.  All that work building a bed, hoeing and amending the soil, weeding, carefully choosing plants and sowing seeds, anguishing over exactly where to place something so that it got the optimal amount of sun, and so on, was still very much worth it.

Because it really was therapeutic for me.  Awakening to the wonder of how a huge plant can grow from a tiny seed.  Walking out into the garden in the morning and feeling a thrill to see what has sprouted or how a tomato I've had my eye on has ripened.  Feeling the sun warming my hair as I pull weeds.  Finding another spot to squeeze in just one more plant.  Listening to the birds sing.  Dew on the grass.  The first tiny vegetable forming.  Breezes.  Quiet.

Quiet.

The quiet.  The swapping-the-craziness-of-a-house-full-of-small-children-for-birdsong kind of quiet.  Putting the demands of a full life on hold while I crouch down, smell the soil as I pull a weed, feel a breeze, feel myself breathe.

In that period, when I felt my most crazed and chaotic and hectic, gardening was a welcome new hobby.  And, yes, quite therapeutic.

Garden Planning!

I have so much to blog about!  Noah's birthday and my brother & fam's visit top the list, and I have about 6,742 pictures to upload and post, which is a bit overwhelming and time-consuming and explains why I'm behind.  I'll get them up in the near future, but for now, I want to talk about gardening.

Because I'm sitting here looking through an online seed catalog, and the bug just bit me about five minutes ago.  You know, that bug; the one whose effects you suffer through on this blog every summer.  The one that makes me a little crazy.  I've been waiting for it to hit, wondering why the joy of it hadn't walloped me upside the enthusiasm gland yet.  And it just did, so I hopped on to share my discoveries and musings and plans.

It's not a bad thing, this craziness--it is motivating and makes me happy--but since my mind turns in the gardening direction this time of year, this blog does, too.  I hope you don't mind. :)

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And here it is, two days later, and I'm here to complete this post.  Life with three kids involves lots of interruptions and lots of busyness.  Whew.

So I've figured out that one of the reasons I had problems with my tomatoes last year was because I have one or maybe two types of plant diseases in my soil: fusarium wilt and/or verticillium wilt.  Basically, my plants would turn yellowish near the bottom, but the top would still be green and was producing flowers, so I'd let it keep growing.  But by the time the fruit should have been setting on those flowers, the yellow would have moved up to those branches.  So it was a case of continual hope deferred.

I'm not surprised that we have issues with our soil.  The previous owner of our house was a very old lady, and the landscaping was a complete, neglected mess when we moved in.  In the spot we eventually cleared out and made a garden, there were decades-old azalea bushes that were almost as tall as me and none too healthy.  So I knew that when we cleared them out but didn't remove and replace the soil that we may have some difficulties.  It's a bummer that there are so many pests and viruses, though.  It also doesn't drain well, which is another issue, in part because it's a great environment for those pests and soil-borne diseases.  But it's the only part of our property that gets sun, which is why we decided to garden there.  So I'm just making the best of it.  But I do dream of having a huge backyard (an acre?  two?) where I can have four or five raised beds with good, rich, well-drained soil, where I can properly rotate my "crops," and where I have room to grow all the things my heart jumps at when I see them in the seed catalogs: all sorts of melons, squash, beans, even more tomatoes, etc.

So this year, I'm going to try a few tomato varieties that I grew last year, but I'm also going to be careful to buy varieties that are resistant to these dreaded wilt viruses.  Thanks to my new Southern Living subscription, I've found a new heirloom seed resource: southernexposure.com.  The one I've been using (which I still love for its variety and for the evident passion the people there have towards their veggies) is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds at rareseeds.com, but the advantage to Southern Exposure is that they'll tell you which varieties do well in hot, humid climates and which ones have some disease resistance.  I'm also going to focus on varieties that are fairly earlier producers (60 days vs. 80, if I can find them).  And I'm going to really try to get some slicers in my garden this year.  Last year, although I did have some plants that were supposed to grow large and medium sized tomatoes, they never produced, so I just ended up with bowlfuls of cherry tomatoes on top of grape tomatoes on top of cherries on top of grapes . . . I sure did miss having some juicy slicing tomatoes. 

Side note: I knew that it was good to raise heirloom veggies for ecological reasons, but I wasn't clear on some of the reasons we should want to keep these varieties around.  Southern Exposure has enlightened me.  Turns out that a big downside to not encouraging ecological diversity is blights: the Irish potato blight of the 1800's happened because there was pretty much only one type of potato that was being grown, it was susceptible to a particular disease, and when that disease moved in, it destroyed everything rather than just one strain here and there.  Apparently there was also a corn blight in the US in the 1970's for the same reason: everyone grew the same type of corn.  Heirlooms, however, have been selected by growers for generations for whatever quality that grower was looking for (uniformity, color, flavor, disease resistance/hardiness, etc.), so many of them resist various diseases.  Also, since there's such a huge variety in heirlooms, the blight that strikes one strain may not affect another.  And let's say you buy a plant at a nursery, you like what it produced, and you decide to save the seeds.  If it was a hybrid (genetically engineered rather than open pollinated), it was more than likely a cross between not two parent plants but three or four, so the next generation will pick up random genes and will have different qualities than the plant you grew the generation before.  So hybrids are only good for one generation, which is another reason heirlooms have a following among home growers.  Plus, let's be honest, isn't it fun to grow purple potatoes and striped tomatoes?

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So here's what I'm planning on growing, at least so far (I'm leaving myself room to plant new things that inspire me or to toss the varieties that don't sprout or aren't doing well):

Brandywine Tomatoes: According to my new friend, Southern Exposure, this variety is not really suited to the hot, humid Houston climate.  But because it is the quintessential heirloom tomato and is supposed to have amazing flavor, the fruits are huge (a pound or more), and also because Courtney has successfully grown them, I'm going to give Brandywines another shot.  My plant last year never fruited--it grew extremely tall before succumbing to disease.

Orange and Green Zebra Tomatoes: These are cherry-sized and are supposed to have a zingy flavor.  I've tried growing them twice.  The first year, they never fruited.  The second year, I got a handful of tomatoes, but they didn't reach their full color or get ripe before they cracked badly.  So I'm going to try them again.

Dad's Sunset Tomatoes: These are yellow-orange medium-sized tomatoes.  I tried growing them last year, but, again, they never produced.  Baker Creek says these are "one of the best tasting tomatoes we have tried," so I'm going to give them another shot.  But it may be that they're not suited to this climate.  Or else one of the wilts killed my plant.

That's all the tomatoes I'm repeating.  Here are the new ones I plan on trying:

Yellow Brandywine Tomatoes: Again, they may not be technically suited to my climate, but I'm going to give them a shot, anyway.

Neptune Tomatoes: These are smallish red tomatoes that mature in 67 days, are resistant to wilts, and are suited for hot, humid, rainy growing regions.

Tropic Tomatoes: These are extremely disease resistant, but mature a bit later, after 80 days.  I'll probably try them out because of their disease resistance. They are a medium sized red tomato.

Hungarian Italian Paste Tomatoes: This is a determinate variety, which means it doesn't continually vine until it dies; it grows to a particular size, then stops.  It is 79 days, and I'm already feeling impatient, but it's highly productive and has good disease resistance.  Evidently, it makes a tasty sauce, and I'm interested in making my own marinara, if I can get enough tomatoes to do so.

Yellow Bell Paste Tomatoes: These are 60 days (hooray!), have heavy yields, produces until the first frost, and have outstanding flavor.  Wouldn't it be fun to make yellow tomato sauce?

I will probably also pick up a dark colored variety at the nursery, and possibly the reliable Husky Cherry Reds for the kids.  The dark tomatoes have a wonderful flavor.  I'd be sad not to have any this year.

I'm also going to try a couple of new and unique types of tomatoes this year:

Red Currant Tomatoes: These are tiny, intensely flavored tomatoes that mature in only 62 days.  I bet that with my children around, they won't even make it inside.

Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherries: I'm new to ground cherries, but they looked so interesting in the catalog that I figured, why not try growing them and see for myself?  These are technically in the tomatillo family, as they grow inside a husk, but evidently they are sweet. 

And I think that's all the tomatoes I have room for!  I'm also going to plant:

Bush Slicer Cucumber: Last year, I discovered that these are not bushy at all, but vine prolifically and love to climb.  However, I didn't get that many cucumbers.  It might have been because my garden took a backseat at some point last year, and I didn't water consistently.  After that, my squash and cucumbers seemed to falter for the rest of the season.  In the end, I only got maybe one good cucumber off of this plant, but it was a good one, so I'm going to try it again.

Zucchini: I have issues with squash.  For some reason, I just do not grow it successfully.  But I am going to try again this year, because I can't imagine summer without zucchini.

Running Conch Cowpea Beans: These are supposed to be good for growing in the South.  Me being me, I tried sugar snap peas and wax beans in my first garden, and I found out that they do not do well at all in the South.  So I'm switching gears and embracing my southern bean heritage.  These are a creamy white relative of the black-eyed pea.

I'll also be growing a lot of herbs, but I haven't decided what yet.  So far, I've got basil, oregano, and chives.  And I'll probably pick up some marigolds and plant them among my tomato plants to help repel some pests, as well as onions or garlic for the same reason.

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I'm going to be taking a gardening class this spring, and I'm very excited about it.  What I'm really looking forward to is getting a lot of information all in one swoop rather than piecing it together and learning as I go along.  There's something to be gained from trial and error, but I'll be glad to learn some things in a more organized fashion.

Is anyone else gardening this year?  What are you growing?

Various and Sundry

My gosh, y'all, I cannot seem to keep my thoughts together long enough to write a thoughtful blog post.  I had started some posts about some reflections I've had recently on motherhood, but my brain feels so fragmented that I can't even seem to type them up coherently.  I blame pregnancy.  There is something to this "pregnancy brain," I'm telling you.  It reminds me of those "This is your brain on drugs" commercials from the 80's, except, in my case, this is my brain on hormones.

So since I can't seem to put together anything longer than a few sentences these days, here are some random thoughts, instead.

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I've been thinking about our old life in Boston a lot lately.  Lots of unrelated things have crossed my path recently that have caused me to turn my mind towards that period of our lives:

• Lately (and I promise this is actually not because I'm having dark thoughts about the evil Houston summer), I've been reminiscing about the crisp fall and winter New England air.  About how I used to open the bathroom window when it was 17 degrees outside and watch the hot and cool air collide and make a magnificent fog when I was in the shower, and how invigorating it felt to have cold air rolling in while I showered with extra hot water.  I've also been thinking about how much I do still miss a proper autumn, with sweaters and crisp air and the beautiful leaves and the bite of the occasional windy day (although I don't know that I'll ever again have the terrible pangs for it that I did that first fall in Houston).  On a related note, I've often considered making myself a cup of hot tea in the evenings over the last few months, but it you just can't enjoy it in the same way when it's been over 90 degrees all day long.
• A friend from Houston is going on vacation to Boston and Martha's Vineyard this week.
• A good friend from Boston is starting a homeschooling adventure of her own with her son, focusing on a similar educational model that Noah's school will be using, so we've been chatting a bit more lately and comparing notes.
• I was reminded recently of how another friend came over to my house when Noah was only about three weeks old and washed a sinkful of dishes, and how I have never forgotten that act of service at a time when I felt so completely overwhelmed. 
• And, of course, we took a little drive out to the new Houston area Trader Joe's and picked up several of our favorite items there. 

I don't really have a point here; just that Boston has been on my mind more lately, which is certainly not an unlovely thing.

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It's hard to believe, but this is my 1014th post on this blog.  What the heck?!  I had meant to do something special on the 1000th post, but it just slipped by without my noticing it.  So here's my little acknowledgement of the fact that this blog has turned into a great thing for me.  Thank you to those who still stick around and read it from time to time!

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Garden update: The summer garden is kaput.  I very much enjoyed my garden this year, but I did not get as into it as last summer, mainly because of other projects around the house and my limited energy the last few months.  I'd say we had moderate success.  As you know, several of my tomato plants produced like crazy.  But, sadly, four of my heirloom tomatoes never produced fruit, the squash and cucumbers quit producing after I got busy and didn't water for a week or so, and the bell peppers had their one flush of fruit and then were finished.  The cayennes are finally starting to get going (I wish they had been producing at the same time as my tomatoes!), and the herbs are mostly looking good and holding on.  Mint tea has been a staple at our house this summer, and it's quite yummy.  It's time to start thinking about planting seeds for my fall garden, but--let's be realistic, here--that is probably not going to happen.  I might throw a few seeds directly into the ground and see if we get any winter squash, but I am not going to 1.) kill myself bending over with this huge belly in the Houston August heat or 2.) expect too much gardening maintenance from myself after I have a baby in a month.  So we will just see how it goes and enjoy whatever gets produced.  My perspective for my fall garden is that anything beyond nothing is a happy thing.  There is something to be said for low expectations, friends. ;)

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My belly is very large, y'all.  It is seriously starting to get in the way.  You know that things have reached kind of a pathetic point when you drop something at the grocery store and an old lady steps in to pick it up.  Not a spry young or middle-aged lady, but an old, old lady.  As if she is in better shape to pick something up off the floor than I am (which she was).  

I will be 35 weeks on Thursday of this week.  I'll try to have Nathan take another pregnancy photo of me. I think my belly is about as big as it was with Noah and Jane and probably no larger, but that doesn't make it any less amazing to the occasional stranger who says, "You must be due any day now!" (been getting that one since I was only 7 months) or "Are you having twins?"  And I've seen two babies in the last couple of days at 8-12 weeks old who are literally smaller than my kids ever were.  An 8.5 lb. baby looks tiny to me!

The heat is not affecting me too badly; I'm not swelling, except that I have had to switch to my heirloom wedding ring rather than my own, because mine won't fit over my knuckle anymore.  I only occasionally feel extremely drained by the weather, and, when it happens, I think it may have more to do with the humidity than the heat.  Mainly, the only time I feel really hot is at night, when I wake up constantly if I feel warm.  It has gotten to the point that we keep the thermostat down fairly low, the ceiling fan stays on all night, and I sleep with just a sheet on me.  This is completely abnormal for a girl who usually pulls the covers up to her chin out of habit and for comfort, no matter the temperature in the house.  Often, Nathan wakes up cold because somehow the comforter has slipped off him, too, and now he's exposed to the cool house + ceiling fan.  He should really just huddle closer to me, in that case, since he keeps telling me whenever I lay a hand on his arm that I feel like a heater.

By the way, the C-section is scheduled for September 7.  We chose a Friday so that family can come visit over the weekend if they want.  Although I'm a little nervous about having such major surgery, I have had it twice before, so I won't be going into it completely green.  Having it in a new hospital with a new doctor does add to my nerves, but we'll actually be at a great hospital, and my doctor is supposed to be very well respected there.  Bonuses this round include: 1.) I get to have my baby 6 days early instead of 2-5 days late.  Hooray!  Every day you don't have to be 9 months pregnant is a plus, in my book.  And 2.) I don't have to labor and have major surgery this time.  I'm happy to just do one or the other and not both this round.

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Hey, look, y'all!  I wrote paragraphs!!

Good night.

Various and Sundry

• Nectarines may be my favorite summer fruit.  There's just nothing like them.  (Pears are my favorite fall fruit, in case you were dying with curiosity.)

• Noah and I were discussing our favorite seasons this morning.  I said mine was fall, and Noah said his is winter.  (Obviously, we live in the wrong place!)  Anyway, we had a winter night this evening--I turned the air conditioning way down, and we built a fire, had hot chocolate, and roasted a couple of marshmallows.  I also thought about wearing scarves, reading a snowflake book, and playing a snowflake game, but it got too late, and it was really still too hot for scarves.  We looked forward to our "winter night" all day, and it definitely fell under the category of "things I would not normally do but am trying to make an effort to do this summer before the baby comes."

• My snowberry tomatoes are finally producing!  (And my green and orange striped ones are, too, but they're not ripe yet.)  Still waiting on the German Strawberry Reds, Brandywines, and Dad's Sunsets.  I bought some tomato fertilizer today to help them along.

In the Last Few Days

 In the last few days, . . . 

. . . our backyard went from this . . .

. . . to this!

 

This truck brought the huge amount of sod that went in the backyard.  And this wasn't even all of the grass.

 We actually didn't intend to do such a thorough renovation of our backyard, but one thing led to another, and we did.  After all has been said and done, we are really enjoying it!  Hiring someone to pull all the old overgrown plants out, level the dirt, clear the drains, take down the dead trees, and lay down sod has made a huge difference in our enjoyment of our backyard.  It even got rid of most of the mosquitoes, a benefit we did not foresee.  Now we just need a kiddie pool to make the summer complete!

I found a little watermelon growing on the vine!  Isn't it cute?

 

My first pregnancy photo: 26 and a half weeks.

 There's nothing like love at the grocery store.

And I leave you with this:

Would You Say You Have a Plethora?

Hey guys!  So I took this picture about a week ago.  It represented probably about a week's harvest, plus two nice zucchini and a whole bunch of mint that I had used in a couscous the day before. As it turned out, the bumpy yellow squash weren't good: they were too seedy--Granny said they would be, and, of course, she was right.  Otherwise, though, everything was tasty, and I considered this a pretty good haul for one week.

But since then, our tomato plants have shifted into high gear.

"Ta da!"  Noah and Jane are showing you our four ridiculous tomato plants.  Despite the fact that they look terrible, and also despite the fact that we are competing with caterpillars, stink bugs, birds, and squirrels, our tomato plants have reached a point where they are producing a ton.  And they are really large--as I mentioned before, on three of these four plants, the vines fold over the tops of the cages and reach the ground again.  They're also all intermingled.  It's like a tomato jungle inside there.

And this is the result.  This is two days' worth of picking, and right now I'm getting about a pint a day.  Talk about prolific!  Talk about fun!

In case you're wondering, I do pick them while they're a little underripe, because if I wait, the birds start to nip at them.  Check out all those wonderful colors, though!

My five other tomato plants, the ones I started from seed, are just starting to get blooms and little tomatoes.  I think I set them back with the ridiculous soap bath I gave them a few weeks ago, but they have recovered nicely.  I've more or less forgotten which variety I planted where, and it has become part of the fun for me to wonder which plant will produce what color. 

As for the other plants in the garden, well, most of them are doing fine.  The peppers sure are growing slowly, and I was really hoping to have some cayennes for my tomato salads this summer.  Any tips on growing peppers?  And I think the yellow squash is dying, probably because I planted it too close to the zucchini, which is growing huge and may be crowding the yellow squash plant out.  As for the cucumbers, we've gotten two off our plant so far, and they've been nice and sweet and good.  It's an heirloom variety called a "bush cucumber," but I have to tell you that there is nothing bushy about that sucker.  It vines and spreads like crazy.  It has just reached the wall of the house and is beginning to creep upwards, attaching itself to the vines for support.

Anybody else gardening this summer?

Garden Update

Our garden, as of Monday.  Please excuse the chaos that is the outside of our house.  It's being worked on.

 Our tomato plants are huge.  They quickly outgrew the cages around them, and a couple are taller than I am.  In fact, the vines droop over the top and almost back down to the ground on at least one of the plants.  It's ridiculous.  They're so tall and heavy that we walked out one morning and several of the cages had been pulled out of the ground from the weight of the plants and had toppled over.  Nathan had to stake them really well to stand them back up.

However, there are some problems with my tomatoes, mostly having to do with pests.  For one thing, the stink bugs are attracted to one of the plants and are sucking some of the tomatoes dry.  But the bigger problem are some caterpillars that I have yet to correctly identify--they are on every single plant, and they are decimating portions of my tomatoes.  See all the holes in the leaves?  Caterpillars! AAAARGH!

 In my zeal to get rid of them, I doused my plants in soapy water, hoping that would do it (it didn't), and I made too strong of a concentration, which made a lot of leaves turn brown.  On the upside, now I know what "disease" discolored some of my tomato leaves last year, an issue that drove me up the wall because no one had an answer for me.  But on the downside, I killed several leaves on my plants this year.  Oh well.  It's not like the plants are stunted or anything!

Closest in this picture are the tomatoes I started from seed, which are smaller than the others.

The squash and watermelon plants are out of control.  Seriously, last year's squash never got this big, and it's only May.  It's spilling onto the driveway.  So far, I've harvested one nicely sized yellow squash and one big zucchini.  The watermelon vines (closest to you in the pic) are sprawling onto the grass.  It doesn't look that attractive, but I will probably let it happen for this summer and plan a neater looking garden next year.

Two Yellow Pears!

We picked our first tomatoes of the season today!

There were two yellow pear tomatoes--one for Noah and one for Jane.  They loved them!  Jane let me have a little bite of hers, and it was awfully tasty.  Here's to a prolific summer!

(Also, I just noticed that those tomato plants are already taller than Noah.  Sheesh!  And we have months to go!)

Garden Update

Here's our garden, as of today.

Special thanks to Nathan, who spent half a day breaking half a ton of rock to make that border!

Our watermelon, zucchini, and yellow squash.

Blackberry vine.

Herbs, herbs, herbs, and happy feet.

That mint is ridiculously happy where I put it.

I thought this variegated basil was interesting.

All of my tomato seedlings, along with my cucumbers.

Yogurt containers are my friends. :)

These are our first yellow pears!

These will be our first red cherries.

Happy summer days ahead!

In My Garden Today

What I'm growing right now:

• Watermelons (variety: crimson sweet)
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash
• Yellow Peppers
• Cayenne Peppers
• Blackberries (the vine doesn't produce fruit, though, for two years)
• Cucumbers (bush variety that doesn't get too big)
• Tomatoes--LOTS! All my seeds sprouted except for one variety, which means I've got nine--count 'em, nine--types of tomato seedlings right now. If none of them die off, I'll have: Snowberries (white), Yellow Pears, Dad's Sunsets (orange), Husky Cherry Reds (the only one of this list that I grew last year, and they were great), German Red Strawberries, Black Cherries, Chocolate Cherries, Brandywines (pink), and Orange and Green Zebra Tomatoes. All are heirlooms except the Husky Cherry Reds. Most are cherry sized, the Dad's Sunsets are a moderate size, and the Brandywines are supposed to get enormous.
• Herbs: rosemary, basil, French thyme, English Thyme, sage, mint, chives, and Greek oregano.

Now, my plot may or may not work well. It's not terribly sunny, for one thing, although it's in our sunniest spot. Also, although we worked with the soil a bit, tilling it up and mixing in some compost, it is now apparent to me that it does not drain well and has too much clay. So next year, or maybe this fall, I'll improve the soil, but since I've already planted, it's sort of a done deal for this year. We'll just have to see how my plants fare in it.

The Subject of My Enthusiasm Today

I have been bitten by the gardening bug again!

We didn't think we had a spot for a garden at our new house, because there is a huge tree in the backyard which shades it too much to grow vegetables and herbs. But alongside the driveway, in a sunnier spot, there were these huge, unsightly, overgrown azalea bushes that Nathan tackled last weekend, and now I have a really nice sized garden plot.

Today, the kids and I bought a bunch of things to plant, even though we haven't finished prepping the soil: tomatoes, zucchini, crookneck squash, orange peppers, cayenne peppers, basil, Greek oregano, mint, chives, English lavender, and more. I also have a lot of seed packets that I've saved from years past. I don't know if the seeds are any good anymore, so I am going to start them in little pots and see if anything grows. I have everything from green and orange striped cherry tomatoes (which, bummer, didn't produce any fruit last year) to a variety of flowers. Our entire yard is a blank page right now, because, like much of the house, it wasn't maintained well by the elderly previous owner. So we are pulling everything out and starting from scratch, which is proving to be more fun than I originally thought. It's a lot of work for Nathan, though!

I love growing tomatoes. Not only is a garden fresh tomato just far and away more tasty than what you can get at the grocery store, but--and I think this is what is most exciting for me--there is such a huge variety. You can grow huge slicing tomatoes, paste (Roma) tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, pear tomatoes, and more. And they come in so many colors! I think I've mentioned before that, one day, I'd love to have a garden big enough to grow tomatoes of every color. Well, I realized this afternoon that if my little plot is sunny enough, I will be pretty close this year. So far, I've got: red, pink, yellow, orange, green/orange striped, and black.

If only I hadn't given all my tomato cages to our neighbor when we moved!

:)