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Last year we planted six fruit trees.

Two pears, two apples, a cherry and a peach.

This year I harvested a dozen pears, a dozen peaches and two apples.

We ate the pears.

The apples were admired for their mutant appearance and discarded.

Hopefully next year they will be mature enough for a better harvest.

I decided to save the peaches for a later date.

.

.

I washed them.

Peeled them.

Coated them in lemon juice and sprinkled on a bit of sugar.

Just enough for a hearty pie in the depths of winter.

So who’s the sturdiest pilgrim in the neighborhood today?

Me!

This was my favorite stand.

It had the prettiest design…

And also – the best costumes.

At first I didn’t know what this vegetable was.

I thought maybe they were exotic carrots.

Or petite beets.

Or tiny red rutabagas!

But then I read the sign.

“Radishes” it said.

Sometimes I have a tendency to over think things a little bit.

Hey!  I told you it was exciting!

Happy Fourth of July!

They’re heeeeeeeerrrrrrrreeeeee!

I have squash bugs.

Everywhere.

Ev.

Ree.

Where.

I figured I would get them as last year’s cucumbers suffered a late season attack that obliterated the entire crop in a matter of days. I didn’t really mind though, because by then, I was sick of cucumbers. But I knew that the bugs would overwinter, so I moved my cucumber patch to the other side of the garden and began to regularly dose my garden with some preventative homemade garlic spray.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of planting some pumpkins very near to last year’s cucumber spot, not realizing  that squash bugs like pumpkins EVEN MORE than cucumbers.  It’s their favorite!  So this Spring, they crawled out of the ground and found a lovely condo with a gorgeous view and a loaded fridge next door!

I could have done more to limit the overwintering impact of these horrible bugs.  I should have removed the old vines from my garden last Fall, instead of waiting until this Spring.  Ultimately, I think I might skip cucurbit type crops next year (pumpkins, squash, cucumbers) and see if I can get the squash bugs to pack up and go in search of someone else’s pumpkin patch.  In the meantime, here are a few of the methods that I have employed to get rid of them.

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Melt Them and Vigilance…

I got down on my hands and knees and looked for the bugs. I got familiar with my garden on a new level. Instead of just looking at it from above, I looked at it from below and behind, beside and underneath.  I parted vines and moved leaves.  I searched and scanned the nooks and crannies. During my searches, I noted a few cucumber beetles, their yellow and black ‘plumage’ undeniable.  When I found them, I went out and bought some neem oil as cucumber beetles laugh in the face of my homemade garlic spray.  The neem oil is also supposedly a deterrent for squash bugs too as they don’t like the taste and it also breaks down their exoskeleton.  Basically, it melts them.

Soak Your Elbow in Windex…

I have been spraying the neem oil once a week in a concoction of my own design which is basically a tablespoon of neem, a tablespoon of garlic oil and a few squirts of dish-soap. I mix this all in a ‘Glass Plus” container hoping for whatever residual effects might be in the infamous window cleaner bottle as I distinctly remember the scene in My Greek Wedding where the protagonist’s father is soaking his elbow in a bowl of Windex while insisting that the magic blue liquid is a cure-all for everything.  (I do realize that Glass Plus is no Windex, but surely there is some overlap in the miracle producing qualities of the two cleaners.)

Handpick, Shudder, Handpick, Shudder…

I’ve also been ‘handpicking’ the bugs. A disgusting part of my job as a gardener whereby I hunt around for these wretched grayish bugs and pick them off (using a leaf as a sort of glove) and then I squish them inside the leaf, shudder violently and fling the flattened bug and leaf away in a sort of panicked induced delirium. Then I shudder again (violently), grimace and wonder how the hell I ever got myself into this horrifying predicament.  Then I find another bug and squish, fling, find, squish, fling, find.  It is an endless cycle of horror, recovery and horror again, further proving my theory that gardening is only for the mentally unstable.

Room and BOARD!

I put some old boards down in the pumpkin and squash patch as squash bugs like to congregate underneath things.  It makes the find part of the whole ‘find, squish, fling’ thing a little easier.

Go for the Twofer…

They mate back to back… or rather… end to end. One bug has to walk backwards while the other walks forwards with their two ‘tails’ attached. I don’t know which bug is which…who gets to move forward while the other gets dragged behind and I honestly don’t care. I only know that killing two squash bugs at the same time due to the fact that they are connected by their butts is a total bonus. Evidently, squash bugs like to mate around 3:00 in the afternoon (Is that when all the kids are down for naps?) so if I venture out to the garden at that time, I will probably be more likely to get more ‘twofers’ for my efforts.

Flood Their Homes…

I lay a garden hose at the base of my squash plants and the pooling water causes the squash bugs to climb to higher ground.  This allows me to find, squish and shudder a bit easier.

Blow the little suckers up!

I also have been removing any leaves that have eggs on them. Sometimes I remove the entire leaf, and sometimes I tear off the segment with the eggs on it. I give the leaves to the boys and tell them to destroy them. They happily take the leaves over to the driveway and find new and inventive ways to blow the eggs up with their fireworks stash. I also smash the leaves into oblivion with my feet, drown them in cups of water and hurl them into the pond.

Occasionally at the end of a squash bug patrol, I am so sick of it all, that I just start smashing the eggs with my bare thumb.  Then I wonder what I am turning into?  Some sort of callous, indelicate human that can smash insect eggs with her bare skin and not even flinch?  What is happening to me?  What if there comes a point where I can pick up a squash bug without a leaf?  What if I start smashing squash bugs with my bare fingers?  What happens next?  Do I cease to use a napkin at dinner?  Do I start drinking milk straight from the jug placing the empty container back in the fridge?  Do I pile old magazines in the bathroom in place of toilet paper?  What kind of madness is this?  Then I start flinching and stammering and my eyelid starts to spasm and my teeth start to ache and I rush into the house and take a scalding shower and rinse myself off in industrial bleach and suddenly I feel much better.

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I am far from winning the war on these bugs.  But I am determined to give it my best shot.

Squash bugs are stealthy, impervious, they multiply like rabbits and are hard to kill with anything other than squashing them.

And they stink when you squash them.

On the other hand, I am stubborn, angry, bitter, and generally hacked off.

And I smell like industrial bleach.

I think these bugs have met a worthy adversary.

We’ll see who wins.

Some kind of spider sucks the head off of a squash bug.

Yay some kind of spider!

Is it just me…

 

 

 

 

 

Or does anyone else think that sunflowers seem just a little more human than your typical flower…

 

 

 

 

 

Is she bowing to her partner?  Or is she critically assessing the shovel’s shoes?

 

 

 

I am a Kansas girl and I love sunflowers.  I can’t help it.  If Dinosaurs came from birds… and people came for apes… than Kansans came from sunflowers.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunflowers speak of my state, my home, my high plains stompin’ grounds like no other plant ever could…

Well… except maybe wheat… but wheat doesn’t seem like it’s alive does it?

Or does it?

 

 

 

Even on bad hair days…

 

 

 

 

 

The sunflower seems to look at you…

 

 

 

 

And watch you as they follow the sun throughout the day…

 

 

 

 

They make me feel like someone is listening to me when I am muttering to myself in the garden.

 

 

 

Helping me on my way to a full blown nutter.  

Send a bouquet of sunflowers to the asylum for me will you?

They will make me feel not so all alone.

I planted some sunflowers in a small corner of my garden.  I did this because someone suggested it right here… on my blog.  

I thought it was such a good idea.  I bought a few packets of seeds… mammoth sunflowers, and red sunflowers, and ‘normal’ sunflowers… if there are ‘normal’ sunflowers.  After I planted the small corner of my garden, I still had seeds left over, so I planted some by the barn, and then I planted some by the house, and then I scattered a few down by the pond.  I could water the ones in the garden and the ones by the house but the others had to fend for themselves.

 

 

 

Then I took a couple of packets of Zinnia seeds and planted them in the garden, and by the barn and down by the pond too.

The Zinnias mostly had to fend for themselves as well.

 

 

 

And well… they did.

They grew and they bloomed and they did just fine.

 

 

 

Mother Nature took care of them.  

I may have watered them when they were especially young and helpless, but after that, they were on their own.

 

 

 

 

 

They have done beautifully.  

They don’t really seem to need me at all.

I have to tell you… that is not a bad trait in a flower at all.

Except that I would like to think that I was somehow a part of it…

Well… I guess I did poke the seeds in the dirt.

And I did look out for them occasionally.

And I did rejoice when they bloomed.

For the truly rare flower…

This is all they need.

As a part of this year’s garden, I planted a tomato test patch.  I brought home several varieties of the tomato plants that we sell at the Garden Center where I work so that I could discover their differences and also so that next Spring, I might be able to actually answer a few tomato questions when a customer asks me one.  

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I also grew a stand of tomatoes from seed, and I am sorry to tell you that my baby tomato seedlings became the children of my heart and I nurtured and tended them with a great amount of care, while my tomato test patch, which I came to refer as my ‘tomato step children’, were not given the love that they deserved because they came into my life half grown and I never did bond with them the way I should have.  Yet even with my neglect, the plants produced a nice harvest of tomatoes.  The one on the far left end is one of my seed tomatoes.  It is a Burpee Big Boy Hybird.  Right next to it is a Burpee Big Boy from a Garden Center plant. Going down the line you can see two Better Boys, an Heirloom German Johnson, a Beefmaster and a Jetstar.  

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, I invited a few friends over for a tomato canning lesson from my friend Sarah.  

 

 

 

 

 

But before Sarah could get started,everyone had to sample the tomatoes from my test patch.  

 

 

 

Because who can resist a food sampling?  

Who?  

Who??? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just like I do with my family, I forced them to write down their impressions of each tomato they tasted.  I will say that these girls were much more agreeable than my children when it came to writing down their thoughts on the various tomatoes.  I did not have to threaten them with taking away their computer time, or ground them from the Wii, or send them to their rooms or anything!     

 

 

 

 

 

Here are Angie and Nancy discussing the subtle differences between a Jetstar and a Burpee Big Boy.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Melissa with a Beefmaster (I think).  

 

 

 

 

And here is what everyone thought about the various tomatoes…

 

 

 

 

 

Beefmaster…

Angie – Tastes like a tomato… full flavor, a little mushy.

Nancy  - Traditional flavor, texture is mushy.

Jenny  - Rich meaty flavor

Rechelle – Full bodied, rich, yummy.

 

 

 

Burpee Big Boy…

Nancy – Not full flavored

Melissa – More seeds, less sweet

Rechelle – More acid, more water

Angie – Flat

Jenny – Tough, chewy, plain

Sarah – Not very flavorful

 

 

 

Heirloom German Johnson…

Angie – Less flavor

Melissa – Less flavor, ends blandly

Nancy – Tastes like it’s fermented

Jenny – Nasty, off flavor

Sarah – Less sweet

Rechelle – Weird finish, fleshy

 

Better Boy…

Angie – More bite to it

Melissa – A little bland, not sweet.

Nancy – Tangy (of sorts) less flavor

Jenny – Deep flavor

 

 

Burpee Big Boy Hybrid…

Nancy – Firm texture

Melissa – Sweet (my favorite)

Rechelle – Sweet

Jenny – Sweet, rich, deep, my favorite

Angie – Sweet

Sarah – Balanced and delicious, my favorite

Jetstar…

Nancy – My favorite (so far)

Melissa – Very sweet, not as firm, great flavor

Angie – Good flavor

Rechelle – Watery, bland

Jenny – Chewy, bland

Sarah – I don’t taste much here.

 

 

The Burpee Big Boy Hybrid was a favorite among almost everyone, but I really like the Beefmaster the best.  The German Johnson Heirloom was a very strange tomato.  It’s fruits were more pinkish than red and it was also far less resistant to bugs and disease.  You can really see the advances made in tomatoes right here in this little tomato test.  The heirloom variety would probably do just fine if it had a little more care than I gave it, but it performed very poorly in my tomato test patch compared to the the Burpee Hybrid which not only produced beautiful tomatoes under severe neglect, it also tasted great.  So much for the quaint heirlooms!  

 

 

 

On Monday, I hope to have a tomato canning story up.

As you can see, canning those tomatoes was a brutal task and we didn’t have any fun at all!

When I got home from our trip to Hell and back, I discovered ten thousand tomatoes ready to be picked in my garden.

My mom had done a great job of keeping up with the garden and everything else was picked clean, but in the few days interim between her departure from our house and our arrival back home, they had all ripened to an obscene and undeniable bright rosy red.

 

 

 

I picked them and brought them in the house and then I sat them on the table and stared at them helplessly for several days.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO CAN TOMATOES!!!  

My one and only canning experience was a pickling disaster and I was terrified to try it again.  

 

 

Eventually the situation became dire.  The fruit flies grew so dense I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face and I could not bear to watch all of my hard work growing those tomatoes rot away on my kitchen counters.  

I e-mailed my friend Sarah and begged her to come over and teach me how to can.  She was at work and then she had to go help with VBS and then she was leaving town and I don’t think that Sarah really cares about me at all.  I guess I need to write another venom filled essay called ‘I Wish I Had A Friend Named Sarah Who Would Drop Everything and Come Over and Can My Tomatoes For Me Right This Very Minute!’

 

 

 

 

But Sarah did e-mail me instructions on how to freeze tomatoes.  It sounded very hard and I didn’t think I could really do it, but I thought I would give it a try.

 

 

 

 

First I had to remove the skins.  I placed the tomatoes in boiling water for one minute.

 

 

 

 

Then I removed them with a slotted spoon and placed them in an ice-bath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have always heard of this magical procedure, but I have to be honest with you, I was absolutely certain it would not work for me.  

But it did!  

The fates did not conspire against me!

The skins just slid right off.

It was like a miracle!

The miracle of the sliding tomato skins!

I removed the skins, cut the tomatoes in half, sort of glopped out as many seeds as I could and then I placed the whole sorry mess in a large soup pot, added some basil, salt, and garlic and cooked it down for an hour or so.  After that I poured the reduced tomato carnage into a plastic freezer bag and that was that!

 

 

 

Except…

I still had nine thousand tomatoes to go!

AND!!!!

I didn’t really enjoy peeling those tomatoes.  It was gross.  I had read about roasting tomatoes somewhere, so I got online and found a few recipes and thought I would give that a try…

 

 

 

I cut off the stem end of my tomatoes and then cut them in half.

 

 

 

 

I scooped out the seeds and placed the gutted tomato carcasses on a buttered cookie sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

I brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled on basil, salt and garlic and let them roast at 375 degrees for an hour.

 

 

 

 

Voila!

 

 

 

 

Drew and I then slipped the skins off of the roasted tomatoes and placed the pathetic skinned tomato beasties in a bowl and mashed them up a bit.

For some reason this was less gross than the boiled tomatoes.  I have no idea why.

 

 

I placed the roasted, mashed tomatoes in a carefully labeled bag, and took a blurry dim photo of it to post on my blog.

For the normal person who might have stumbled on this blog in search of a tomato roasting recipe, you may skip the dim, blurry photo part.  

I froze most of the roasted tomato sauce, but I saved a bit to try right away.

 

And then I made some eggplant parmesan with eggplant and fresh roasted tomato sauce from my own garden… and it was delicious!  I hope to get that fascinating story up very soon… but I would strongly advise against holding your breath.

Only eight thousand more tomatoes to go.

These are asparagus beans.

 

My father-in-law, Joe, has grown them for years, and he sent me some of his seeds in the Spring.

 

 

They frequently surpass a foot long, lengthening to eighteen inches and beyond.

I also grew some more traditional green beans, but the asparagus beans are half the effort and twice the food…

 

 

 

As they are so much easier to spot when it comes time to harvest them.

 

 

 

I have been cooking them in my grandmother’s pressure cooker with new potatoes, butter, salt and pepper, but I am on the prowl for a good ‘bacon and green beans’ recipe.  

Because, what is the point of a garden fresh bean without some garden fresh bacon?

If anyone has one, please send it my way!