Everything is blooming

This is a column from last year -- I publish my columns in the "Highgrove Happenings" monthly newspaper.

May 2007

Everything is blooming.

The ranunculus (ranunculi?) are up, lovely purples, pinks and variegated combinations, the penstemon is starting in. Mission Bells California poppies are lovely in shades of cream, orange, pink and a color which can only be described in sunset terms. Sweet alyssum covers the empty ground with mounds and drifts of white and wild purple verbena left over from my mother’s garden still puts in a beautiful appearance every year, even if I pull it up. This is the time I just sit outside and watch the hummingbirds hit every tubular flower there is in the garden (the sages and honeysuckle are their favorites but they even enjoy the tiny blue flowers on the rosemary) and enjoy the crowds of LBJ’s (little brown jobs in birder parlance) finding seed on the ground. The mockingbirds wait until I put on the oscillating sprinkler and then sit in the pepper trees to wait for a shower (one day we had SEVEN mockingbirds taking baths in the sprinkler at the same time – what a kick). I am hoping to see my barn owls back this year, Flo and Beau, as the gophers are making a comeback and I need help.

I decided that this is the month that I would tell my faithful readers why I have a garden. I have a stressful, sedentary job in front of a computer and in meetings all week and gardening gets me up and outside...I love being outside, with the plants, weeds, seeds, lizards, bugs and birds. I love dirt under my fingernails and mud squishing between my toes. I also love being able to share my flowers and vegetables with my co-workers. I bring in armloads of sweet peas or zinnias (depending on the season) or a load of tomatoes or eggplant, depending on what the bumper crop du jour is.

Puttering in the garden is my "Sabbath rest" and has the effect of completely de-stressing me and connecting me with creation. My yard is far from perfect and a constant work-in-progress (it would never make one of those fancy gardening magazines), but it's MY place and MY part of creation. It is full of birds, feeders, bird baths and bird friendly flowers (seeds and nectar producers) and some goofy garden art like my grandfather’s “Grim Reaper” type scythe which is wired to the fence. We see hummingbirds constantly along with all the resident birdies and passers-by on their way to the mountains.

I don't know what I would do if I couldn't dig in the dirt and play with my flowers. Garden therapy works for me!

Also going on in my garden this month:

We just picked up a huge load of well rotted horse compost from my friend June this past weekend – oh joy! (Only a gardener would get excited about a pile of horse p***!). On the way home from Gavilan Hills, my sister and I stopped in at Louie’s Nursery in Woodcrest (Parkview and Louie’s are my favorites around here) to see what they had and lo and behold they had the beautiful new Burgundy Iceberg roses. As you all know, I really should not be allowed to go to nurseries alone. Well, this time I wasn’t alone but it didn’t even help as both of us fell in love immediately with these roses. Those of you who live around Grand Terrace and Highgrove will recognize the Iceberg as the profusely blooming white roses on Barton Road. Well, the burgundy variety is STUNNING – we went home with two and another one in pink and cream, also an Iceberg cultivar. I am looking forward to roses in my garden all summer long. They also have a lovely fragrance. They will blend nicely with the flowering plum, purple fountain grass and the flax I am planning to get.

Also blooming are my white Lady Banks roses on the Villa fence. They have gone berserk for some reason this year and every time I walk by I inhale the beautiful rose smell. My honeysuckle and pink jasmine vines are also blooming – more great things to sniff! One of these times I will write about all the wonderful vines we can grow in Highgrove. My idea of paradise is walking through my yard and catching a whiff of something heavenly at every corner or sticking my head in a wall of sweet peas and inhaling deeply.

Which takes me back to a story from old Highgrove times. While I was growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandma Alice Haight, who was a fabulous and wonderful person and who lived on the other side of the block from us. One of my best childhood memories is staying overnight with her and going to sleep by an open window in her room, after saying our prayers --“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take…” and listening to the quiet sounds of the night and enjoying the smells coming through the lace-curtained window. This time of year, if it was warm, and the window was open, it would be orange blossoms. Later in the summer, it would be the geraniums. I would hear a mockingbird singing in the pepper tree out front in the middle of the night and the little birds twittering in the morning. What a wonderful sense of peace, calm and security. I was blessed.

That story calls for a recipe from my grandmother – Fudge Pudding Cake

This was a favorite of mine as a child and I could never figure out how the pudding got on the bottom of the cake!

1 c. flour
¾ c. sugar
6 T. powdered cocoa
2 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
½ c. milk
2 T. shortening, melted
1 c. finely chopped pecans or walnuts
1 c. packed brown sugar

Combine flour, sugar, 2 T. cocoa, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Mix in milk and shortening. Stir in nuts. Pour into 9 inch square baking dish. Sprinkle with a mixture of brown sugar and ¼ c. cocoa. Pour 1 ¾ cups hot water over the top. Do not stir! Bake at 350 for 45 minutes until set. Cut into squares and spoon some of the fudge sauce over the top while hot – serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Yum.

Things to do in your garden in May

• Plant your cukes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, corn and anything else you want for the summer garden if you haven’t already done so. They will still get a good start while the weather is pleasant.
• Make up your flowering baskets
• Enjoy the spring flowers while you can
• Start to look for summer annuals in six packs
• Plant zinnias from seed – bait for snails. I learned this the hard way last year when every last zinnia seedling was chomped off at the root.
• Mulch everything to retain water and head off weeds

Joke of the month

Two good old boys go bear hunting. They are riding in their pickup truck down the road to the woods. They go around a curve and see a sign that says “Bear Left.” So they go home.

more kitty news

The kitten is known as "Junior" even though we can't tell just yet if he/she is a boy/girl. (The outdoor plumbing is a little indistinct at 5 weeks). He (for now) is doing great, very cute, spunky and vocal. He is so noisy now that we think it's time for solid food and we'll be starting him on something this week. I bought turkey baby food and we'll see how that goes. He still needs a home - we are currently protecting him from the dogs. His chances of growing up are fairly slim if we keep him, so he needs a home pretty soon!

Other news - I was humiliated in front of my peers at work this week. My region had its annual "Staff Appreciation Day" which consists of nice gifts and a good lunch for the workers, and a chance to watch their managers do something silly while everyone cheers. The theme this year was sports, and of course there was sports trivia (which I actually did pretty well on - all those years of being exposed to Matt and Bill and their sports talk actually served for something - I won a Baby Ruth candy bar!). The managers - Randy, our Deputy Director, Jim, the other CWSM, and myself - had a sports obstacle course to complete: bounce a basketball 15x with each hand, bounce a tennis ball on a racket 15x without dropping it, make a putt into a cup and throw a football into an inner tube hung from a basketball backboard. I never thought I could compete with those two as they are both "jocks", but I finished a respectable third (minor detail - there were only three of us in the competition) with Randy's help (he caught the football and threw it in for me on my third attempt!) I did make the putt on the first attempt - not bad. Even Randy the golfer had to try twice!

It's very hot here in SoCal this weekend, everyone is laying low and/or running through sprinklers, which is my favorite hot weather coping method. I spent a lot of time watering this weekend. There is something about running water that relaxes me. Back to work tomorrow.

Drama in Highgrove

My DH was in the hospital last week for a few days and Sunday afternoon before I went to pick him up I heard, much to my chagrin, a tiny “meow, meow” IN THE WALL OF MY KITCHEN. We have a gang of feral cats in our neighborhood which I mostly tolerate. Our dogs keep them out of the yard – one of our dogs will try to catch them if she can – she mostly can’t – so they can’t eat our birds. They do work on the gopher population, along with the owls and sparrow hawks. One of the things I do try to discourage is the mama cats having their babies in my attic. We have stuffed most of the holes with chicken wire to keep them out. Well, we must have missed a hole – apparently one of the latest batch of kittens was either dropped by mom, got kicked out of the nest by a bigger brother, or was wandering around in the attic and fell down into the wall. But however it happened, there he was, stuck in a big way.

At first there seemed like no way to get him out, and I thought he probably wouldn’t make it through the night. Well, the next morning he’s still carrying on and by evening, that was it, we had to figure out something or go absolutely nuts listening to his crying. My sister had called all possible authorities, and no one would come out. So out came the power tools. The first hole was a bust, there was a wall stud between us and the cat. The only other possible way in was through a cupboard that was too small for me to get a good attack on the board. We finally recruited our neighbor Bob, who was able to drill a hole big enough for the little guy to get out – I enticed him with tuna (the cat, not Bob)…. So we now have a very spunky little kittie who is looking for a home. Anybody that tough deserves a good life. He’s about a month old, black and white and not scared at all. We’re bottle feeding him and getting him used to people. Let me know if you want him – he’s up for adoption!

But this is a garden column after all – I was originally going to talk about herbs. This is a great time of year to grow herbs. I have a few that I keep all the time in pots – oregano, thyme, sage and several kinds of mint and I replant basil and parsley every year. I also have huge plantings of rosemary which I use for all kinds of things, including my last batch of chicken soup. Dill and lavender are also useful. I don’t usually bother to grow cilantro as it goes to seed too fast and is so easily available in stores. Having fresh herbs in the garden is wonderful as it is a real pleasure to be able to walk out and pick whatever you feel like adding to your meal or salad or whatever else you have in mind. Another item which I also like to have is green onions, not strictly an herb, but nice to have around. I usually just buy plants from the nurseries of most things, but dill and basil are especially easy to grow and may be planted anytime now in well drained planting soil, either in a pot or in the ground. Try drying herbs in the microwave. Just spread them out on a paper plate and nuke about 15-20 seconds at a time, they will turn out nice and crispy and easy to save. I also like making my own pesto to freeze – here’s my Italian mother-in-law’s recipe:

Pesto

2 – 4 cups packed basil leaves, no stems

Olive oil

Pine nuts or walnuts, about ¼ - ½ cup

Garlic cloves – 3 or 4 chopped up

Parmesan cheese – about a cup

Pack the basil leaves into your blender or food processor; add the nuts and garlic and process by pulsing while you gradually add a thin stream of olive oil. Use enough oil so that the leaves chop well, this is NOT low calorie. Once you have processed it up well and have a slightly runny paste, turn it out into a bowl and stir in the cheese. Taste for seasoning, add salt and pepper if you need to. This can be frozen and will keep for months – just cover with a thin layer of oil to keep out the air and freeze. Thaw to use and mix half and half with hot pasta water, then mix with the pasta, about a cup or so for a pound of pasta. Delicious, serve with more cheese!

Our summer garden is in and we are waiting anxiously for the first signs of ripe tomatoes and squash. The butternut squash I planted this year is doing well. At $1.29/pound, a good butternut squash crop will pay for my garden, just like my organic chard did this winter. I just pulled almost the end of my winter carrot crop and they were superior, much sweeter and more delicious than anything you find in the store. I STILL HAVE CHARD. It just won’t die this year. I also planted zinnias in six packs and hope that I can outwit the snails. Joan has been handpicking snails every night with a flash light and a cool whip carton to stow them in.

Finally, we pulled up our garlic crop tonight. Last fall, I literally threw the cloves from a head of garlic in the ground and forgot about them. They were up in a couple of weeks, I watered them sporadically and this week the tops finally died and I dug them up. We ended up with a dozen HUGE heads of garlic, 2 to 3 inches across. I shook off the dirt and we’ll dry them and they should keep just fine until I use them up. I cook with a lot of garlic, so maybe next year I’ll plant TWO heads. Talk about easy crops.

What to do in your garden in June

• You can still plant summer vegetables and flowers (it’s a little late for flowers in the ground, but you can plant baskets if you keep them watered)
• Keep the snails picked up and out of your hair
• Keep your vegetables watered well and fertilize with a soluble fertilizer such as fish emulsion, manure tea or Miracle Gro if you don’t care too much about being completely organic
• Keep your flowers dead headed and they will bloom longer
• Station your lounge chair and/or your hammock in a nice cool spot in your yard
• Get out the sprinkle and the wading pool, the heat’s coming!

Quote of the month

If you pick up a dog that is starving and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- Mark Twain

Let me know if you want the cat!

Jean