Incoming! Garden Explosions

Published in Highgrove Happenings - July 2008 edition

Between the yellow squash, the patty pan squash and the cucumbers, with a few peppers and onions thrown in and a side order of tomatoes and cucumbers, the garden is starting to explode! I have probably already harvested 20 lbs of summer squash since the beginning of June – we ate a LOT of it but I gave some away too. My Sunday School class is always good to eat up my garden surplus or someone at work will put their hand up if I say “anybody want some ____ (fill in the blank)?” If you’re like us, half the fun of a vegetable garden is sharing what you have extra. Some other ideas when your garden produces TOO bountifully – look around your neighborhood. Is there an older person who loves fresh vegetables but maybe can’t afford to buy them as often as they would like, or is no longer physically able to plant a garden? What about that family with five kids? Anything will help these days with the soaring price of everything. Local Food Banks often will accept home grown produce as well. Get creative and share your harvest!

This month I wanted to mention all the specialty garden clubs that are out there in our region. You can find a group to match nearly any particular garden fancy you have. The Riverside and San Bernardino area has two rose clubs, a succulent and cactus club, an African Violet club, a rare fruit growers club, an orchid club – you get the picture. To find the meeting times of these groups, check the Saturday “Local Plus” section of the Riverside Press. It also lists plant sales and shows and is a good resource for anything special you are looking for. The Sunset Magazine website is also a good resource for listings of specialty nurseries – that perfect camellia, for example, or a special cymbidium orchid. You may have to drive a little, but believe me, it can definitely be worth it. However, don’t fall into the trap of trying to grow something that is not suited to our hot dry inland climate. I have pined for years for a fuchsia, but every time I think I am going to try one, Joan reminds me that they really are not meant to live in Riverside unless you happen to have a cool damp microclimate in your yard (we don’t). My friend Eula can grow maidenhair ferns in her yard in Riverside for this very reason – they turn crisp out here in Highgrove! I am writing this during that hot spell in mid-June, and am having trouble keeping ANYTHING alive!

But back to the garden. We have not had good squash or cucumbers for several years because I tried to grow transplants from local nurseries. After the second try and failure of this system last year, I said that was enough, and vowed to plant my own seeds this summer. So far, it has been a resounding success. I planted bush cukes and pickling cukes from seed and they are much more resistant to the heat than the Japanese cucumbers I had planted last year, not to mention much more compact and less expensive. The squash I planted has also been very successful. The last couple of years all I had was scrawny little yellow crookneck which never got big and a small handful of patty pan, and zucchini that simply dried up on the vine and never developed. Eggplant is one of the most faithful and successful of summer crops (in addition to tomatoes) and planting from a small transplant has not proved to be problematical for either one of these crops. We also have a burgeoning crop of butternut and buttercup squash (both winter squash types) which we are looking forward to for storage this fall. Joan is growing Roma tomatoes to dry as we are big dried tomato fans but hate to pay $3.00 for a small package! After the tomato salmonella scare in early June, I am just as glad we planted so many!

Fruit-wise, the peaches are doing well. We thinned them mercilessly this year and it made a BIG difference. This is very hard to do but has a very good effect on the size and quality of the fruit. We did the same with the plums. Both are larger and looking excellent. We have Thompson seedless and Red Flame grapes coming too. Apricots are a battle – we ended up with about 25 marble sized apricots for the whole tree. They did taste good though. Down the street on Center, there is a tree with apricots dropping – I may just go by to ask if I can have some! Our Texas blackberries were a little seedy, but very tasty and we harvested a pretty good crop.

Here’s my recipe for Grilled Vegetables – this couldn’t be easier or more delicious.

Cut up a variety of fresh vegetables. Cut summer squash lengthwise, cut thick slices of peeled eggplant, wedges of peppers, thick slices of sweet onion. Heat your grill to medium, and brush the veggies with the following baste:

½ cup Newman’s Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing

Fresh ground pepper and a little more salt

A little more oil (maybe a ¼ cup)

Trader Joe’s Pasta Seasoning or other Italian seasoning – 1 or 2 tsp to suit your taste

Grill the vegetables with the lid down, turning and brushing with the marinade every few minutes until done to your taste. I don’t like to overcook them but a few char marks are good. Grilling vegetables is like oven roasting them – the flavors seem to intensify. Serve alone or sprinkled with parmesan cheese, or use as a filling for a veggie sandwich with good bread.

What to do in your garden in July:

• Keep everything watered, especially your pots, which can dry out daily in 100+ weather. Don’t water at mid-day, morning and evening are best, so you will have less evaporation
• Fertilize everything monthly as heavy watering leaches out nutrients
• Keep your fruit trees well watered as the fruit is ripening and cover with a bird net so the birdies don’t have dessert at your expense! Distract the birds with a feeder in another part of your garden.
• Keep dead flowers picked off your plants and keep your veggies picked and they will produce longer
• Keep up with the weeds, don’t let them go to seed and you will eventually have fewer weeds
• Plant crepe myrtles. There are beautiful varieties blooming in the nurseries now and they are one of our most reliable shrubs and trees for summer color
• It’s not too late to plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and so on if you haven’t done it yet – you should have something to eat by sometime in August and they should bear into the fall
• Mulch! Superior Compost is great for this and may be found at the Farm Supply store on Third St. in Riverside. We also use a thick layer of straw on the ground in the vegetable garden and orchard. Lovely on the tootsies if you like to go barefoot in the garden – not very fancy but very practical

Joke of the Month:

Cat's motto:

No matter what you've done wrong, always try to make it look like the dog did it.

Baseball Bats and Flying Saucers

(Originally published in "Highgrove Happenings" in July 2007) - Note the difference between the yard now and then -- see the next entry).

Well, I’m back. I had a great trip to Kenya, absolutely amazing and completely impossible to write about in a short column. I have completed my blog which I ended up writing after I came home, took me most of the month of May. I took sixty pages of notes in my journal, filled a small pocket notebook with other notes and took over 500 pictures. I have written it up on my blog – I would suggest that if you want to read it, that you start on April 21, 2007 and read forward from that date. I met wonderful people (Kenyans are remarkably warm and friendly – they actually like Americans there), beautiful children, gorgeous countryside and the highlight of the trip -- my photo safari to the Maasai Mara National Wildlife Preserve, where we saw all the large African mammals, many birds and made friends with two Maasai warriors (the guys in red who jump on the Wild Animal Park ad). The blog has all my stories, and lots of pictures – here’s the web address, the letters must be entered exactly as you see them here (no spaces, all lower case):

http://caljeanie-kenyainapril.blogspot.com/

But back to the garden. If you’re like me, and work all week, the weekend is the time to putter in the yard, clean up and fool around with your plants. This weekend was no different but I discovered in my vegetable garden that sometime during the week we had been invaded by a baseball team and aliens from outer space!! Under my zucchini plant I found three baseball bats! And under the patty pan squash plant I found a flying saucer about 8 inches in diameter! My goodness… whatever shall we do…I would like to find the cute baseball players who left their bats, however….

Last fall I threw a lot of sweet alyssum seed around the garden and was delighted that even without too much rain (actually, NO rain) it came up quite enthusiastically with just the sprinkler going once in a while. It had died off with the first warm weather but I sheared it back to about six inches high with some hand clippers, watered it good and was rewarded three weeks later with another beautiful bloom. It looks great right now. Other plants you can do this with are campanula, candytuft, carnations, cosmos, lobelia, nasturtiums, snapdragons and statice. (Keep moist after blooming and cut back by a third and most of these will re-bloom). Alyssum will self sow too, and you will have more next year – just shake the dead plants around the yard. Other plants that are notorious self sowers are African daisies, cosmos, calendula and California poppy. Many of the plants I put in last fall and during the winter are blooming as well – new lavenders, the roses, pale yellow daylilies and so on. Things are very pleasant right now. To my joy, the new patio cover seems to have given the back yard just enough shade in the afternoon to keep things from frying when it gets hot. We’ll see how things are in the middle of July.

Our tomatoes are enjoying the lovely compost I got for them and I have tons of green tomatoes but no red yet (mid-June) – we usually have our first tomato right around the end of June, first of July. I planted a few cherry tomatoes a couple of weeks ago and the little plants already have fruit on them. The first tomato is an event in our house and I always take a cell phone picture of it and send it to my niece in Arizona and my daughter in Texas!

Things will slow down a little now. I have most of my summer flowers in (some vinca and zinnias in pots to brighten things up). Some other flowers that do well in the heat are petunias of all kinds, marigolds, coreopsis, portulaca, celosia, salvia, dahlias, verbena and ageratum. Most of these you can still find in six-packs at the local garden stores and nurseries. My main concern will be keeping things watered and fertilized and clean up the mess in my potting shed. We are finally to the point in our garden where we have to really think before we buy a plant. We are actually running out of room. I don’t know what I am going to do.

This is also a good time to mulch your garden if you haven’t already done it. Two to four inches of shredded bark or other mulch works well to keep roots cool and slows down evaporation – saves water. Leave a space around the trunk of the plant to avoid disease. We have our entire “orchard” area covered with a nice layer of straw. Easy on the feet and keeps the weeds down too.

Here’s something to do with your zucchini “baseball bats” – maybe you can lure the baseball players back with this recipe…I made it for Bill on Father’s Day. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the patty pan “flying saucer.” Kudos to my sister Joan for this idea.

Fried Zucchini

Take your huge zucchini (2 ½ - 3 inches around and 12 - 14 inches long) and slice it into 1/4 inch slices. Lay it out on paper towels and salt it to draw out some of the juice. Leave for 30 minutes, blot, turn over and salt again. After the water forms again, blot well. Prepare two beaten eggs and seasoned bread crumbs. Dip in egg, then bread crumbs and then fry in olive oil until brown on both sides and tender to the fork. Blot well and eat with ranch dressing. This is almost as good as Zorba’s fried zucchini…a lot cheaper too.

Joke of the Month:

A duck walks into a bar wearing a hard-hat, safety vest, and tool belt. He sits down at the bar and says to the bartender, "I'll have a beer." Flabbergasted, the bartender pours a beer and hands it to the duck. He tosses it back and orders another. The bartender can't believe what he's witnessing but pours another and watches as the duck downs it in one gulp. "Where're you from?" asks the barkeep. "Construction site across the street. One more please, and I'll be on my way." Pouring a third, he asks the duck, "Do you know how much money you could make with the circus?" "Circus?" the duck asks and slams his last beer. "What would the circus want with a brick layer?”

(Thanks to Prairie Home Companion)

Stay cool!

6-20-07

the squash is taking over

We're cooking in 107 degree heat here! It has been brutal for several days. My garden is pretty much going a little nuts. It's been great to be able to share and eats lots of fresh veggies. We should have our first eggplant later this week. Everyday I come home and water. Everything complains and tries to die if you don't.

We are getting ready for a small reception for a couple of our friends who just got married. Our friend Doris from our Bible Study wanted to give a party for this couple but she's 83 and couldn't do it all herself, so Joan and I will be assisting (Joan has done most of it, I am just going to do some shopping and help with the set up). That's going to be Sunday afternoon for a few hours - hopefully it will have cooled off a little by then. Joan made some nice silk flower arrangements and the punch base (which we have already tried out - very tasty) and ordered a carrot cake from Costco. We'll have sandwiches and some salads. Should be simple and a pleasant afternoon.

Saturday was Bill's 70th birthday. I can hardly believe it. He's doing ok, but doesn't want to do much when it's so hot (none of us do). I was going to take him to a Peruvian restaurant, but we skipped it and went to the movies instead - and stayed cool! We ended up going to see the new Indiana Jones movie - preposterous plot but enjoyable. Joan bought him spumoni ice cream - his favorite. Matt and Laura called - he doesn't care about anything else if he hears from the kids.

Wally's moved to Beaumont - CA not TX

Krista and her family met us at Trader Joe's in Redlands to make the switch. Wally took his bag of food and a half a bag of kitty litter plus his vitamins with him. We gave him a bath with a wash cloth before he went. Turns out that it was the dad of the family who had really wanted a new cat. He works from home, and really missed the other family cat they had that had died. Several days ago, he told his wife that what he really wanted for Father's Day was a new cat - two days later I was talking to his mother-in-law (my friend Kathy) and voila! the connection was made. It was meant to be. He was very pleased you could see - big smile and the whole family took to Wally immediately. What's not to like? Krista promised pictures and updates, so I hope to hear how he is faring.

Needless to say, we are relieved. I was starting to get worried as it was becoming more and more difficult to keep him away from the dogs. He could get out of his box in the computer room and could climb the baby gate I was keeping him in the bedroom with. WHEW!!

Other wise we are having a vegetable explosion in the garden. I cooked squash, peppers and onions on the grill last night with marinated chicken - it was delicious. My next post will probably my column for "Highgrove Happenings" so I will tell all about my garden there.

Wally has a home!

The daughter of my friend will be taking Mr. Wallace T. Cat home Sunday afternoon after she returns from Palm Springs. He will have a boy to play with and a schnauzer-poodle mix with nurturing qualities who loves kittens in his family. He lost his mom at a tender age and hasn't been messed with enough, although we have done our best. I am so happy he finally has a "forever family"! The first thing they need to buy him is a scratching post! He climbed my leg the other day and I am still nursing the scratches!

Wally has a lead on a home - cuter than ever!

Here's the little dude, looking positively charming in a (very brief) moment of repose during his evening workout in my bedroom (I turn him loose with the baby gate up to keep the woofs out, and he takes off, careening from one side of the room to the next. )

After a meeting this afternoon, I was talking pets with a friend from another office and I tried to foist him off on Mike, who says he also has dogs who eat cats (like our otherwise dear Athena) and another friend passed by who just got a cat. However, her daughter needs one, so we will be making contact. I am hopeful. He needs to go home and be free to be playful all day. He has to spend part of the day cooped up at my house.

I've mentioned Maggie (Great Pyrenees), Athena (Weimaraner) and Wiley (little yellow dawg) so many times I decided to add their pictures here too. They're on my facebook page too, but here they are. They are all good dogs, but the cat thing really is a problem...

more Wally news

Wally is definitely a boy - Joan took him to the vet and he is very healthy and doing just fine thank you very much. Weighs two pounds. As you can see, he's still with us and we're still protecting him from the dogs. Athena is still VERY interested. The vet says he needed worming and kitten shots, but otherwise he's doing well. This past week I called all around to no-kill shelters - the Riverside Humane Society has 70 kittens in foster care. I don't know how we are possibly going to find this little guy a home. Anybody in Riverside who wants him and will keep him safe, let me know!

This week was hectic at work - about a hundred emails to clean up when I got back from Monterey (business trip to a conference last week - how bad could that be? - Monterey was gorgeous - see my facebook page for some pictures). What I love about my job is the variety - I get to do a lot of different things. All the regular manager stuff - stats, personnel issues, regional things - but I also get to participate in policy making and implementation committees and go to conferences once in a while. Big whoop, I know, for most people, but for me - I love it!

The garden is suffering from a squash explosion and the sparrow hawks are back! I saw a brown towhee today - first one this spring. The birds also found the first good plum, so out came the bird nets. I hope nobody gets caught, but I am not willing to give up my crop. Today was beautiful - 80ish and clear. Keep that great Cali June weather coming!