Welcome to the Neighborhood

Daniel and I were on our way back home from Walmart, where from here on out I will swear my grocery loyalties, and we turned on to Battery and saw this deer cross the road, cross back and hang a right on Merrywood, where she climbed the hill into this back yard. She seemed very confused, wondering where all the trees went, and why this huge black monster was following her and stopping to watch her. She did give us a nice pose, and Daniel proceeded to yell "Eeeee! Eeeee!" which I can only guess is the noise deer must make. Toddlers are so smart.

Brace Yourself

I fully recognize the need to update on life, but I rather enjoy keeping secrets, not exploiting every new fun thing Daniel discovers, and generally failing to process ever-changing life circumstances. Essentially, my baby boy is growing up, Joe is growing busy, I am growing older (though not necessarily wiser) and I could really use some updated make-up. Yes, that sounds strange coming from a self-proclaimed tomboy/ country girl gone city-dweller or urban wannabe gardener, but I feel tired and washed out despite the influx of speckled brownish patches (also called freckles) across my unsuspecting face.

Today, despite an hour of preparation, I had a somewhat crushing blow at my third attempt at grocery shopping with coupons. Harris Teeter was running its triples special, so I came with my 20 coupons, expecting to save about $50-$60 in coupons and even more in in-store specials. My track record with coupons has been foul. Last time I took coupons to Walmart, I was told they didn't accept internet coupons. It made me feel dirty, like they were saying, "Your services aren't needed here," or like I was supposed to show up in a dress suit but forgot and wore overalls. I returned the items I purchased in excess in order to save, and they proceeded to trash them all because they were not allowed to restock them (or was it because my dirty little internet coupons passed through the same hands?).

At the Harris Teeter checkout, much to my dismay, most all my coupons were for $1, so none tripled. I thought the 99 cent limit meant that they would triple it, but only as much as 3 times 99 cents. I was wrong. For the most part, Harris Teeter is upwards a dollar more expensive than most products at Walmart, so without triples, I didn't exactly accomplish anything by changing my store and using the coupons.

I cried in the car and shared my story with Joe coupled with several choice words, and he followed by begging me to either give up coupons entirely or to take a class on it so he didn't continue to get weekly calls from an outraged woman who felt scammed by the coupon system. I still saved $60 total with the in-store specials, but there are now a whole lot of crackers in my pantry that may still be there in 2011 when they expire.

Do you find it a little insane that I would cry over groceries? I do too. However, I have been fixated on slashing our monthly budget, and short of switching to a beans and rice diet, I've been trying to get a hold of the grocery budget as a starting point - that and eating out. How I love eating out, especially at Sushi Blues, El Rodeo, Bojangles, Papa Johns, ... shall I go on? The most frustrating part to me is that whatever time I spend on the budget, I save very little relative to how much I make at my job. So it seems the best option is to just keep working instead of cutting back on work to work on finances. However, coming up with new tasks to do to improve my courses (while still missing half the brain I lost during my first pregnancy) is challenging or uninspiring at best. Also, while Daniel is napping, do I want to work? No. I want to nap. Eat. Pick peas. Pollinate squash... jk. No more squash, I promise.

To all of this, Joe would reply, "Did I hear a Waaah?" I taught him that. I think I picked it up at camp many summers ago.

Over-pollinated?

Cold Snaps and Wrinkled Squash

Several posts ago I posted a picture of my first large Goldbar squash (seeds from Logan's). After the recent cold snap, the latest picks never grew full on the ends and were soft and quickly molded. The squash currently growing are responding well to the 80-degree weather, so I can only imagine the 40-degree nights stunted these three, which is one risk of starting the garden early. The advantage is that as long as it stays warm, I will get a pretty large crop before the invasion of squash bugs and vine borers in late June. I may go ahead and plant some more seeds as a replacement crop when that does happen, since squash can keep producing until the first frost.

He Said, She Said

Paige: (singing with the radio) ... you make the rockin' world go round...

Joe: Does that song not offend you?

Paige: Why would it?

Joe: "Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round"?

Paige: Oh, I just pretend they are saying "FLAT bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round."

Tomato Plants or Venus Baby Traps?

I never would have imagined that tomatoes started from seed would become such monsters. Many of my bushes have upwards of five main stems (I didn't prune the suckers), and the recommended 18" spacing doesn't seem to be enough. I've been pruning the lower branches to encourage air flow, and I transferred four younger plants from the third garden into the mulched area to leave room for the romaine, peppers, garlic and onions. After a couple hours of looking droopy and lots of watering, the transplants seem to have taken to the un-supplemented soil pretty well.

I also spent an hour doing search and rescue on the pepper plants that were getting too much shade, and planted them where I have begun digging up old broccoli plants in the side garden. The peppers in the "pillar of peppers" are beginning to bush out and some even have small blossoms. The pathways between the gardens are now overgrown (as you can tell by Daniel's face as he tries to make his way to me), and there are a couple doves that are enjoying the shade of the over sized squash leaves.

Daniel and I really enjoy spending cool mornings and early evenings before Joe gets home playing outside. I pick the peas and spinach, and as I am squatting, he tries to crawl up on my lap or tries to bite a pea pod several times before deciding that there's no way it is actually food and puts it back into the colander. What peas I don't eat upon picking, I have been shelling and freezing for later use.

Sometime in the next couple weeks I will start doing research on canning and freezing tomatoes. I have a feeling I am going to be inundated with them, even after sharing with friends. I sure can't wait for grilled tomato, avocado and cheddar sandwiches!

For Whitney

My first squash of the season.

Vibrators

Earlier we discussed how bees typically pollinate squash plants by carrying pollen from the male flower to the female flower. The pollination by hand is going well. The flowers I missed earlier fell off along with the ovaries, but the ones I pollinated are nearly ripe for picking.

This week my tomato plants have been blossoming, but I have not seen any fruit begin to form and am concerned because there are no bees buzzing around. Last year I got no tomatoes from my Better Boys because the flowers never set fruit (drought and no bees?), so I decided to try and pollinate by hand this year. However, I couldn't see the pollen! It was all trapped inside the flower.

Through a little research, I found out that many tomatoes are self-pollinating. The wind shakes the plant and the pollen falls off the stamen and onto the stigma. Some tomatoes benefit from the help of bumble bees. Bumble bees pollinate tomatoes by planting their feet on the flowers and vibrating them. Apparently, honey bees aren't up to the job - it must be bumble bees. I am not sure what the bumble bees get out of it, but the tomatoes get an abundant crop.

In April, we had an abundance of bumble bees on the Carolina Jasmine, but all the rain seems to have washed them away. I am not sure which type my tomatoes are (self-pollinating or by bumble bee) - I have 8 types, so I am going to employ the help of a vibrating toothbrush with "full motion pulsating head" and "power whitening". No, I don't know what power whitening will accomplish. Several bloggers suggest using vibrating toothbrushes and claim they great success with them. I'll let you know!

Addendum: I should probably state how I am doing this. I take the tooth brush and place it on the backside of the flower (so as not to harm the flower) and let it vibrate for about two seconds. Some garden bloggers vibrate each flower, some just do the cluster. Right now, I'm doing each flower, but I would guess as the flowers increase I will be focusing on the clusters.

Mother's Day Photo

I had to post this. Notice how my arms look so stiff? Daniel was flipping and flopping like a trout just baited.

Flank Steak Pinwheels

Last night I prepared a dish called Flank Steak Pinwheels. I can only rip off so many recipes from Allrecipes.com on my blog, and other than leaving out the breadcrumbs, I didn't alter this one much, so I will just let you visit the link yourself. In the process of tenderizing the meat, Joe made these long and rather deep cuts, so I filled those with feta and drizzled olive oil over the top, hoping to lock in moisture and add flavor, and it created fun stripes on the outside. The spinach was from our garden. The taste was phenomenal. The feta, spinach, red onion and garlic blended nicely with the marinade, and the steak was tender.


*I apologize to my vegetarian and vegan friends who may find pictures of meat disgusting. Tofu does the same to me ;)

Matryoshka Dolls

So let this blow your mind. Baby girls are born with their ovaries and all their eggs. This means that my mom, in a strange way, also carried Daniel (unfertilized egg that he was) in her womb as well. It makes me think of those nesting Russian Dolls. Another cool thing is that the eggs are all the same age. So my sister and I who are 5 years apart may have bumped eggshells back when mama was being carried by her mama. Simply amazing.

Wikipedia

Wind Power

Daniel loves pinwheels - almost as much as he loves the hose. Notice the wet shirt and pants.

Sex Ed.

Now, see there you go getting funny thoughts - this is why I typically avoid the topic, but we are talking SQUASH here, friends. Squash pollination brings lovely tender yellow fruits to the dinner table in the summer.

Last year my squash plants put out many flowers which never set fruit. Many of these were eaten by an unidentified scoundrel before squash vine borers and squash bugs destroyed the plants completely. Since then I have learned that there are both male and female flowers, and the male flowers don't set fruit. This was surprising to me because in elementary school science I learned the parts of the flower and all were a happy little family between one set of petals.

The male flowers have one stamen. The female flowers have one stigma and an ovum at the base of the flower, which is the squash fruit. I did a little reading and found that sometimes a single squash plant will open its male and female flowers at alternating times to encourage cross-pollination with other plants. I guess inbreeding is a problem for squash as well as Tennesseans. This is why it is good to grow several squash plants in close proximity to each other.

Due to the serious lack of honey bees and other pollinators, there's a lot of work that isn't getting done, leading to less abundant crops. For the home gardener, this can be remedied with a little third party action. Once you know how to identify a male flower, you can pick it, remove the stamen, and stick the stamen into the open female flowers and jiggle it around a little on the stigma to brush off the pollen.

Is pollinating squash plants by hand necessary? I really don't know, but I am going to give it a try this year and report back here.

Dee-DUH!

Peas Please

Garden Update

The past couple of weekends have been busy in our back yard. Last weekend Joe buried a water line out to the garden. This weekend we mulched the area running around the side and the back to expand the area to include several mounds of strawberries, melons and squash that were previously in the wild. The mulch and brick perimeter tidied up the area and more than doubled the size of the garden. We did not supplement or weed the soil, and most likely this will just be an area for large bush and vine plants.


Joe refers to this plot as "bestial". I agree. The tomatoes are doing their best to intimidate the carrots, romaine, and onions. I think there is also some garlic hiding down in there. The squash plant is already producing fruit, but they are all about the size of Daniel's thumb right now. Today I added a pepper plant or two to grow in the shade of the tomatoes, which will protect then from the harsh afternoon sun. Hopefully as the tomatoes grow taller, there will be more vertical layers to the garden rather than this mess of green.


The romaine is doing very well and I probably waited a couple days too long to pick this first batch - the leaves are nearly 6" long. We did cook up some broccoli the other night, but only ate a couple bites before getting completely turned off by the steamed worms that I missed. I've decided broccoli is best bought in the store for the amount of space they take up (and even the cost of the plants), but it was fun giving them a shot this spring.


Daniel has been enjoying spending his mornings and afternoons (when shady and not too hot) outside. He is either chasing down pinwheels I placed to scare the birds away, sitting on strawberry and squash plants, or, and this is most often the case, dragging the hose around pretending to water the garden.