Because there's Always Something
Jul. 3rd, 2011 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clarentineHere at Always Something Farm, we have settled into our typical mid-summer pattern: a little bit of activity in the early morning hours, before the sun rises and turns the air into a sauna, then seeking of shady nooks to await the cooler evening. Fortunately, there is a lot of shade up by the house. The heat hasn't yet reached unbearable.
This morning, we woke to grumbles of thunder in the distance. (Of course, Kay knew about it long before we did. I'm surprised she didn't end up in the bed.) Before too much longer - just after I got up and went to cover the grill, which I'd forgotten about the night before - we had the nice, steady rain we all hope for. Well, this time of year we both hope for and hate that rain; the garden needs the moisture, but the humidity levels don't need the help.
The zucchini have been laughing at me for the past two months - either that, or they wanted the humidity, because it was only this week that we finally got female flowers on the damned plants. Everyone I know is already eating their zucchini. I've been going down in the mornings, before the heat, and peeking under the leaves, hoping to find a female flower coming along. Today my threadbare patience was rewarded with quite a fair number of them, so by this time next week we should be very well supplied in the zucchini department.
(Don't know how to tell male and female flowers apart on squash? Here's a good shot that should help. Skinny stems are males; female flowers already have the baby squash waiting for pollination at their base. There are two female flowers in the lower right-hand corner. I think the rest are male.)
The garden isn't the only part of the farm that's busy being productive. The fungi crop was especially beautiful after this morning's rain. The one big Ailanthus tree back in the berm beside the long field thought it was going to have a good year, too, but it reckoned without me. The tree's in chunks on the brush pile, and photos of the seed pods (the reason the damned tree is so prolific, and so invasive), the fungi, and a lot of other new stuff are up on my Flickr photo blog, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8556491@N07/ I'm especially pleased with the Cosmos, for which I save seed every year; they really are as brilliant as that photo shows.
***
Public service announcement: watch out for ticks this summer! Apparently the diagnosis of Lyme disease is way up. The spring's moist weather in the eastern half of the country provided ideal conditions for the little bastards. Lyme is nothing to screw around with; it's far, far more (and worse) than a rash.
Interestingly, it looks like invasive plants might play a role in the increase in Lyme cases. There's some well-documented research being done in Connecticut which shows a correlation between stands of escaped Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and the numbers of Lyme-carrying ticks. Eradication of the barberry thickets (via propane torch, since just cutting them to the ground means they resprout with a vengeance) has gone a long way to reduce tick numbers. Lessons learned: watch out what you introduce into your ecosystem, and control it if it escapes. You never know which pretty little foreigner will end up going Godzilla.
This morning, we woke to grumbles of thunder in the distance. (Of course, Kay knew about it long before we did. I'm surprised she didn't end up in the bed.) Before too much longer - just after I got up and went to cover the grill, which I'd forgotten about the night before - we had the nice, steady rain we all hope for. Well, this time of year we both hope for and hate that rain; the garden needs the moisture, but the humidity levels don't need the help.
The zucchini have been laughing at me for the past two months - either that, or they wanted the humidity, because it was only this week that we finally got female flowers on the damned plants. Everyone I know is already eating their zucchini. I've been going down in the mornings, before the heat, and peeking under the leaves, hoping to find a female flower coming along. Today my threadbare patience was rewarded with quite a fair number of them, so by this time next week we should be very well supplied in the zucchini department.
(Don't know how to tell male and female flowers apart on squash? Here's a good shot that should help. Skinny stems are males; female flowers already have the baby squash waiting for pollination at their base. There are two female flowers in the lower right-hand corner. I think the rest are male.)
The garden isn't the only part of the farm that's busy being productive. The fungi crop was especially beautiful after this morning's rain. The one big Ailanthus tree back in the berm beside the long field thought it was going to have a good year, too, but it reckoned without me. The tree's in chunks on the brush pile, and photos of the seed pods (the reason the damned tree is so prolific, and so invasive), the fungi, and a lot of other new stuff are up on my Flickr photo blog, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8556491@N07/ I'm especially pleased with the Cosmos, for which I save seed every year; they really are as brilliant as that photo shows.
***
Public service announcement: watch out for ticks this summer! Apparently the diagnosis of Lyme disease is way up. The spring's moist weather in the eastern half of the country provided ideal conditions for the little bastards. Lyme is nothing to screw around with; it's far, far more (and worse) than a rash.
Interestingly, it looks like invasive plants might play a role in the increase in Lyme cases. There's some well-documented research being done in Connecticut which shows a correlation between stands of escaped Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and the numbers of Lyme-carrying ticks. Eradication of the barberry thickets (via propane torch, since just cutting them to the ground means they resprout with a vengeance) has gone a long way to reduce tick numbers. Lessons learned: watch out what you introduce into your ecosystem, and control it if it escapes. You never know which pretty little foreigner will end up going Godzilla.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 01:05 am (UTC)I picked strawberries on Saturday, and got some rhubarb from my parents. I'll be making jam and pie once I can go pick raspberries.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 01:21 am (UTC)I've designed rhubarb plants into landscapes (though I don't know that they've ever been planted as designed), but I have not, to my knowledge, ever eaten rhubarb. Perhaps when next we cross paths we can remedy that lack, since you know what to do with it!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 01:38 am (UTC)Wow, you've never had rhubarb? You can do so many things with it!
It recently came up in a poem on my Friends List: http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/1770203.html
I listed all the ways I've eaten it (the stuff I got from Mom will be in a pie and I'll have extra to make a bit of sauce).
Ways I have had Rhubarb:
My grandmother made a rhubarb sauce which she put on Shredded Wheat, and both my mother and grandmother made strawberry rhubarb pie (Mom now adds raspberries).
And dried rhubarb candy stuff! Mom makes it from the leftovers strained out of rhubarb wine, and it's delicious. Rhubarb bark, I think it is?
On the Rhubarb Candy:
Mom's rhubarb wine recipe involves stewing rhubarb in water and some sugar for a while. Then the rhubarb bits are strained out, and the recipe says to throw the solids out. Then making wine from the liquid.
Mom then found a recipe for rhubarb bark. Which involved soaking rhubarb and some sugar in water for a while, then straining and dumping the water, then discarding the liquid. Then dehydrating the rhubarb paste to make the candy/bark.
I think it is like fruit leather... It's yummy.
Mom makes both, and doesn't throw anything out.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 01:31 pm (UTC)Growing your own berries is lovely, but the wildlife thinks so, too. *g*
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 02:24 pm (UTC)And Mom is clever like that! The rhubarb candy is chewy and tart. She makes it in her dehydrator.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 02:45 pm (UTC)Oh, yum!
Date: 2011-07-05 04:09 am (UTC)Re: Oh, yum!
Date: 2011-07-05 10:25 am (UTC)