Of Soybeans & Swallowtails

Apparently I have found that there is a limit to how much fresh edamame one can snack on - mine happens to be 8 oz! Over the past 2 weeks, my appetite every evening for fresh steamed edamame pods has been gaining steam until I reached critical mass last night as I sat down to snack on 1/2 lb of these yummy healthy snacks! I usually feel pretty energetic when I eat these, not so this time...I was stuffed to the brim and felt as if I had just finished a Thanksgiving dinner! As of tonight I am backing it down to 4-5 oz which was my harvest the first time. Who knew? Things like that I always thought you could eat for hours and not get full!

On the same front, my second crop of Beer Friend Edamame from Territorial Seed Co. just sprouted today. I was worried because of the extreme temps we have been having, but up they came anyways, along with some heirloom black radish, carrots, Heatwave Lettuce, pole beans, and a "mystery crop"! See photo below:

Not sure if you can see it very well, but all along the right side are hundreds of seedlings! I planted herbs in the spring that never grew, but just pulled out some dill a week ago that had gone to seed. I'm thinking dill, but you never know, lol!! I will let them stay until I figure out what they are at least!

On to the weather: wow! After 2 solid weeks of heat indexes in the 100's, last night our area got twice the amount of rain we usually get in a hurricane! Downtown received 7.25 inches in one hour!!!!! Unbelievable! What makes this even more crazy is that everything flooded and came to a standstill. Really makes me nervous to think of what will happen when, not if, we get 'the big one'...hurricane that is. Tidewater, VA is a group of 7 cities pretty much surrounded by water - the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries. The only way out if evacuated is through one of our many bridge-tunnels that take us under the water and points west and north of here. Last night they were all closed since the tunnels filled up with rainwater. Looks like investing in a good johnboat is a better preparation to take than planning on getting out by car, lol! We try and chuckle about it around here cuz, well...what else can we do?!

And this is just plain fun for all ages:

remember one of the residents of my Black Swallowtail Daycare?

Below is a Black Swallowtail in late pupa stage! There are about 15 in the 1st instar stage, a few full grown caterpillars, and this is the only pupa that I can see in the plant, but we have 10-15 adult butterflies cruising about the garden too. This is all going on in a large deck pot of peppers and parsley right outside my back door. I can see the pupa from my computer, so I am hoping I can catch a video of it emerging if I am really lucky! This plant combination seems to work well since they feed on the parsley and simply hang their "pupa strings" (lol) from the thicker pepper stems. The pic is a bit dark, but if you look closely, you can see it's markings through the case, this one is very, very ready to make an entrance soon!

I found the below images at http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/lifecycleofblsw--- these pictures are a beautifully simple display of the lifecycle of the Black Swallowtail!

First Instar Stage	Second Instar Stage	Third Instar Stage
Full Grown Caterpillar	Pre-Pupa Stage	Early Pupa Stage
Late Pupa Stage	Recently Emerged Butterfly	Adult Butterfly with Chrysalis Shell
Black Swallowtail-Male	Black Swallowtail-Female

Hot & Steamy Weekend

I got a bit accomplished this weekend, although it was so hot outside that for the most part the kids & I stayed indoors and just read books or watched movies! Friday morning we went to go pick blueberries at a local farm. All of them went straight into the freezer Friday afternoon since I didn't have any energy to do much with them afterwards! I am contemplating whipping up some smoothies this evening for the kids after dinner, since now we have a good selection of frozen fruit in the freezer now!

Blueberries

Here are the blueberry-pickin kids...shortly before we left all sweaty and covered in mosquito bites!

If you are in need of a really good muffin recipie, try this one out for 'To Die For Blueberry Muffins'...it's my favorite and has a yummy crumb topping!

Not much in the way of harvest this weekend, thankfully, since I wanted to plant my two beds that were cleared of squash/cuke vines and strawberries. Into one bed I planted a second crop of Edamame. One bed is clearly not enough to both snack on every evening and have enough to freeze, so I am hoping the second crop will keep me in finger foods all winter. Into the other bed went a hodge-podge planting of some carrots, heirloom radishes, HeatWave Lettuces (we'll see how much heat they can stand, lol!), and a couple of pole beans. It was actually a relief to do something that didn't involve tomatoes for a change! Our heat indexes have been in the 100's daily and look to continue that way for at least the next week, so it has been hard to get motivated. I found that waking up early and going out and going out again after dinner is the only way, although to do this requires massive amounts of mosquito repellent! Saturday evening was nice, a few friends (all military spouses with absentee husbands!) came over for a few drinks. It's always nice to be able to complain out loud and be in the company of others who understand! Other than that, not much is going on here that is blog-worthy! I just looked at my temp gauge stuck at 113 in the shade...I'm going back to my stack of books! Before I go, here is a pic of my dinner the other night after digging potatoes. Not exactly well-balanced, but yummy nonetheless! I threw some tomato wedges on the plate so my plate wouldn't look so starch-laden! What can I say? - I'm an Irish girl, a plate of nothing but potatoes suits me fine!

Rose Finn Fingerling potatoes with fresh parsley, salt & pepper, butter with Brandywine wedges sprinkled with Kosher salt....yum, think I will have this again tonight!

Will the real Irish Gardeners please stand up?!

Today was potato day! With names like my family has, I was afraid to be downright embarrassed if I came up empty handed, so you can imagine my delight when we discovered there was indeed actual potatoes growing in my experimental potato-straw cages! (Although remember when my husband torched my potato cages? This was going to be my excuse if we came up empty handed today :))

Here is a photo taken before we started. I have 3 potato cages filled with straw. The vines died back a couple of weeks ago on the two cages on the left. The one on the right is still green so Sailor/Farmer/Husband will be home to experience the fun when that one is ready.

Everything else went pretty much as the way I had planned. In theory, I would simply lift the chicken wire off, and the straw would spill out revealing the potatoes. It actually worked! I wasn't even sure what to expect as far as yield since this is the first time I have grown potatoes, but I decided I would be happy if I got at least a couple of dinners worth.

Here are the kids sifting through the straw. Along with potatoes they found 1 slug, 2 toads, and a couple of worms. Nothing too scary was in there! (I have to admit I was a little freaked at what might be living in there due to the air pockets in the straw and close proximity to the compost piles!)

The yield: 4.03 lbs Rose Finn Fingerling Potatoes!

I know my husband will be reading this from afar and wondering if he won't get to taste them - don't worry...there is one more potato cage waiting just for you! I plan on steaming or boiling a few tonight with a little butter, salt & pepper and fresh parsley, yum!

Not so impressive: below are the raspberries I found after I ripped the squash vines off my berry patch!

I did get a little bit accomplished today besides the potatoes so it was a good day. Although the humidity was 80 some percent, the temps stayed in the 80's and the sun stayed behind the clouds, so I was able to rip out my strawberry bed before the thunderstorms chased me inside and now I have 2 empty raised beds! (My area is known for all types of berries, so I will leave future strawberries up to the pick-your-own farms, since they take up so much space all year for a small harvest window). Oh, the possibilities of empty beds....you gardeners know what I am talking about! I can't wait to sit down with my seeds and catalogs and plan for the next season. A planning session and fresh ideas are just what I need to lift my spirits during this oppressive heat wave.

Tomorrow morning starts with a date with friends to pick blueberries at the farm. Gotta love blueberries, they are so easy! Pick, eat, freeze whole. SIMPLE!

Garden of Life....And Death!

Last night I waited until temps dropped to 90, lol...and headed out to harvest and do some chores. The bounty was huge and every bit of it went in to work with my next door neighbor! Without hubby home to help eat eggplant, there wasn't much I could do with it, and the jalapenos and tomato processing this week would have surely turned me against gardening forever! This week has been tough, the temps alone I may be able to handle but the humidity outside has had me in a funk all week, and the next 7 days looks to be more of the same. I noticed the other day that it was so thick and hazy I had trouble making out the tomato beds at the other end of the yard! Selling at the Farmer's Market is not an option this week either, since I would have to tow the kids along and selling out of the back of the car with 2 whiny kids and 100 degree temps doesn't sound like "making good choices" to me, lol! Last night alone netted 3 lbs cherry tomatoes, 3.1 lbs jalapenos, 7 lbs eggplant, 13 oz bell peppers, 4 lbs cucumbers, & 9 lbs Heirloom tomatoes. Hopefully my neighbors' co-workers will appreciate them more than I can this week!

What did pick up my spirits a bit was the Edamame bed. Note to self: grow more of this! These plants are ready to be harvested this week and are the most well behaved little garden dwellers I have ever seen! They stay in their boundaries, can be crammed into a bed and produce tons of yummy pods per plant.

Below is a close-up of the 'Beer Friend' Edamame:

Other than the harvest, I finally got around to pulling out the dead sunflowers. They are getting a new life in my "lazy girl's birdfeeder", lol!

This evening's death and destruction took the form of bacterial wilt in my squash bed! You may remember how gorgeous the bed looked a few weeks ago...well, tonight they looked horrid and along with that were covered in cucumber beetle eggs, and they had jumped the bed and taken over my berry patch as well. I ripped out the lot of them and packed it all in the trash can. Now I have an empty bed, which I admit is exciting stuff.

Here are the 3 Hokkaido Squash that were in the bed, immature but pretty nonetheless. I was really looking forward to this since I have never grown squash and am not a big fan, but so many people rave about it that this was going to be THE YEAR I was going to choose, grow, and learn to love it! I will still try some, but will have to get it at the Farmer's Market. I ripped out the cukes from that bed too since the bugs were moving in and I already have plenty of pickles put away. I have one lone cuke vine over on my fence that will give me just enough for salads.

Now I need to research what I can put in that bed that won't be susceptible to the wilt virus that's in the soil. I will definitely grow squash again but now that I know how many bugs, etc enjoy it and how invasive it is I will plant it near the fence away from my raised beds where I can control it more effectively. The best lessons learned are from experience, right??

This made the sweaty mosquito-ridden evening bearable. Fresh picked Edamame pods cooked and chilled and sprinkled with Kosher salt and a glass of homebrew. Delicious! Now I know what I can do at night when the kids are in bed this winter instead of eating Cheese Nips and other garbage for snacking! I will be eating and freezing as much as possible and am even planting a second bed full tomorrow! Go SOYBEANS! Nature's perfect snack!

As an afterthought: I decided to add a counter to see just how much produce we are harvesting and NOT using for future planning purposes! Not that I don't love to be able to give away veggies, but it's something that would seem valuable to know!

Well, it's about TIME!

My first decent harvest of heirloom tomatoes! Of course it happens now, when I have no interest in being outside due to the heat indexes in the 100's and high humidity. Couple that with the fact that hubby is gone and I now have lawn mowing to contend with as well. Go figure! Looks like canning season has arrived:

This Brandywine weighed in at over 1 lb!

Finnegan making tomato & basil sauce

That's all for today, I just finished mowing the lawn and am covered in grass, dirt, sweat, and mosquito bites. Time to hit the shower, put kiddos to bed, and veg out for a few hours. Looks to be about 30 eggplant to deal with tomorrow, they will have to go to the farmer's market since I am tired of them and they are pretty much impossible to preserve! Good night all.

Garden Bloggers' Death Day

So I thought I would finally join the Death Day craze! Below I have a Weeping Redbud Tree...note the crispy leaves at the bottom I just trimmed off. Now I am the one weeping! There is still green wood so I am keeping my fingers crossed, although what tree wants to recover in 95 degree heat & humidity in a container????
This is what it looked like a month ago... :(

The Dog Days of Summer!

I was trying to organize old photos on the computer this morning, and was inspired to dedicate today's post to my Garden Dogs! If you are the type that can't stand it when others go on and on about their pets or kids, this post isn't for you, lol! If you can take it, read on! I received several comments on how well behaved my dogs looked in my camping trip pictures, and that made me laugh! So here's the real deal...

I followed a water trail through the house last night that led to a bucket filled with sanitizer for my brewing equipment. This is what I found:

The next one is when I arrived home and found Sprocket repotting my plants for me:

Bios:

Marley - age 7, Australian Shepherd, came to us last summer and she is a joy! Well behaved and obedient off leash unless there is a garden hose spraying, loves H2O, squirrels, herding & her family. She is also becoming quite the disc dog! Dislikes: thunderstorms, Sailor/Husband's sneezes, campfires and fireworks. Fun Facts: Marley was afraid of stairs when we got her, and within a day was climbing to the top of the kids fort, and can fly over a 6 foot fence from a sitting postion! Her name was Charley when we got her, but was changed to Marley since my husband Charlie used it as an excuse to not listen to me, i.e. "Oh, I thought you were talking to the dog".

Sprocket - age 1, came to us at 10 weeks old from Aussie Rescue. She is hell on paws. Likes: eating Legos, Lincoln Logs, remotes, digging in the sandbox, catching vermin, and waiting for ice to come out of refrigerator door dispenser.

Dislikes: I haven't found any yet! Her favorite toys are a wing from a stuffed loon and a stuffed sheep, and loves Marley more than life itself.

Fun Fact: Sprocket can't keep a secret - if she has some kind of contraband in her mouth, she runs around growling so we all know she is being naughty! Neurotic Dogs rock!

The day we brought Sprocket home from the Aussie Rescue. Marley is thinking "What the hell is this??? I said I wanted SHEEP, not this thing!!!"

Marley soon shone in new role as mommy and mentor, the two are inseparable, literally!

Marley taking a break from garden duties to become "canoe dog".

Marley showing Sprocket how to be a proper herding dog!

And speaking of herding dogs...can you think of anything more neurotic than 4 herding dogs over Christmas Break and no sheep????

This video captures Marley's OCD passion for water:

Marley after chewing off another hose nozzle and telling it who's boss.

The following two videos are of Bailey the Cattle Dog and her TV obsession. I pet-sit her and her Aussie "brother". If these 2 ever go missing, it's probably because I kidnapped them - I love them that much, lol! She will "ask" for the TV to be turned on even...funny stuff!

And no proper tribute to pets in this house would be complete without the Incredible Mr. Pickett. Kelly mentioned that one of her dogs set the standard for all her other pets - Pickett is the one who set the bar in this household! He showed up one day in 1999 with a portion of picket fence attached to a heavy chain hanging from his neck. He never left. I heard through the neighborhood grapevine that he lived at a crack house and was chained to a tree every day in all kinds of weather, no dog house, no water, and had been seen dumpster diving for at least 2 weeks. After 3 days of baths and removing over 100 ticks, treating him for heartworm disease, erlichia, and a few other ailments, we had The Pickster! He was a little over a year old, was obviously primarily a Bernese Mountain Dog, a breed who needs and craves human attention the way a fish needs water. We worried when we brought home baby #1 - Pickett was beside himself with joy! Baby #2: thought he had died and gone to heaven! He let the kids climb on him, throw toys at him (but that wasn't encouraged!), and was underfoot so much you always felt like you had legwarmers on. I miss him next to our backyard firepit in the evening (Marley is terrified and won't come near!). Whatever was going on, Pickett was going to be in the middle of it all! He was the type of dog who loved us fiercely and showed his gratitude in his eyes all the time. Berners' life expectancy is short, 6-8 years, but Pickett kept rockin' until he was 9! He died last year and set the bar high indeed for all future pets! I will stop rambling now, you can tell how much we loved him! And here he is!!