Just enough veggies to play with

Next week I return to school to get my Master’s of Science in Nursing at Vanderbilt. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to continue to learn, but realize this will leave me less time for some of my little pleasures in life. That includes this little, feeble, but heart-felt blog. I’ll document the biologic garden in the yard and the humanoid garden growing within the house because I know Grandma Ruth, and on occasion, the Houser family like to see what’s up a couple hundred miles to the west or south.

Right now I am in the mind-expanding season of harvesting my first heirloom tomatoes. Bloody Butcher seeds came from Baker Creek in my home-state of Missouri.

An ugly Bloody Butcher

They were smaller than I expected and U-G-L-Y.

Sliced, Slapped on Mayo and Baguet, drizzled in rosemary oil

But once you slice them up and taste them— well, I have crossed over to the other side. I am a true believer in the magical, tender, deliciousness of a home-grown heirloom tomato. Mmmmm.

The photo above was today’s lunch. 

There is so much more. The basil is beautiful… I already made my first batch of pesto and there will be several more. We have melons from Baker Creek that I must pick and slice soon.

These are called Golden Honeymoon Honeydew.

Golden Honeymoon

I hope to get a little bit of time to share how they tasted here. One of the more delightful findings has been the Zucchini I selected this year. The strangest thing you ever saw, but a simple recipe for chips was excellent! Much better than standard zucchini, with a nuttier, richer flavor. The photo at the top features the unique Zucchino Rampicante. We found a nice recipe for chips that goes like this:

• Posted by
  carolb FL

  (ctbenjamin@hotmail.com) on

  Sat, Aug 19, 00 at 15:40

On the same recipe exchange, I found this:

• Posted by
  Sherry

  (srbgeb@nidlink.com) on

  Tue, Aug 15, 00 at 23:29

The girls are enjoying the entomology of it all. Today we looked up the strange-looking bug we found on a leaf… which turned out to be the larval form of a squash beetle I caught before.

Larval thing

 There is no real organic solution except to catch and squish. It’s tough on the fingers, so gloves are recommended.

Kevin the lizard

 We found Kevin scurrying across the floor in our house. He looked just like his brother, a lizard we saw earlier in the hose box. We figure they are brothers because usually when lizard eggs hatch they are all the same size and live in the same area. I (Emma) caught him with my hands against a wall while Kenna went to get the bug case. Here he is. We decided to call him Kevin as a joke because in  the movie ”UP” there is a bird they call Kevin and later they found out Kevin was a girl. Since we didn’t know if the lizard was a boy or a girl we named it Kevin.

Emma holds Kevin-- gently

 We decided to let him go next to where we found his so-called brother, because we thought they might meet up and get rid of bugs in the garden.

Emma and Kenna caught Kevin

 The hose box looked like a nice place to live. Kevin was a blue-tailed skink. Kenna knew this because she has them up at Lake Malone in Kentucky where she visits. The body of those lizards, without a tail, is just as long as kevin  from end to end. We hope Kevin survives and makes many more Kevins for our garden.

Kevin is set loose

mid-sumer in the raised beds

My veggie garden is on a “summer break.” Not a whole lot going on there at the moment, although the rains have kept things growing well.

When my zucchini squash plants wilted last year, Dave’s Garden blog told me what was up.

This year, I found out how to spot squash vine borers when I discovered some of the eggs and we let them hatch in a bottle. This website entry from North Carolina had the perfect description. It also told me that for a small garden, like mine, the best organic control is to inspect the leaves, remove the eggs by hand and squash those squash bug nymphs where ever possible. So far it appears to be keeping things under control as the plants are still thriving.

Then, we found some bigger, even prettier (we’re kookie this way) eggs last week.

Assassin bug eggs

I was tempted to crush them right away, but their golden surface and larger size made me wait.

Dave had found some of the same. These, it seems, are assassin bugs. Beneficial. Tough. All natural pesticide, and they appeared to have been laid just to help with the vine borer problem.

We hatched them, and sure enough…. baby assassin bugs. You don’t want to handle these took much as they have a proboscis that can poke you pretty good in the finger. Emma held a very large one one year and found that out the hard way.

Dave captured them in photos. Emma had released ours before I got a photo, but I am glad to know they are patrolling the beans and melons in the hot-hot side yard.

The hatchlings left egg shells behind

Anaheim Hot peppers gettin' big

Tomatoes growing beside sweet basil

One drawback to better controlling the number of plants I put in the ground is waiting for things to ripen. My two tomato varieties: Chadwick Cherry and Bloody Butcher slicing are apparently later to mature. Everything is still green. Note to self for next year, get some faster maturing varieties.Jim and I are looking for a great home-made red sauce recipe that will make the best use of our home-grown garlic, basil and tomatoes. Send me a link if you have ideas!annual tradition: volunteer pumpkinsOne of my favorite things to do is to allow a couple of select pumpkin vines grow out of our compost. Last year we got a fun couple of decent pumpkins we showed off in our September ‘08 “fallishness” post. This year we have a few more we’ll get to enjoy as we prepare for the cooler seasons.

Thar's a Bear

We had a wonderful short vacation in the Smoky Mountains last weekend. Four nights in a cabin called “Nature’s Haven.” Very nice, well, except for the bears.

We saw the first bear on our second night in the cabin. A juvenile who looked a little rough around the edges.

Younger bear leaving the trash bins

The third night we saw a very healthy bear… very close up. Our youngest, Gracie, was getting ready to go to sleep on the futon in our bedroom– the first floor bedroom that backed up to the driveway. We had just put her under the covers. She said she was going to look out the window for a while, to spot bears… and “Oh, there’s a bear right there.” she said matter-of-factly.

So Jim looked. Sure enough— not 5 feet out the window, standing in the driveway was a full-grown, healthy-looking bear. The next thing we heard was the stomp-stomp of someone running up the stairs to the deck, followed by muffled exclamations and the flash-flash of a camera.

Turns out my brother-in-law, Larry, had been standing in the driveway next to the bear right about the same time Gracie noticed the big furry beast. Larry turned, saw the animal and made a quick-step exit from  the driveway. Lucky guy. The bear just ambled off, perhaps enjoying the paparazzi.

The bears are having a good year in the Smokies. We had a wonderful time too for our long weekend: hiking, horseback riding and water-parking. If you go, just don ‘t let the kids play out on  the front stoop unattended.

mystery golden bug eggs

Back at home I was gratified to see my plants survived a very dry week with no watering.  I pulled more squash bug nymphs and eggs off the zucchini vines. Still no zucchini. I found new and even more interesting eggs (above) on the bean leaves. I am hoping these might be assassin bugs, or something more carnivorous. If they are, they’ll go right back into the garden. If not, they are doomed. Will let you know what hatches in our plastic water bottle.

Another critter that has been enjoying our backyard is a mole. This one is either very persistent and energetic, or has had a family and is now four or so moles. Samantha has been digging after the animal(s). They must smell really good because our yard is suffering from Samantha’s hunting.

Samantha's mole excavation

But the worst part is that mole(s) have entered my raised bed. I don’t know if it’s the digging around the roots, but my peppers are dying at the spot the mole exited. This spot is where I left a beer trap last week. When we returned, the mole had come up right under the beer trap. Maybe it was looking for the tasty slugs in the trap, or maybe it just wanted a beer with its dinner. Not sure, but I’m not happy.

dying pepper plants near mole mound in beds

So I went to Ace hardware looking for a solution. Poison was out of the question because of Sam and our edibles. So I brought home this “trap.” It might be more aptly named the “stabber.” Emma is not happy with this solution. There is hope. The mole has not triggered the mechanism yet. Emma is rooting for the mole.

mole trap is set

On a happier note, the sunny side-garden is flourishing with beans, a few tomato plants held up by the pole beans (I love this) and lots of creeping honeydew melon vines.

Sam and melon vines

beans stake the tomatoes

beans climb up window

delicious heirloom beans

The eggs were so interesting. Almost pretty. I found several patches on my vigorously growing squash leaves. Little brown eggs all laid in nice rows and patches. I brought some inside for us to marvel at under the binocular microscope (easily the best gift my Dad ever got my family— well, except the big telescope).

Eggs on squash leaf

I placed one leaf into an old wine bottle and retired the rest to the compost pile on the off chance they were not beneficial bugs.

bugs in a bottle

Then we waited about a week before they hatched. The girls and I were very excited and interested to learn what these little guys with the pretty green abdomens were.

Hatched bugs

Good thing these had been removed from my squash patch because, according to one well illustrated ag. extension site, they are the dreaded squash bug nymphs I’d hoped would not return to my garden again this year.

Squash bug nymphs in a bottle

 I’ve been going out every-other morning to remove more batches of eggs.  The bad news is there appears to be little that can be done at this stage to keep the boring adults from getting into the patch and delivering the same wilt disease we had last year. Last year we still had several good zucchinis, in spite of the wilt, but this year, we have melon growing right beside the zucchini squash. I am concerned the beetles might bore into them as well. We’ll keep an eye out.