Mystery Solved

Two years ago I published this post about a mystery plant that was supposed to be the herb rosemary but certainly wasn't. The following spring I forgot where I put them misplaced the remaining seeds so they remained a mystery for another year. This spring I finally came across them, so I planted them along with my other spring crops and waited. Last week the first blossom opened, and guess what they are?

 

Cosmos! A lovely flower, and easy to grow. Ron had guessed that's what they were, because we had some growing in the garden that year. The bees and butterflies will love them, and there are enough seeds left for next year. So all's well that ends well.

Oh, and our potted rosemary is still thriving.

Slava Ukraini
Glory to Ukraine

A Busy Day

Each year we plant tomatoes in our spacious backyard garden. For the past several years, however, the crop has been so disappointing. I used to process a multitude of jars filled with the luscious fruit for use throughout the following year, but that ended a few years ago. The blanched tomatoes, so red on the outside, were pretty much dry and white on the inside, and had to be dumped on the compost heap. We reduced the number of plants from 24 to 8, and really only enjoyed the tiny red, yellow and pink cherry tomatoes.

This year has been different. Our large tomatoes have, without exception, been fragrant, juicy and delicious. I purposely planted several large beefsteak varieties that ripen later, as it seemed that the small, early varieties were the ones that didn't turn out well. I probably won't have enough to can, but next year I might increase the number of plants.

I'll be busy in the kitchen today, making yet another batch of zucchini muffins, and I thought you would enjoy these cooking fails.

 

Oops! Too much salt.

Someone at Dunkin Donuts hates us.

This is NOT my favourite ice cream flavour.

There goes dinner. Cleanup on aisle seven!

Glory to Ukraine

There's Always the Grocery Store

Our vegetable garden didn't get off to the best start this year. We had a huge amount of rain plus the snow melt, and it's impossible to till the soil or plant in three inches of standing water. When the bed finally dried out I planted peas, but it was too late. Peas need cool weather, and we had already transitioned into very hot days. So the poor peas grew about four inches then turned brown at the bottom. They never even made it up to the netting before the rabbits nibbled them away.

We have a rabbit problem. Our neighbour next door has what could politely be called a natural garden. It's totally wild and unkempt, with weeds in an old raised bed that grow taller then I can reach. The fallen weeds have built up over the years to be a safe haven and nesting place for bunnies. Our dogs can see the nest through the fence, and are intrigued. Mama bunny comes into our yard each evening to pick up take-out from our garden. She has polished off the carrots, the beets, the radishes and the leaves of the broccoli plants (she left the stalks). She also ate all the blossoms off the marigolds, planted in the vegetable bed for insect control.

So what's left? Tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, winter squash, onions and garlic, all apparently not on the rabbit shopping list. It rained all day yesterday, and I swear the cucumber plants have doubled in size. The marigolds have new buds. 

So all is not lost, although there are some empty spots in the garden. I regret the loss of the root crops, but there's always the grocery store. Or better still, Walmart.

 

Glory to Ukraine

Garden Adventures

We bought a new greenhouse, and last week I had fun assembling it in our spare room. It was too wet to work outside, and there were too many small parts that would get lost if I tried to work on the grass. So I put it together in two halves, then we carried it outside and finished the assembly there.

Up until this year we started our seedlings in a coldframe like this one.

But it's difficult to work on the plants at ground level, and hard to adjust the water. Either I miss some with the watering can, or the trays flood when it rains. So our new greenhouse is quite an improvement.

Ron put some stakes in the corners to anchor it and zip-tied the shelves in place, and I added Velcro to the ties that hold the door open when rolled up, because the ties are so short and untying tiny knots isn't easy! It's nice and roomy inside, but too small a space for any spanking. The plants love it, though.

Coldframes and greenhouses are very useful, but here are a few inventions that aren't.

 

Glory to Ukraine

Ripe Bottoms

In the part of the country where I live, there isn't much opportunity to sample Southwest or Mexican  cuisine. I had never tasted tomatillos, but thought that I would try growing them in the garden last summer. They look pretty much like tomatoes, and if they could survive in our climate I would worry about what to do with them later.

After a few anxious months of searching for non-existent fruit on the blossom-covered plants, I did some online research. It seems that they take a long time to set fruit, but once they do there's no stopping them. Unlike tomatoes, which self-pollinate, tomatillos require at least two plants in order to fertilize the flowers. Check. I had two monster plants. So I patiently waited and was finally rewarded with little round parchment balls hiding the succulent fruit within.

They looked like little round bottomcheeks, and even more so when the fruit swelled and burst the paper-like covering. I thought I was seeing plumber's butts.

Or maybe I was having a Walmart flashback. Oh, no!



They looked even more bum-esque in pairs.

Well, not really. They simply couldn't compare with the rosy roundness of good ol' tomatoes.

Doesn't that look spankable?



How about upside down?

Even more so! Gardening can be such a naughty occupation if you let your mind wander.

And just so you know, I roasted those naughty green butts and turned them into a salsa verde that was delicious as an accompaniment to my Canadian version of quesadillas.

Spanking the Lilies

Beside the back door of our house we have a group of tiger lilies that should look like this by August.

But each year they usually end up looking like this instead.

The culprit is the lily beetle, a small orange insect that originated in Europe and Asia and arrived in North America sixty years ago, hidden in a shipment of flowers.  It lives in the soil around the lilies and emerges each spring to mate and lay eggs. The adults and larvae dine on tender young lily leaves, leaving them in a very sorry state.

This year I watched carefully for signs of damage to the leaves. My usual plan of attack is to pick the beetles off the leaves and drop them into a pail of water with a little dish liquid added. Hand-picking seems to be the most reliable method of control, since approved insecticides are ineffective on them, stronger poisons are illegal where we live, and the little beasts seem to have no natural enemies.

Until last week I noticed no sign of the pests during my twice daily inspections. Maybe this would be a beetle-free year for the first time in over a decade. I rejoiced as the lilies grew tall and flower buds appeared at the top of the long, thick stems. Then suddenly last weekend, the enemy struck with a vengeance. Maybe they were celebrating Independence Day. One evening the lilies where undamaged and healthy; the following morning they were riddled with holes and covered with orange menaces.

I grabbed my pail, filled it with water, added a dash of detergent, and went into the garden to do battle. Holding the pail at the base of a lily with one hand, I patted the stem none too gently with the other, and was gratified to see beetles fall from the plant and land in the bucket. I systematically worked my way through the patch, whacking the lilies and harvesting the unwanted pests.

"You're spanking the lilies!" Ron observed.

"It's the bugs that deserve the spanking," I replied as I worked. I can see that I'll be busy for the next few days, spanking the lilies until the pests are under control. Kinky gardening can be fun!

A Gardening Failure

This summer I grew melons as an experiment. We have a short growing season so I chose seeds of a variety that would mature in three months. I planted the seeds, erected a fence of netting for the vines to climb, and waited.

Soon we had dozens of small, green, fuzzy balls growing on the vines. As the weeks went by the balls grew larger and turned bright yellow. We weren't sure how to tell if they were ripe, but after looking them up online, they turned out to be casaba melons, with a hard outer skin, and were probably ready to eat.

So I harvested one, chopped it open with some difficulty, and carved off a piece for Ron and one for myself. Sadly, the flesh was hard, dry and flavourless. Ron wasn't impressed.

"Did you ask my permission to plant these melons?" he questioned me.

"No, Sir," I replied. Was I in trouble? I tried to explain, "I thought it was a good idea at the time."

"Well, it wasn't. In future, check with me before you buy something you aren't familiar with. Next year, get cantaloupe seeds."

"Yes, Sir." I had a good idea that my bottom was going to pay for my gardening fiasco. I also hated the idea of sending two dozen melons  to the composter. I divided the melon into quarters, then eighths, and put the pieces, seeds and all, outside under the bird feeder.

 Within the hour the squirrels and chipmunks had removed the seeds and eaten everything but the hard skin. When I told Ron, he was pleased I had found a good use for them, so it turned out that I didn't pay a painful price after all.

Only 23 melons to go. I hope the squirrels are hungry.

From the Top Shelf - Wellred Weekly

Recently I wrote an article for the Wellred Weekly and it has been published in the latest issue. Read all about how to combine spanking and gardening in Red Bottoms for Green Thumbs. I hope you enjoy it.

Wednesday WIN

Pizza has been declared a vegetable by the US Congress. "The United States Congress voted to rebuke new USDA guidelines for school lunches that would have increased the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in school cafeterias and instead declared that the tomato paste on frozen pizza qualified it as a vegetable." (Read the full story here.)

Why is this a WIN and not a FAIL? Simply because pizza is my favourite food. Any kind of topping, any style of crust, any time, anywhere! I enjoy pizza almost as much as I like spankings. I'm making plans for next year's garden.

I'm also pretty fond of pizza peels.

Buns of Steel?

 

I had been working in the garden on a rare sunny day and was enjoying a well-earned break for coffee and the morning paper.

Ron came over and prepared to sit down beside me, then stopped and observed, "There's something sticking out of your back pocket."

Right. I had been trimming branches and had put the clippers in my pocket in case I needed them again.

"It's the pruning shears. I forgot about them."

"Doesn't that hurt?" I pulled the shears - pointed side down - out of the pocket and held them up.

"Didn't feel a thing. But it's used to pain."

"You have calluses on your bum," Ron concluded, sat down and reached for a section of the paper.

I prefer to think of my bottom as 'bionic' but in either case, it can take a lot of abuse.

Detached Buttocks

I think these unopened field poppies look very spankable. The only trouble is, they don't come in pairs.

Is a single cheek as spankable as two? Or is something wrong with this picture?

What did you think they were made of?

This year we planted broom corn (also known as sorghum) in our garden.



Yes, it's really used to make brooms. It's very attractive, grows quite tall, and when ripe it is covered with little seeds of various colours. But I haven't decided what to do with the harvest.




Maybe I'll make a broom for Ron to use when Harry drops by for a pickup game of Quiddich in the air over the back yard.





A wreath would look pretty on the front door.





Or I could simply stand the coloured fronds in an earthenware jar for a simple yet attractive room decoration.





No, I think I'll make a rod, and let Ron try it out on my bottom.

On second thought, striking my body with that rod would knock the little kernels off, and send them flying in all directions. We'll have to conduct our horticultural experiment outside. Oooh!

Roll on, harvest time.