Peas, strawberries and some herbs, not much in common there except that is what the garden is feeding me with these last couple of weeks. The heats been on with temperatures in the 90°s and barely a drop of rain. That should change tonight with some rain coming off of a hurricane down in the Sea of Cortez and a few days of cooler weather.
The music is some classic jazz with a mix of Red Garland, Coleman Hawkins, and The Prestige All Stars. Billie's Bounce starts it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OUN9bftWbI and when I say classic. I mean if you've ever walked into a jazz club and noticed the whole place has a look of bliss on their face and all the heads are bobbing.
When I first came to Denver I had a hankering for a night out and Westword said El Chapultepec was the place to go for jazz. I didn't know Denver's downtown at all and ended up in a real skid row looking section. Trying to ask directions but not get carjacked I saw what looked like the remnants of a funeral. The group of old black guys in ill fitting suits looked safe and I circled the block to ask. They'd gone back in and were of course the band out smoking something on break.
I spent the rest of the night nursing a couple of drinks with my head bobbing to some great jazz.
The peas took the heat as a sign to virtually skip the pod stage. They went from little 2' plants with a few flowers to 6' bushes straining the poles and loaded with bulging pods. This morning's work was to pound some larger stakes through the twine and tendrils to try to keep the whole show from toppling. Some years the peas do a slow cruise through the pod stage allowing me to decorate salads and stir fries with a few tasty pods. About the time I'm tired of pea pods the heat hits and I let the pods mature to give me some peas to shell and some seed for next year. This year the sugar pods will keep me wanting just a bit more - clever 'ladies of the poles' those peas. I made sure to grab a couple of handfuls this morning, with thoughts of salmon pea pod tacos tonight.
The strawberries will decorate a fruit salad to join the tacos tonight but most of the other fruit will be store bought. The strawberry patch is trying to fill out but will need some help expanding this fall. Some additional compost and wood chips with perhaps some clever maneuvering of runners to spread them out a bit should get closer to the goal of a true strawberry 'patch'. The 4 or 5 plants that are there now are everbearing and 'been giving me a good handful of strawberries everyday. So hard to complain and it leaves me wondering if 40 or 50 plants would just be too much. I've thought perhaps try a few different types. I've seen a white strawberry in a catalog and heard of an Alpine small type but I know so little to even think about adding varieties will have to be a winter's search of obscure sites and books. If any of you have any suggestions I'd be thrilled. For now the thrill is popping the stem on that handful of perfectly ripe ones and leaving those others for tomorrow.
I need to digress to mention most of our summer meals are a mix of fresh from the garden with store bought. Because I write and brag about my garden it would be easy to leave the impression that Deb and I are some sort of homestead/prepper/suburban self-sufficient types featured in Mother Earth News. I love Mother Earth magazine but see it as more aspirational. I might, if I live to that 125 years old that I aspire to, reach that state of nirvana. For now I'm just enjoying the rambling journey. Deb might be crocheting baby blankets but the dogs aren't being brushed for their 'wool'. Or to put it another way. tonight with those tacos Deb will be making some of her great guacamole but the avocados don't grow in Colorado they were 2 for a buck at Safeway.
I think it's important to say all that because it's too easy to be scared off by big fancy goals. Gardens should be the right size for you in that moment. Like the pea pods they should leave you thinking "maybe next year I should do just a bit more". Tom up the street is happy growing no more than a few pepper plants but he damned sure is getting some of my strawberries if only to insure that I get a few of his poblanos. Which I think goes to the other point. No man is an island (OK maybe a few but damned few!). My life is better because of both Tom and Safeway. Without trade we would have much poorer lives. I could take this thread and go off on world politics but I'm going to resist. Fact is I believe in - grow your own, Buy American, & the Japanese make a good car. Perhaps I'm just deep, man! Or perhaps it's what a fellow Libertarian mentioned years back when NAFTA was first being debated. He pointed out that it seemed to only be 'free' if you had a lobbyist. I'm no expert on trade. Why are there any government rules on trade? Feel free to heat up the comment section 'cause I know I get lost on this subject real quick. Perhaps you can straighten me out.
The herbs I started all this with are mostly winter savory & oregano which I've been drying. The winter savory was a packet of seeds my sister Leslie gifted me a few years back. A half dozen starts have turned into 3 tiny bushes. I started trimming them last week when they started showing signs they would flower soon. I'm not enough of a connoisseur to know if the leaves loose any potency after the flower appears but that is my guess. Additionally, by then the stems have hardened up enough to allow the leaves to be stripped onto the dryer screens with a simple pinch and pull motion. So too with oregano which seems to have a similar flowering schedule to the savory. The other advantage to trimming before they flower is the bees can be quite thick on the tiny flowers. The honey bees my neighbor keeps along with all the other native bees that visit the garden are quite docile as you're working around them. I just always hate the feeling that I'm taking their food. Like my worms they're good neighbors demanding little and giving much.
Unlike rabbits! Last time I told you my beans had all popped up. Well so did the bunnies. Having watched Tyler's beans at the Mennonite garden last year be devoured by the garden rabbit. I cleverly made sure all my beans were within my fenced yard. No alley plantings, no front yard beans - all in a safe secure perimeter guarded by Cooper. Cooper wakes up early when we're at the cabin but at home he's more of a teenager and doesn't go on duty in the garden till I get out there - after coffee. This gap in security coupled with the ability of cute little baby bunnies to slip through the chain link fence has left me to think less of 'cute' as my adjective for them. I'm going to have to start drinking my coffee outside.
Coffee in the garden will work out well as I've finally finished the grape arbor. It needs some tuning up mostly with figuring out what plants will work with it's shade and some final stones. For now the Concord grape vine actually looks happy with perhaps it's own aspirations of greatness as it climbs to the top. Building the arbor made my old knees and back yearn not for aspirations but ibuprofen! Hopefully it's a one off thing and the grapes will provide for years to come with little additional work.
That's how you're s'pposed to be doing it -right. Work hard when you're young to build assets that will provide for you in your old age. Grapes -check. Now that Social Security thing hmmm? Seems no less than the Wall Street Journal published an article wsj.com/articles/social-security-expected-to-dip-into-its-reserves-this-year-1528223245 announcing that for the first time since 1982 Social Security is dipping into reserves to pay current benefits. (Deb tells me it's not 'currant' unless they're paying in fruit, which...) Now I know Libs have been yelling about this for years so forgive me for also mentioning that when they go to the "lock box" politicians for years talked of - Well there is no lock box! There is simply a promise to pay by either raising taxes or debt or of course changing the promise. We're clicking off the National Debt at about a trillion dollars per six months right now while raising the interest payed on that debt. So that is how they say problematic. Will it be higher taxes or lower benefits? As States and Cities are learning quickly with their separate pension systems 'Chicago we have a problem!' I don't have a crystal ball which can tell me what will happen but it is axiomatic that which can't continue - won't. Not going to go all hardcore prepper and say you should have a back-up plan. Maybe just plant a garden. If nothing else you'll have plenty of rabbits to eat. Doug A.
P.S. As many of you know one reason I started this blog was to get over my long time discomfort with writing. I've always had a mouth that when opened words would easily tumble out of (and occasionally even making some sense - broken clock and all that!). Now I probably should have payed some attention in all those English classes, taken typing, and composition but I was a talker -don't need no 'riting. Well today's blog has torn down another wall of Fear of Writing. Today I learned how to make the "°" (temperature degree sign). Today... Ø wait shit that's not it. I had it I swear;~)
P.P.S. Happy Father's Day! Ladies here is a good article on ...well, just read it. https://thebaddaddy.com/2018/06/10/a-fathers-day-dilemma/
The music is some classic jazz with a mix of Red Garland, Coleman Hawkins, and The Prestige All Stars. Billie's Bounce starts it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OUN9bftWbI and when I say classic. I mean if you've ever walked into a jazz club and noticed the whole place has a look of bliss on their face and all the heads are bobbing.
When I first came to Denver I had a hankering for a night out and Westword said El Chapultepec was the place to go for jazz. I didn't know Denver's downtown at all and ended up in a real skid row looking section. Trying to ask directions but not get carjacked I saw what looked like the remnants of a funeral. The group of old black guys in ill fitting suits looked safe and I circled the block to ask. They'd gone back in and were of course the band out smoking something on break.
I spent the rest of the night nursing a couple of drinks with my head bobbing to some great jazz.
The peas took the heat as a sign to virtually skip the pod stage. They went from little 2' plants with a few flowers to 6' bushes straining the poles and loaded with bulging pods. This morning's work was to pound some larger stakes through the twine and tendrils to try to keep the whole show from toppling. Some years the peas do a slow cruise through the pod stage allowing me to decorate salads and stir fries with a few tasty pods. About the time I'm tired of pea pods the heat hits and I let the pods mature to give me some peas to shell and some seed for next year. This year the sugar pods will keep me wanting just a bit more - clever 'ladies of the poles' those peas. I made sure to grab a couple of handfuls this morning, with thoughts of salmon pea pod tacos tonight.
The strawberries will decorate a fruit salad to join the tacos tonight but most of the other fruit will be store bought. The strawberry patch is trying to fill out but will need some help expanding this fall. Some additional compost and wood chips with perhaps some clever maneuvering of runners to spread them out a bit should get closer to the goal of a true strawberry 'patch'. The 4 or 5 plants that are there now are everbearing and 'been giving me a good handful of strawberries everyday. So hard to complain and it leaves me wondering if 40 or 50 plants would just be too much. I've thought perhaps try a few different types. I've seen a white strawberry in a catalog and heard of an Alpine small type but I know so little to even think about adding varieties will have to be a winter's search of obscure sites and books. If any of you have any suggestions I'd be thrilled. For now the thrill is popping the stem on that handful of perfectly ripe ones and leaving those others for tomorrow.
I need to digress to mention most of our summer meals are a mix of fresh from the garden with store bought. Because I write and brag about my garden it would be easy to leave the impression that Deb and I are some sort of homestead/prepper/suburban self-sufficient types featured in Mother Earth News. I love Mother Earth magazine but see it as more aspirational. I might, if I live to that 125 years old that I aspire to, reach that state of nirvana. For now I'm just enjoying the rambling journey. Deb might be crocheting baby blankets but the dogs aren't being brushed for their 'wool'. Or to put it another way. tonight with those tacos Deb will be making some of her great guacamole but the avocados don't grow in Colorado they were 2 for a buck at Safeway.
I think it's important to say all that because it's too easy to be scared off by big fancy goals. Gardens should be the right size for you in that moment. Like the pea pods they should leave you thinking "maybe next year I should do just a bit more". Tom up the street is happy growing no more than a few pepper plants but he damned sure is getting some of my strawberries if only to insure that I get a few of his poblanos. Which I think goes to the other point. No man is an island (OK maybe a few but damned few!). My life is better because of both Tom and Safeway. Without trade we would have much poorer lives. I could take this thread and go off on world politics but I'm going to resist. Fact is I believe in - grow your own, Buy American, & the Japanese make a good car. Perhaps I'm just deep, man! Or perhaps it's what a fellow Libertarian mentioned years back when NAFTA was first being debated. He pointed out that it seemed to only be 'free' if you had a lobbyist. I'm no expert on trade. Why are there any government rules on trade? Feel free to heat up the comment section 'cause I know I get lost on this subject real quick. Perhaps you can straighten me out.
The herbs I started all this with are mostly winter savory & oregano which I've been drying. The winter savory was a packet of seeds my sister Leslie gifted me a few years back. A half dozen starts have turned into 3 tiny bushes. I started trimming them last week when they started showing signs they would flower soon. I'm not enough of a connoisseur to know if the leaves loose any potency after the flower appears but that is my guess. Additionally, by then the stems have hardened up enough to allow the leaves to be stripped onto the dryer screens with a simple pinch and pull motion. So too with oregano which seems to have a similar flowering schedule to the savory. The other advantage to trimming before they flower is the bees can be quite thick on the tiny flowers. The honey bees my neighbor keeps along with all the other native bees that visit the garden are quite docile as you're working around them. I just always hate the feeling that I'm taking their food. Like my worms they're good neighbors demanding little and giving much.
Unlike rabbits! Last time I told you my beans had all popped up. Well so did the bunnies. Having watched Tyler's beans at the Mennonite garden last year be devoured by the garden rabbit. I cleverly made sure all my beans were within my fenced yard. No alley plantings, no front yard beans - all in a safe secure perimeter guarded by Cooper. Cooper wakes up early when we're at the cabin but at home he's more of a teenager and doesn't go on duty in the garden till I get out there - after coffee. This gap in security coupled with the ability of cute little baby bunnies to slip through the chain link fence has left me to think less of 'cute' as my adjective for them. I'm going to have to start drinking my coffee outside.
Coffee in the garden will work out well as I've finally finished the grape arbor. It needs some tuning up mostly with figuring out what plants will work with it's shade and some final stones. For now the Concord grape vine actually looks happy with perhaps it's own aspirations of greatness as it climbs to the top. Building the arbor made my old knees and back yearn not for aspirations but ibuprofen! Hopefully it's a one off thing and the grapes will provide for years to come with little additional work.
That's how you're s'pposed to be doing it -right. Work hard when you're young to build assets that will provide for you in your old age. Grapes -check. Now that Social Security thing hmmm? Seems no less than the Wall Street Journal published an article wsj.com/articles/social-security-expected-to-dip-into-its-reserves-this-year-1528223245 announcing that for the first time since 1982 Social Security is dipping into reserves to pay current benefits. (Deb tells me it's not 'currant' unless they're paying in fruit, which...) Now I know Libs have been yelling about this for years so forgive me for also mentioning that when they go to the "lock box" politicians for years talked of - Well there is no lock box! There is simply a promise to pay by either raising taxes or debt or of course changing the promise. We're clicking off the National Debt at about a trillion dollars per six months right now while raising the interest payed on that debt. So that is how they say problematic. Will it be higher taxes or lower benefits? As States and Cities are learning quickly with their separate pension systems 'Chicago we have a problem!' I don't have a crystal ball which can tell me what will happen but it is axiomatic that which can't continue - won't. Not going to go all hardcore prepper and say you should have a back-up plan. Maybe just plant a garden. If nothing else you'll have plenty of rabbits to eat. Doug A.
P.S. As many of you know one reason I started this blog was to get over my long time discomfort with writing. I've always had a mouth that when opened words would easily tumble out of (and occasionally even making some sense - broken clock and all that!). Now I probably should have payed some attention in all those English classes, taken typing, and composition but I was a talker -don't need no 'riting. Well today's blog has torn down another wall of Fear of Writing. Today I learned how to make the "°" (temperature degree sign). Today... Ø wait shit that's not it. I had it I swear;~)
P.P.S. Happy Father's Day! Ladies here is a good article on ...well, just read it. https://thebaddaddy.com/2018/06/10/a-fathers-day-dilemma/
Thanks Doug!! your blogging skills keep getting better... may take me a while to getting time to read 'em, but I never miss one. Thanks for the music too and the article was fantastic, I'll be sharing it.
ReplyDeleteJoe you're kind and politic as my "skills keep getting better" certainly begins with a low bar.
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