[gardeners] Saturday in the garden
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sat, 29 Apr 2000 18:40:45 -0500
Started out fairly early this morning with watering a few, well, maybe a
lot, of potted plants. Miz Anne swept off the patio and carport for
about the umpteenth time this spring. We keep having windstorms so there
are always branches and leaves about.
I harvested flat leaf parsley, leaf celery, and oregano. Lots and lots
of each, a 3-gallon bucket of parsley, 2-gallons each of celery and
oregano. The oregano and celery took no time at all to wash, pat dry,
and prepare for the dehydrator. Took the rest of the morning and a lot
of the afternoon to get all that parsley done. Did I mention the bucket
was packed? I strip the leaves from the stem to avoid drying stuff I
don't want. Oregano and parsley are done that way. Oregano is easy
because the stem is generally tough. Parsley has to have the leaves
individually plucked. The leaf celery gets washed, patted dry and the
stems and leaves chopped. I ended up with 5 trays of parsley, 1 of
celery, and 2 of oregano. They're drying on the kitchen counter now.
All of this was interrupted by a 2-hour nap for the three of us during
the heat of the 1 pm to 3 pm hot time. Miz Anne is back out weed eating
and preparing to mow the back yard, what there is left of it.
We have tomatoes as big as baseballs but no sign of turning color yet.
The earliest to show fruit was the Burbank followed by the Early Large
Red. The Hungarian paste plants are covered with medium sized pear
shaped fruit now. All of the eggplant are in bloom and we have maybe a
half dozen lagenaria edible gourd at the 2 or 3 inch stage. The chard is
still producing so will have a batch for supper tonight. The New Zealand
spinach keeps putting out more leaves the more I pick it. One plant is
enough to give us all the greens of that type we could want. The
boysenberries continue to give us a dozen or so berries every morning
and it appears the mockers aren't bothering them much this year.
Went out to get the paper this morning and there were deer dropping in
our driveway. I was standing there totally amazed when I noticed a
friend of mine from around the block parked a house away. Walked over
and he was convulsed with laughter. He had brought some back from his
property in the country and was playing a joke on his friends. We had
some coffee and gossiped about our friends and he went off to play with
someone else. I thought it was a pretty good practical joke though. I
was wondering where a deer could live in my neighborhood. Now I've got
to figure something out to get back at him. He just started back
gardening this year so I may have to do the old red satin holiday balls
tied to his tomatoe plants one morning.
This has been a good day but Sleepy and I are tired. Miz Anne is still
blowing and going so I reckon I ought to go fix her a nice dinner.
Life is good.
George