Mice Flying and the Pardon

July 18, 2018December 9, 2018Lauren 1 Comment

Just kidding, it’s another post about ice dying and the garden.

So… after the debacle of the last 2 scarves… THIRTY pashminas and scarves and then 20 handkerchiefs showed up… creating a bit of uneasiness on the order of WELL WHAT THE HELL AM I GONNA DO NOW?!

So… first step. Test every scarf with both dye types to see what takes. I chose, since they were open, the black dye for natural fabrics and the turquoise for synthetics. We know the turquoise dye takes like a denim-y blue, so both of those could work with just about anything I subsequently dye with. You see how well reasoned that was? Let’s see how that turned out.

So of course the black dye took as red… because why wouldn’t it really?

But also black… in spots. But red, also red!

But can we all agree the dye took WAY better this time! Like… I can work with that color depth. So I did two things different this time, I used a ton more salt, and also sprinkled soda ash as well. Now, soda ash is SUPPOSED to be mixed in water and the fabric dipped in it before dying… but since it has a warning that it might be FATAL if F-ing swallowed I went ahead and just sprinkled it on the wet scarves (I prewetted them), sprinkled dye over the top, then salted the whole thing, and then added the ice. I will then throw the fatal powder away or give it to the crafty neighbor without kids because that bottle makes me nervous. Please let this shit work out, because I’m already annoyed with the unpredictability of the dyes. Also, I left this trial run sitting overnight instead of just 2 hours. Which… we all knew that needed to happen too.

So now I have 4 scarves out for a second treatment, with brilliant blue (looks purple) olive green (looks pucey) and yellow (looks like brown mustard) so God help me as to what this will look like… they’ll be out there for 24 hours if I can keep my twitchy hands off them.

The garden is burning up in the Texas July… and the woodpeckers have found the big tomatoes. So… it looks like this:

Bobcat I think is done, HM 1823 is close, and Sungold and Sweet 100 are still going strong

Seriously this thing. It’s the Leaning Tower of Pizza-Toppings these days, at least 10′ and growing

The Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes seems to be out producing the Sungold right now, or it may be that the Sungold is easier for the toddler and birds to pick off. While the woodpecker eats the large tomatoes, the mockingbirds keep a pretty steady stream in and out of the sun gold for cherry tomatoes. It’s okay… there are enough to share.

The Garden in July

July 8, 2018December 9, 2018Lauren 1 Comment

The garden got some much needed rain and cooler temperatures for a couple of evenings (80s! break out the sweaters!).

And today, with overcast skies still it’s a good opportunity for some pictures that aren’t completely sunbaked and lost in high contrast shadows. So I give you… the dahlias!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!

Here’s the thing. Just like cannas, dahlias are unbalanced on the foliage to flower ratio- which seems crazy because those flowers are huge. Think waterlily sized. Or hell, you don’t have to imagine it, here is a picture.

Toddler arm for scale, red chair as the only clean backdrop to be found in the house.

So dahlias are glorious for cut flowers, but man are they blah to weedy looking in the garden. No textural or aesthetic benefit from the foliage, such as with Cardinal Creeper vine, for instance.

Check out those leaves, will ya? It should have been in a month before I planted those seeds unfortunately… but it’s still being a trooper

Another by seed addition to the garden, which aside from the occasional zinnia is pretty much a first! My Tithonia, the mexican sunflower

The tithonia, I think, walks that absolute knife edge between coarse and weedy looking. I think its awesome, but it’s right there on the edge. It’s supposed to be 4’x4′ at full size, but is already much too close to the Francis Dubriel rose. I’m the worst at eyeballing spacing. This one should have dark orange flowers, so I’ll keep you posted.

As for the tomatoes… anyone want tomatoes? It’s amazing how quickly things go from: “GLORY BE THE FRUIT OF THE GODS!!!!” To: What the hell are we going to do with all these tomatoes? Throw them at people?”

HM 1823

Bobcat- leaves are starting to curl, I don’t take this as a good sign

So of the determinate tomatoes HM 1823 looks to be the more disease resistant. The leaves on Bobcat are starting to curl in on themselves. This isn’t bug related (there are some bugs that do that) it’s more like all the leaves are severely concave but not touching in the middle. Fruiting is still good, but it’s days are numbered.

Dude.

And the cherry tomatoes are huge. The toddler is overdoing it on the tomatoes on a daily basis, but there will be no scurvy to be found on this ship!

It’s Le Hot

July 1, 2018December 9, 2018Lauren

It’s BLAZINGLY hot around this place these days, so no new plantings are happening. No weeding is getting done. The watering is done at night, and mostly by sprinkler. And the bermuda grass is creeping in as slowly and methodically as fascism in 2018 America.

The only thing that’s not done begrudgingly is TOMATO HARVESTING!

HM1823 and Bobcat… they are huge and prolific and delicious and taste-wise I can’t tell them apart. That pot had 10 lbs of tomatoes in it… yes I weighed it.

Sungold and Sweet 100… two plants and this is just about the harvest each day… as long as we can keep the toddler from eating all of them

As for the plants… The cherry tomatoes are so huge- Sungold has to be 9′ tall and Sweet 100 has to be 6 and a half. They have very different growth habits. Sungold is more abundant, but also easier to harvest since it’s an airier and more open plant. The Sweet 100 is more dense, so much more difficult to harvest as it tends to fruit in the middle of the plant as opposed to on the perimeter like the Sungold. Sweet 100 fruit are also smaller is size, but more tart, which I prefer. The Sungold is awesome though, and I will definitely buy one again next year just to keep up with the volume I want on the cherries.

It’s too hot to model these, but rest assured we’re pushing 9′ tall these days

As for the others, even the shorter tomatoes had to get 6′ T-posts put in- they pulled their cages over with the weight of all the fruit they’re setting. Yet another first from this year’s crop…

Bobcat- the heavier producer. Looks a little light on the leaves thanks to a damn tomato hornworm I CANNOT F-ing find… look at those top leaves… I know you’re in there, hornworm. I KNOW it!

HM 1823… hard to see but that’s a heavy crop there as well. Seems to split more, but it’s been boom or bust on the watering, so it might be my fault.

Ignore the background… that’s the old deck railing that needs to be hauled off. But in the foreground is a 4′ Mexican Olive tree, that all of the sudden catapulted itself out of the bronze fennel.

Holy cow is the Mexican Olive Tree growing insanely fast… it was a foot tall in April!

In other news, I’m really trying to cut our food budget. I’ve taken over as the primary cook in the household, which is great. But it also means I indulge in WAY too many trips to the store, where it seems I invariably drop $70 a trip- on top of the pushing $200 weekly trip. And we can all agree that’s insane, And it is especially too much since I want to trade in the Honda for a Subaru Ascent here in, like 2 weeks. So to afford the payment difference, I need to shave off about $200 from my personal and food spending. Which, eh, no problem. I could do with less of my “money grows on trees, devil may care attitude” anyway. So let me show you one of my latest moves that direction: FREE MEALS.

Okay, not actually free in the soup kitchen or community food pantry way or anything. God that’d be a dick move to get charity because I don’t want to cut into my TJ Maxx budget but still want to afford a brand new car, wouldn’t it? No, to me free meals are ones that I can make with only what we have on hand and a much more hearty reuse of leftovers. No trip to store or any purchases besides beer for the meal.

So on Wednesday I made a pork loin. We cut it into medallions, pounded them a bit, breaded them and then I made a cheater scaloppine sauce (didn’t have asparagus so I subbed red bell pepper. I do what I want) to serve with it. WAY too much sauce and a ton of the pork was left over. The middle child ate dinner with a friend, but even so it was a big pork loin. Which still only cost $8 so already a pretty budget meal.

Thursday I cooked some pasta, thickened and stretched the sauce from the scaloppine with some flour and chicken broth and added some cooked Italian sausage from earlier in the week- boom. FREE MEAL. And it was good.

Friday we had barbecued chicken thighs and veggie skewers. Plenty of leftovers, chicken thighs cost $7 for the pack.

Saturday day we had chicken tacos with leftover thighs from night before. FREE MEAL.

Saturday evening I cooked up a box of dirty rice I had on hand (Zatarains mix… it almost pains me to buy something boxed or branded these days but it’s exactly that kinda snobbishness that lost the Dems this last election). To it I added finely chopped up left over pork loin and the rest of the smokey veggies from Friday night. I did make a garlic yogurt sauce to go on top and I put minced parsley on literally everything, so it went on this too to dress it up. (crush some garlic in some yogurt and refrigerate for an hour. boom. Garlic yogurt sauce) FREE F-ING MEAL.

And then today for lunch I made up a quick asian soup broth (box of chicken broth (organic. It’s my need to say so that lost the Dems that last election), mirin, miso paste, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, and sesame oil- dash of this and that, I have no measurements here- along with some minced garlic and ginger. Then I added frozen spinach, some dried asian mushrooms, noddles and sliced in some of the pork loin. Topped it with cilantro and lime. FREE Mother F-ing MEAL!

Chili paste in the center. I meant to add in halved cherry tomatoes but I forgot.

And I realize, this isn’t breaking new ground here- reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle… but I’m learning. And that’s obnoxious, don’t I know it. But I’m strolling my merry way towards being more fiscally responsible on food so I can be less so on the car… so yay for coastal elites and being out of touch with the heartland, I guess?

Vote Democratic 2018 folks.

Quick Update

May 22, 2018December 8, 2018Lauren

Tomato Plot

Have I never posted a full bed shot of these? Huh, I guess not!

So you can see I now have “Tomato Towers” on the right hand side- fancy name for two tomato cages zip tied together. These are now 8′ tall and they mean I MIGHT just stand a chance of harvesting some higher up tomatoes once the toddler catches wind of what these plants actually are.

From left to right we have: Bobcat, HM 1823, Sungold, and Sweet 100. In the background we have a weedy yard with only a peach tree, a pomegranate, and a sycamore tree in view. Considering the whole thing was long neglected NOTHING when we moved in, even they are an improvement, I promise. Goal is to not have but a sliver of grass left along the back and a big patio with gardens and trails around it. We have a LOT of work ahead of us…

Tomato-paloza May 20th

May 20, 2018December 8, 2018Lauren 1 Comment

Filling in nicely- dahlias really coming in along the back- not that you can see from this shot or anything…

3rd deadhead of these guys and the May Night Salvia just won’t stop with the blooms. Also, I’m starting to regret the placement of that native monarda (common name horse mint) in the front corner… bit of a beast

Sweet 100- starting to rain so I couldn’t be bothered to crop out the weedy yard… 4′ tomato cage.

Sungold- can we talk about the size of this thing in a MONTH? Lord. That’s a 4′ tomato cage and a 6′ t-post.

HM 1823- I should look something up that happened in 1823. Should. (These are the littler 3′ tomato cages…

And Bobcat- lookin’ purdy. 3′ tomato cage

Arty shot of the antique roses- brought inside to save them from getting ruined in the storm. Stupid Coors light can ruining my arty shot…

The Garden on Mother’s Day

May 13, 2018December 9, 2018Lauren

Happy Mother’s Day!

We’re just back from a camping trip with a group of our friends- 12 adults and 16 kids out in Junction, TX. I broke my fishing pole but landed the fish that broke it. And the campsite one over from us had a 4′ rattlesnake that had to be relocated by the park ranger- our girls and their cousin were the ones that found it. Two out of our 3 children refused to wear shoes. And we took a canoe trip with most of the group and all of the toddlers.

There was a toddler overboard moment (wear your life jackets, folks. he was fine.) and a couple or four crying toddlers (ours was one of those.) Though I asked her the next day and she said she loved the boats, sooo… don’t let it stop you from doing stuff like that with them. Toddlers are resilient and selectively forgetful.) Packs of children running around like indians. Campfire coffee and smoke and hammocks and fun. All capped off with an hour-too-long sunburned drive home. But it was awesome and the setting of a river among arid hills is my very, very favorite.

While we were away, the tomatoes are growing like gangbusters:

Sweet 100

Sungold

Sungold wins for the first set of the season!

HM 1823- And, a tomato setting on this one too!

Bobcat- stocky and looking good!

The older new garden. Triangle garden? Office window garden? Am I going to have to name these things?

View down on the Mexican Olive Tree in the middle of the bronze fennel

Mexican Hat along the new fence

Weekly Ramblings

May 6, 2018December 9, 2018Lauren

Guess what we’ve been up to this weekend? GUESS! If you guessed gardening, you win! Also, rewatching Singing in the Rain- for the third time. WHICH OH MY GOD IS SO GOOD AND FUNNY AND WATCH IT! If anyone doubts the “youth of today”- please know that it is the girls’ favorite movie, and they shared it this weekend with their 11 year old cousin, who also loved it, and who’s previous favorite movie was Newsies. The youngest got up to dance along to every musical number. My theory is that generations move in a cyclical fashion, so we’re coming up on a Greatest Generation’s revival- but without the racism and unquestioning belief in the government… so just you wait and see- and have faith in the future.

Sooo the sidewalk chalk is back. I should really take these at the same time of day so the exposure and shadows don’t bounce around so much. I should do lots of things.

Does the bronze fennel look slightly smaller this week? Well that is thanks to my favorite thing ever- my Black Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. So we had four of them- and what a great picture that would have been! They’re yellow black and white striped… and it should be obvious by now that if I had a picture I’d totally be sharing it. But when I went out to get some shots… nowhere to be found. For the first time ever I did find one setting up for a chrysalis though, all the way on the other side of the yard. They travelled far. Anyway- I’ll take pics of the next group.

White Mistflower shrub. I just googled it and do you know what the other common name is? Havana Snakeroot! Hardcore! Poor thing, it’s like having Spike for a nickname and everyone calling you Susan.

So do you know how unusual these flowers are? Why are they unusual? Normal bloom time? October to November! So yeah. Keep it up there, Susan.

Stop standing in your own light while taking pictures, you.

In front of the white mist flower are 3 clumps of Mexican Mint Marigold. Supposedly edible, other common name is Texas Tarragon, but I just grow it as an ornamental. Because here’s the thing- it’s supposed to be the warm weather alternative to Tarragon- but who the hell like’s tarragon? I can’t get onboard.

Sweet 100!

Sungold!

HM 1823! Almost didn’t include this shot due to it being out of focus, but then realized a fuzzy picture tells you exactly the same amount as a crisp one, my god they’re just tomatoes.

Bobcat. creeping Oregano in front of it. English thyme blending in with the grass behind it. Last tomato picture, I swear. For this week…

So the tomatoes are coming along awesomely- I’m so happy- I love everything about growing tomatoes. I swear tomato leaves are one of my favorite smells in the world. Had a bit of a rough week at work, and there was a day where I walked out from my office just to go bruise a leaf and smell it. Grounding and reminding that life is bigger and work is just so very small. That’s my kind of aromatherapy right there- and it worked like a charm. I can’t get onboard with the essential oils trend… but if they make a tomato leaf one I’d be down.

And the newest bed with my Mother’s Day gift! Yes it’s early, but that is a Mexican Redbud we couldn’t constrain ourself another week before getting. Salvia Gauranitica underneath it. Weird how this works- my husband and I call salvias by their latin names. Because we could call it Black and Blue salvia… or Majestic Sage… but we don’t? I honestly think it’s a holdover from when I worked at a garden center and so I must have imprinted like a baby chick on using the latin names and then he picked it up from me… but I only ever do it for salvias? Life is weird.

I know that seems planted too close to the house- but there is method to our madness, I swear. Mexican redbuds reach out and are airy and tend to have leaves only on the top of the branches when they mature (very Seusian) and we want it to reach up and out (we’ll train it away from the house) and then the oldest daughter gets to look through interesting branch structures out her window. The husband and I got the idea while seeing one at a restaurant on our anniversary date, and the hunt was on to find one- we just had to get it. And the Salvia Guaranitica will get about 3′ tall and fill in the whole area underneath it. We had it at our old house and probably had 20′ of it by the time we moved.

Close up of the Mexican redbud leaves with droplets of water… so arty over here.

the something garden

Bridge Over the River Why

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