Home Again
August 13th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Posted in garden
What to do about sunflowers shading our cucumbers?
I miss my morning walks in Maine.
Two miles each way along back roads out of South Freeport. The roadsides were thick with wild flowers: Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, purple loosestrife, buttercups, black-eyed Susan’s. Gold finches flitted in the dense branches of an apple tree. Amidst the low din of bird sounds, the mechanical trill of a red-winged blackbird, the staccato plea of the cardinal, the grating screech of a blue jay.
The sights and sounds must be so commonplace to the local residents they hardly notice. But to a city boy, they make the heart swell.
But now we have landed back in the real world, our world. I knew there would be work ahead of me in the garden. The grass, normally dormant this time of year, had gotten a dose of rain and was tall and thick. I struggled with the push mower. A friend had agreed to watch the garden. But her priorities were a bit different from mine. I rescued several perfectly edible tomatoes from the compost heap. The okra that I’ve been harvesting twice daily had grown to preposterous size. Many pods were scattered on top of the compost. I saved them for seed–but, oh, they would have made a lovely dinner.
The mystery volunteer cucurbits that I saved and transplanted to the cucumber row are obviously some sort of winter squash. They’ve vined all the way to the top of the trellis and over the other side. Most likely, butternut squash. Where did the seeds come from? I can’t remember the last time we had butternut squash.
The volunteer sunflowers have formed a dense tower and are now shading the more recently planted cucumbers, the replacements for those that succumbed earlier to wilt. I hate to take down such magnificent specimens. Should I let them go to seed first? They are an immense attraction for bees and birds and human passersby. I hate to meddle with them, but my cucumbers need more sun. Such a dilemma.
The Italian squashes I planted a few weeks ago, replacing the ones that were planted too early and suffered rotted fruit, are stretching out of the beds and into the yard in their quest for more sun. It is a sure sign that the season is changing, the sun altering its angle, when the plants begin to lean in a certain direction. Even a gardener with chores to perform has to stop and marvel at this intimate dance taking place in the natural world.
How do I know when it’s time to pull the collards and the Tuscan kale? Harlequin beetles and whitefly always seem to appear when the brassicas are reaching the end of their useful lives. The leaves on the glassy collards are beginning to speckle and fade. That’s when the harlequin beetles move in. The Tuscan kale is stretching, elongating, wanting to go to seed. It’s leaves, too, are beginning to lose some of their potent color. That’s when the whitefly swarm, sucking juices from the underside of the leaves, leaving a sticky film.
I pull the plants and remove the leaves. These go into the kitchen sink to soak in cold water. Then I cook them–first the collards, then the kale–in a big pot with a gallon or so of water seasoned with salt and about a half cup of cider vinegar and a big piece of smoked butt from the freezer. I cook the greens a long time–more than an hour–until they are very tender. The will be feeding us for quite some time. I will probably need to freeze a good bit of it.
And now the broccoli and cabbage seedlings have emerged in their trays. The gardener must rig some sort of row cloth shelter in the garden so they can get plenty of sun but not be bother by the birds that love to snip their tiny leaves.
And still there is a new compost pile waiting to be built, except that the gardener must forage his brown leaves, a task that has been put off too long.
There is no end of things to do as we head into fall. Vacation is over.
The goldfinches, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds and blue jays are all over northern VA. (Actually I hear the blackbirds more than I see them.) Have you checked out Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna VA? It’s a cultivated but a little piece of heaven in the suburbs and they have the biggest native VA garden in VA. Definitely a great local escape 🙂