Summer Solace

One of the benefits of getting to one's vegetable garden first, before summer's work begins in earnest, is not having to think about the garden at all when you are knee deep in summer's work. It grows itself, mostly, with an intensity only paralleled by the solstice's long day. 

  

One of the beauties of growing garlic is that it's harvest hardly coincides with any garden task other than weeding. By now, the first of the garlic is near completely exhumed (briefly hesitated to dredge up this word), and like any darkling, it mustn't be cast into the bright light. The first pulling is in the shade of the porch, but the full harvest is likely to be dispatched to the cellar. Here, in the midst of harvest, is Xian, a Turban strain, and one of the best for flavor and earliness. Turban's lodge, or fall over, as a way of telling unsuspecting gardeners that they need help -getting out of the ground.

At about the same time sizeable beaks are swirling above the Asiatic strains -here Asian Tempest and Japanese. These will be harvested next, not long after the Turban strains, and sometimes before.

Meanwhile the Porcelain strains have had their scapes (flowering stalk) cut, ready to be pickled or grilled or sauteed or...just don't leave them in the fridge too long before doing something with them. Behind the Porcelain are the Rocambole (shorter in the middle) and Purple Stripe. 

The French Grey shallots have also been pulled. I find that the height of the crabgrass is a useful indicator for timing the shallot harvest. Left behind are the Artichoke and Silverskin strains, those hardy bulbs that we use through next winter and deep into the following spring. 

When the the crabgrass first sprouts, it's the best time to get your peppers in, but I didn't heed the crabgrass this season. No, I put the peppers in a couple of weeks early -listening to the lambsquarters maybe. They're doing fine anyways, although I do think they are showing a little too soon.

Broccoli? Yes! And from seed no less. In spring? Yes! And no cabbage moths to boot. A quick, small-headed variety seed-started on May one and hardly two months later boom -broccoli. Go figure. I've got some of those very same starts in their deep cells holding back growth inside the greenhouse. They'll be put into the garlic beds as they clear.

Green beans? Not so fast. I seed-started these in the greenhouse on May one and planted them out a two or three weeks later. Nice flowers, no beans yet.

Cucumbers before June 21? Why, yes. I purchased a cell pack of four Spacemaster cukes from Shady Acres and planted them in pots raised well off the ground.

They won't ever reach the ground, that's why they're called spacemaster. They do put on an impressive display of cucumbers and have produced a handful of medium sized eaters before the solstice. I've seeded my own, too, to replace these after they give up.

Tomatoes, well that's asking a lot, isn't it? But among our six strains (of three varieties -plum, grape, and, uh, heirloom beefsteak?) these grape tomatoes, called Red Pearl, are way good producers.

 

In fact the deer are warming up for BBQ season by snacking on our Speckled Roman plum tomatoes. I grew these at the Beach Farm, and deer aside, expect them to do really well here.

Dill, cilantro, basil, and at the very bottom, cutting lettuce. In the background -common milkweed that has grown in this spot for eons, or at least since this house was built, so maybe the late nineties. Infringing on their bed are the potatoes. They are so big they require their own post. Look for that.

The Herd

I often see them running.

Particularly in the woods behind the house, running northeast to southwest or the reverse.

This time, it was out in the fields, down the road. 

Inspecticide 2: The Tick Necklace

Its important for me to say that I generally like insects -they are most amazing. I have my favorites and those that I simply would rather not have crawling on me. In my search for the type of red creature this is, I can say I've gotten close: a red mite or a velvet mite, superfamily Trombidioidea. It is a mite, not an insect.

But when I get into it, it's not long before I begin to feel that itchy sensation -like they're all crawling on me. On my Tulip Tree journey, I had my first (aware of) run-in with a deer tick. It looked just like this, climbing up my jeans:

Copyright: Lynette Schimming, 2006

I had been in the woods many times. I had stopped to photo the tulip trees, then my wife wanted to show me the difference between the Trillium leaves and the Jack-in-the-Pulpit leaves (another post). I'm pretty sure that's where I picked her up, the female tick that is. I had sprayed my shoes and knees down with skintastic and a citronella product. Tick did not care and was wasting no time crawling up me leg. I flicked her off.

photo credit: Charles Schurch Lewallen, 2006

Nothing is more gross (well, maybe some things) than a fully engorged tick. Our dog used to get ticks attached occasionally when I was a kid. They'd drop off, you'd see them slowly making their way and slam, pop, exploded blood everywhere.

I haven't been aware of a tick on me since 1995, after a three day stint in Hell's Canyon National Recreation Area. I caught it before it started its meal -on my ass! But that's another story.

When attending college in the Hudson Valley, friends and I used to bushwack relentlessly in the Shawangunks. We tick-searched and groomed like chimps afterward and no ticks ever found.

When I lived in San Miguel, New Mexico, I was alarmed to see armies of ticks marching across my patio in the garden I created, but then even inside the house. The neighbors dog was wearing them like gray pearls. Later I was told that the mice in the area, and the straw in the mud bricks used to construct my building, were quite hospitable to ticks. Still, I never wore one.

But once I got the tick on me pants the other day, I became more conscious of the possibility, how easy it is.

I've never been a fan of insect repellent, which I always took to be the first cousin of pesticides, and one that you sprayed on yourself! But I've been wearing below the knees the deet-containing skintastic that was left here by a former resident. Why, because this freaks me out more than anything:

Copyright: Lynette Schimming, 2005

Nymphal ticks, smaller, hard-to-see, abundant!

City gardener, we've got other dragons to slay. I'll take cat cocky, peckin' pigeons, satanic squirrels, foolishly flung footballs, sticky-fingered folks, and what else thy city will throw at me over the blood sucking minutiae of suburbia outward. Not to mention their other dragons -too many to list!

*UPDATE* 

I caught one of those nymphal ticks on me yesterday. I never would have caught it, as it was hightailing up my leg, but I was checking every few minutes because I was stop and go strolling through what I now call the gauntlet -a thin trail with grass drooping in from each side. If I didn't see the moving dot...

Evening Walk

I was lured out to the Weir house by the light.

Then to the "Secret Garden" by the shrubs bursting with white flowers.

They perfumed the air.

The apple trees beyond.

Why it is I am so much less likely to go for an evening walk in my city environs, I'll not want to hazard. This evening's walk at the Farm was lovely as always. As I strolled around sniffing this, photographing that (always with the pictures!), I spotted some deer grazing the fields. Afterward, as I made my way back to the cottage, I paused to soak in the grassy field that is my favorite part of the landscape here. I felt a new current, as when you wade through a cold lake and, rather suddenly, you find yourself in warm water. An ever-so-slight pocket of warmer, more humid air surrounded me. Bliss.

Meadow view.

Let me get close.

I'm outa here.

The size-a-my tail!

The grass, the meadow.

I think it is my ideal landscape. I know my place, now more than ever -the space between cultivated and untouched, the messy place in the middle.

Inspecticide

Not much painting getting done today. This should be okay, but it never is. Reading about the painter and the farm today. I got a tip from the NPS park ranger Cassie that there are some Lady Slippers blooming in the woods. This evening I search them out. Like the Holy Grail of woodland flowers. I've also noticed that the farm fields are growing quick, I could almost see the growth. Yesterday evening, I was stooped, looking at a spider on a plant, I heard a rumpus in the woods. I look up to see two large deer chasing each other wildly in the woods, circling around and around. Must've been fun. They don't worry about deer ticks like us humans do. I must say its difficult to fully inspect oneself.