Show Me the Money! (and other abandoned topics)

"If you've been following my illustrious career as a blogger/artist/gardener/funnywoman, then you've likely noticed some recurring themes. 1.) I'm lazy. 2.) I'm cheap. 3.) I have a lot of hobbies, all of which I aim to do with as little effort or expense as possible. "






That's the intro to a never written story about how to shop for and plant deep discount end-of-season perennials. It was never finished because, having purchased about 60 plants for maybe $100 bucks, I spent two weeks maniacally digging holes and throwing plants into the ground as if being chased by a pack of wild dogs. By the time I was done, it was too cold to plant anything else, and I bought all the remaining inventory, so my advice to you would have been useless.





Here's another good one that never got finished entitled "Cast of Characters: Sisyphus"





"Tom and I are busy people - your standard busy married couple that can go for long periods of time, caught up in the "to-do" list of daily life, without having any sort of constructive conversation. What follows is the story of one couple's communication issues, and one cosmically challenged little red squirrel."



What's the point of sharing what I've started but not finished? First, to prove that I'm always Thinking about writing, I'm just not necessarily doing it. And second, whether I am writing or thinking, I am always terribly funny - at least to me.



So to conclude 2008, my first year of garden blogging, I'll leave you with a list of other articles not likely to get written in the next two weeks:



Why Throwing a Rotting Pumpkin in the Woods is the Same as Gardening
Frank vs. Laura: The Final Score
If You're Eating at My House, Don't Ask "What's in the Salad?": An Edible Weed Primer
The Tale of the Tufted Titmouse, and His Dirty Bird Friends


And so goes 2008. But make sure you return in 2009 because man, do I have some stunning realizations for you ... starting right in January with seed catalog shopping time!

Happy Holidays!

Difficult Conversations

I can't conclude 2008 without poking a tiny bit more fun of Joyce. Out of fairness though, I have to admit that we're quite a bit alike. So here you go - a little bit of even steven if you will....


Joyce's Tale... Why Mothers and Urban Vernacular Don't Mix: An Email Exchange
The story begins after a painful email discussion regarding which, if any, bread products should accompany Thanksgiving dinner. For the sake of every one's sanity, those particular emails are not included.

Joyce: "I could tell yesterday that you were getting annoyed with me over the bread/rolls thing but I kept it up just to tease you!"

Me: "see? you're just as annoying as dad. but at least you know you're being annoying. as a status on my facebook page, i wrote "laura is going to kill her mother", but too many people commented in your defense. well, really it was 50/50. then i later wrote that i changed my mind due to the pro-joyce comments, and my friend jim from college wrote "she rocked in our creative writing course. totally rocked. mad props." you have a lot of fans."

Joyce: "Wow!!! I'm impressed that one of your friends would remember me from a class in the first place let alone even remember the props I used. Apparently, they impressed him more than me."

Me: "'mad props' means something like 'kudos'. i doubt you showed up to that class in your mink coat and groucho marx glasses, or juggling pins, or anything like that. pretty funny though. i laughed for about five minutes after your email."

Joyce: "No--really I did use props. I think he might be referring to my speech about twins bec. I brought your sisters to class with me."

Laura's Tale ... Married People Talking
I am a multi-tasker from hell, and I tend to believe that I am rather good at it. Yesterday I put Sophia to bed, realized I hadn't eaten in 9 hours, and set about making myself a plate of some lovely stew that my wonderful husband made. But it was going on 9, and my mind started rattling on to everything I had to do before bed ... finish cleaning the kitchen ... start that new glass order ... call jen ... isn't pick-up artist 2 on tonight? gotta watch then call jen after .... what's in this stuff i'm eating anyway?


Me, to Tom, while slamming stuff in and out of the microwave: "Is there meat in this pork?"

Tom, confused: "Wha-?"

Me, using my annoyed outside voice: "Is there MEAT in this PORK??"

Tom, hesitantly sarcastic: "Uh .... yes ... there's meat in the pork."

Me, extremely offended: "Well you don't have to say it all snotty like that, it's a legitimate question!"

Tom, exasperated and close to giving it all up for good: "I don't know what you MEAN."

Me, making it known I am speaking to someone of inferior intellect: "What I MEAN, is that when you cooked the MEAT, did you leave the .... uh .... are there bones in this pork?"

Perhaps I am not the multi-tasker I claim to be, and should attempt to concentrate on one thing at a time. Or I can just become a vegetarian so I no longer have to be concerned about what's in the pork.

Cast of Characters: Ma'am, Sir & Family

Last week I trudged out into the garden after a week's vacation at the shore, and grimly surveyed the damaged. The trifecta of disease, poor gardening skills, and a rock-star style drunken orgy thrown by our resident groundhog had combined in a perfect storm of disaster. My trellises were groaning under the weight of enormous San Marzano sauce tomatoes which were still producing, even though a wilt was yellowing and killing the leaves. My adorable stand of corn was overtaken by some sort of bizarre Chinese long bean that I had planted, and in a display reminiscent of the recent Olympics, the beans proceeded to climb the corn, knock it over, and then march relentlessly and perfectly in-sync towards the sunflowers. But the worst was easily the result of Frank the groundhog and his buddies. Taking advantage of vacationing humans, the zucchini and cucumber plants were feasted on down to the stem by the raucous bunch, leaving only miniature smashed guitars and tour bus skid marks in their wake. As I approached, the last of the slightly drunk and partially clothed groundhogettes started home on the long waddle of shame.

As I added up the amount of hours and physical strength that would be needed to bust the place back into shape, my spirits sank. Where to begin? The overgrown dying tomatoes? The (clearlyy underage yet creepily strong) Chinese bean vines? In my depression I decided to take the path of least resistance and weed the flower bed that didn't really need much weeding, just to feel like I accomplished something. I stuck my hand into the tangle of nasturtiums, nearly crapped myself in shock & fear, and then gave a whoop of joy. Ma'am was back!Are you scared yet? Don't be. Ma'am is a garden orb spider, not dangerous to humans but a real super ass-kicker when it comes to annoying bugs that cause trouble in the garden. Ma'am is appropriately named, because I feel that if she was ever given the power of speech, I would probably actually crap my pants, and then say "Yes ma'am!!!" to whatever directive I was given. I mean, I know she's not dangerous, but still. YIKES! Not appearing in this picture is her husband/boyfriend/partner, the aptly named Sir. He is about a third her size, takes up residence in his own mini web somewhere on the outskirts of hers and is generally good for only one thing. Clearly, I need to finish this paragraph with a zingy one liner about married life, but, as is often the case with other marital activities, I'm simply too tired to bother. You finish it. And happy fall gardening to you!

Question of the Week/Month/Quarter: Starting a New Garden

So in a separate personal email, infamous commenter of recent past "szg" asked for some input on starting an organic garden from scratch. I wrote back and told him I would answer him as my question of the week/month/quarter, and he advised that I needed to slap it on the table and go large with this blog thing. He also said I should call out Mike McGrath, and then claim ownership of various professional degrees which I do not actually have. So out of deference to szg's marketing techniques, here is the (revised) question of the week/month/quarter that I will be answering.

Since I started my blog, I have gotten thousands of emails (one) from all over the country (Trenton) from first-time or wannabe gardeners. They all (same one) ask a question similar to the one I got from szg in Central New Jersey that asked "Laura, why are you like the smartest person ever? And how come that punk Mike McGrath has a radio show and you don't? And what advice would you give someone starting an organic garden from scratch?"

Well, szg, as ever, I am humbled by the overwhelming response to my blog, and would be nowhere without my adoring fans. I appreciate you taking the time to offer your insightful and completely accurate commentary. But now, on with the show, if you will.

1.) Build a raised bed

The basic tenant of organic gardening is that you garden from the soil up, not from the plant down. So if you start with loose, well-drained soil soil rich in organic matter and nutrients, your plants will be less prone to disease and pests. Now, maybe you can walk outside, stick a shovel in the ground, and conveniently have this perfect ideal soil. That could happen, and if it did, well, you suck. And congratulations. But if it doesn't (or even if it does), consider the merits of the raised bed.

Raised beds warm up faster in spring (allowing for earlier planting), are easier to plant in and weed, and allow proper drainage. If you're building the bed and adding fresh soil instead of tilling the soil you have, you will be avoiding much of the pre-existing perennial weeds, not to mention sticks, rocks, hunks of clay, broken bottles, unidentifiable plastic things and other disturbing items you find when digging too deep in New Jersey. My neighbor found an entire car buried in his yard. Seriously.

So now I told you why to build a raised bed, but I failed to mention what it is. A raised bed is simply an extra 12 to 24 inches of dirt raised above the regular soil line in your yard. Ideally it is 4 feet wide and reachable from all sides so that you never have to step in your wonderful loose soil in order to plant or harvest. It can be as long as you have room for, or have the energy to build. It can have sides, or just be a raised berm. The sides should be some rot-resistant non-chemical-laden material, like bricks, rocks, cinder blocks, cedar, redwood, composite wood-like stuff, etc. No railroad ties allowed, and organic types are still hesitant about treated wood, even though the new treatment method doesn't use arsenic. You can even google "buy raised beds" and find kits that include the corner brackets and the material. For example...

2 tier plastic raised bed from gardener's supply catalog
raised bed with cedar from eartheasy shop
composite raised bed from eartheasy shop
raised bed corner brackets - you supply the wood

I realize none of this material is cheap, and all of the fancy products in the world aren't going to save you from the fact that you STILL have to remove or turn over the sod in the area where you are going to build your bed. Knowing that may push you in the berm direction, or may make you abandon the idea of raised beds all together. If you decide to till and plant in existing soil, make sure you get a soil test to determine what your nutrients your soil needs, whether you need to add amendments to balance the pH level, and determine from there if you need to till in compost or leaves or other organic matter to make your soil more friendly to plantings.

But if you can't stand the thought of tilling, amending soil or digging out sod, there's one more option. Lasagna gardening! There's a whole bunch of organic gardeners who don't believe in tilling or digging at all. The quick and dirty (heh!) version of no-till gardening is that you kill the grass by putting down thick layers of newspaper or cardboard, let it break down for a season, and build your bed on top of that. In the book "Lasagna Gardening", Patricial Lanza explaines the system she invented of building her raised bed and putting in alternating layers of different types of organic matter 2 feet high, and then putting the plants straight in them. If this sounds good to you, looks like you have to do some book shopping!

2.) Plant stuff (not too much, and follow the freaking directions on the label!)

What??? All this time and energy making the perfect damn organically specified raised bed, and then your advice is "don't plant too much"??? Look, you're the one who asked. I'm just saying that you might get carried away out of the gates and make things too complicated. If you're new to gardening, focus on a few standard and somewhat easy crops to manage so you concentrate on getting it right the first time. Here are my thoughts for zone 6 plantings:

Spring: Peas can go in the ground mid-March even through snow and ice, and are usually pretty easy to manage. Plus you get to start your long gardening career as trellis builder, which is its own drama. Buy lettuce seedlings from your local nursery and the ground will usually be ready for them in April. Lots of lettuces can be cut an inch above the soil line, and what's left in the ground will regrow for more harvesting until it gets too hot.

Summer: Pick your two or three favorite veggies to eat, and plant them. Tomatoes, peppers and maybe a sqush plant will give you plenty to keep up with. Again, just buy the plants instead of worrying about starting tomatoes and peppers from seed the first year. It's easier, and there are tons of options at all the garden stores. This is the time when spacing really becomes important, especially if you're going to do some of the monsters like zucchini and cucumber plants. Read the package and do what it says .... right Dina???

Fall: If you don't totally hate gardening by now, put in some spinach and radish seeds. They grow quickly and don't mind the cold. Plus you get extra bragging rights at your dinner party when you're serving garden fresh salad in October.

3.) Do everything right, then figure out what you did wrong

You follow all the advice, and find yourself screwed anyway - disease, drought, bugs, rodents, hungry neighbors, whatever. Something is bound to go awry, and when it does, don't worry. It's just the beginning of your own organic gardening adventures! Here are my favorite resources to help you on your way....

Web:
Organic Gardening Magazine's website
Garden Web Forums - join and post questions
Radio Show Host Mike McGrath on WHYY

Magazines:
Organic Gardening Magazine, of course!

Books: (Clearly I am a fan of J.I. Rodale and all his works. However, I'm just about to pick up some stuff by Jerry Baker to see what he's about. Seems like a bit of a kook, but then again, most gardeners are.)
Rodale's Chemical-Free Yard & Garden
Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Insect, Disease & Weed ID Guide
Lasagna Gardening
You Bet Your Tomatoes!

So in summary (you were begging for that phrase, I know), my recommendation for the first time gardener is to build a raised bed, fill it with good soil, follow spacing guidelines for your crops, and get your Google fingers ready. Oh yeah, and have fun! Really, it's fun. And besides, how bad can it be? Not worse than my garden, I assure you.

Product Placement For Which I, Unfortunately, Receive No Compensation: the Earth Box

Two questions: What is the Earth Box? And why are they not paying me to promote their product?

Well, I guess I'm not getting money or other valuable prizes because they don't know me, or care what I say. But I harbor no ill will. And as for what is the Earth Box? We must got back to the beginning - to the one and only Walter Petrosky.

Walter Petrosky is my 70+ year old Polish grandfather from the Scranton area who has 70+ years worth of wisdom to relay. Aside from being my favorite person, my grandfather is my greatest literary influence because of his particular style of leading his stories with the punchline. However, the punchline in his case usually doubles as the moral of the story. For example, my favorite stories by my grandfather begin with this line, delivered with complete sincerity in a strong Scranton accent: "Laura! (Lare-uh!) You gotta be careful with electricity (lektricity). [Pause - lean in for dramatic effect - commence pointing] Because one time, me, Bobby Touch, Jackie Mancuso (Mancuse) went up the (da) Mountain (Moun-un)...." and then things get weird, and there's something about stealing railroad tracks from the coal mine, an exposed 220 volt wire, and now my grandfather has curly hair. That's the best of the "beware of electricity" themed stories, although it would seem my grandfather has electrocuted himself no less than 5 times, and still lives so that we might all learn from his errors. He has also planted garlic upside down and nearly gotten bitten by a rattlesnake while picking blueberries ("We were up the mountain! We got paid five cents a pail! We shared one pair of shoes!"). Hints from Heloise, look out! These are good tips, all delivered Walter Petrosky style.

So how am I going to bring it back around from an elderly Polish man to the Earth Box? Here I go people, check me out. My grandfather has always sponsored my hobbies. Apparently in college, he felt my hobbies were eating peanut butter and drinking A-Treat lemon-lime soda by the case. Walt had that covered. Then when we bought our first house and took up renovating, we received a constant supply of Sears Craftsman tools. Now that gardening is my latest preoccupation, he's on the lookout for new and better gear for me at all times. So when Johnny Schwartztraubber's tomatoes became the talk of the block, my grandfather was on it.

It was explained to me, with much directional gesturing, that Johnny had bigger and more tomatoes on two plants than the guy with the garden across the street, or so-and-so from down the block, and the reason was that he was planting his tomatoes in a raised plastic box on casters. Not one to dilly-dally, I immediately became the owner of two such contraptions.

The Earth Box is essentially a raised bed on wheels. It's a self-watering system, which means that the bottom of the box is a reservoir that holds water and keeps the dirt above it on a perforated platform. The soil absorbs water as needed, keeping itself evenly moist. All you have to do is keep topping off the water. It also comes with the soil, the casters to move it in and out of the sun, a tight fitting plastic mulch cover and fertilizer. The complete instructions detail exactly how many of each type of a variety of seedlings should be planted, how they should be placed in the box and where the fertilizer goes. It's pretty fool-proof and is great for decks, since it's easy to roll around. An additional accessory kit comes with the trellis for tomatoes or other tall plants.

It's fool-proof all right, but how did I fare? Well, pretty ok, even for me. FOR ONCE, I followed the directions when planting my lettuces and only put in as many as they said and arranged them properly. I didn't even water regularly, but was still rewarded with an entire spring's worth of pest-free delicious lettuces that I cut an inch from the root so that they regrew. They were twice the size of the same lettuces that I planted in the garden at the same time. It really and truly rocked. Now, as far as the tomatoes, I couldn't resist the urge to plant only two, and put in three, which was not good. I also didn't keep watering regularly, resulting in something called blossom end rot, where the tomatoes gets black soft spots. The lack of regular watering and tight spacing stressed the plants, and now they picked up some sort of wilt. However, the tomatoes I did get were the first of the season, I believe because the box heats the soil sooner, speeding up the growth process. The tomatoes are still coming, but the ones in the garden are in better shape.

My final assessment? If you are a new gardener, or have limited space in the garden, or have ample deck space for containers, or just feel like it, get yourself an Earth Box system. And when you do, take a bit of a time out to thank Walter Petrosky for his enthusiasm, his dedication, and his knack for self-electrocution. Clearly, it has worked out for the best.

Notes From the Chopping Block: Tom's Pea & Garlic Scape Soup Recipe

Tom and I genuinely have a good system here: I grow food and he cooks it. Luckily for me, he is a better chef than I am a gardener. The following words are his, including the smart-ass remarks about yours truly.....


Long-in-the-tooth pea & garlic scape soup

What does the cook do when the gardener falls asleep at the wheelbarrow, and allows fantastic, organic produce to enter the agricultural equivalent of our “golden years?” Make soup. It is easy and surprisingly delicious. Even though the fruit, vegetable, tuber, or whatever isn’t pretty and tender anymore, it is still loaded with the flavor that only accompanies food that is freshly harvested.

So, here is just one of many simple soup recipes, and the basic technique works for just about anything coming out of your garden.

Ingredients
Peas (shucked with pods reserved)
Garlic scape (feel free to use the tough parts and save the tender ends for something else)
Tarragon
Water
Salt (please, not the iodized stuff with the picture of the girl and the umbrella. Go out and get yourself some good sea salt, or grey salt, or kosher salt, anything but the other stuff)

Procedure
Coarsely chop the pea pods (not the peas), the garlic scape and the tarragon. Place in a stockpot, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer. Let it cook, covered, for about 30 minutes or so. Let cool. Puree the cooled stock in a blender or food processor. Pass the pureed stock through a sieve. You now have a stock – congratulations!
Prior to serving, return the stock to a simmer and add the peas and salt to taste. Let cook for just a few minutes until the peas are slightly softened, but retain some bite. Garnish with a pinch of fresh tarragon and perhaps a drizzle of olive oil or cream (not both). Serve with crusty bread.

In Defense of the Lazy Gardener

Who starts a blog and after a month, never posts again? I do, I do! But seriously people, it's not practical to start a blog about gardening in the spring. The spring is full of opportunity and hope, wacky schemes and grand adventures. That's the time my happy self is puttering in the garden, delusional and optimistic, sure that THIS time it's going to be great! Then summer comes, and reality punches you in the face with the quick one-two jab of disease and pest damage, an uppercut of drought and then the full wind up knock-out of Frank the groundhog. Summer, I realize, is the appropriate time to start a garden blog because #1. it's too hot out there and #2. the creatures are winning. When Frank starts his own blog, I will go into even deeper hiding.

In the meantime, I would like to share my favorite triumphant screw-ups of 2008, and point out the merits of my specific version of bottle rocket gardening (fire with good intentions, put on a mediocre show, fail with a lingering whine). It's also good to note that if you are going to be a bottle rocket gardener, it's best to have a spouse/partner/whatever who can pick up the pieces of your failed attempts and, Iron Chef style, still come up with some fantastic meal.

1.) To Pea or not to Pea:

So every year I plant peas, usually snap peas and snow peas, because I love walking around the garden eating fresh pea pods right off the vine. I can't be bothered with shelling peas since that's extra work, and who wants that? But here's the thing, even if I eat 5-10 pea pods every other day for the month or so that peas are producing, that's maybe two or thee plants worth of peas. How many plants do I grow? Like a 20 foot row. So I eat two plants worth of peas, and go start a blog, while the other 118 plants are like WHAT THE FRIG??? Here they are, doing their genetic duty and waving their offspring around in the wind, and I can't be bothered to harvest them. So I finally get around to harvesting, and the pods are way past edible. They're tough and stringy, and no fun at all, and my crop's a waste. Tom, as usual, is aggravated with my lack of follow through, but starts shelling them instead of eating them whole. I'm like, bah! They're not shelling peas, they're meant to be eaten in the pod when they're young. But sure enough, they taste quite lovely. So I go and read the packet and, lo and behold, I bought peas that are good for pod eating OR shelling. Doh! Suddenly with the standards being adjusted, we had a huge crop of shelling peas which Tom made the best soup ever with, and all thanks to the fact that I am not only a bad gardener but I also can't be bothered to read.

2.) The Great Garlic Scape

Ever since moving to this bizarre section of northwest Jersey, I've been obsessed with attending the Pocono Garlic Festival. For some reason, every year we ran into a scheduling conflict until Fall of 2007, when we coerced Dina and Rich to escort us to this extravaganza of garlic. All I knew is that I was going to buy garlic bulbs to plant, and that I was willing to try garlic ice cream just to say I ate it. The overall assessment from the four of us (including a silent nod of agreement from Sophia) was, like Christopher Walken in the famed SNL skit, we needed more garlic. It was your typical fall festival with craft vendors, music, local food stands, but everyone (maybe not so much the soap vendors) had a garlic theme. The local farms all had their fall crops for sale, including lots of varieties of garlic, potatoes and onions, and all the local food vendors had something on the menu that was garlic heavy. We did have an awesome garlic chowder, bought a strange garlic hot pepper jelly, and ate really freaking good kielbasa from a meat joint called Komenski's hailing from Dupont, PA. The heavily touted "garlic ice cream" turned out to be vanilla ice cream with a garlic pretzel topping. Regardless it was a great garlic time, and I bought THREE varieties of garlic, and couldn't wait to plant them in October, as directed.

If you are unfamiliar with the mechanics of garlic, each clove of garlic, if planted in the fall and left to overwinter, will become a full head of garlic by the following summer. This is just like planting tulips, and you do both at the same time. Like tulips, they will send up a stalk with a flower, but unlike tulips, this is a bad thing, since you're growing the garlic for the bulb, not the flower. Producing a flower weakens the bulb because it's putting it's energy into flower production. I knew that at the first sign of flowering, I should have pinched off the top of the garlic so it would keep growing but keep its energy aimed at making a great head of garlic. I should have, but didn't.

Instead one day I looked out at the three beautiful 4'x6' beds of garlic and notice the tops had all turned into giant curly Q's. What??? Clearly they were going into flowering, and that's no good. I say to myself, I have to get out there and cut those crazy things off. And time goes by, and I pass them and say I REALLY have to cut those things off! And more time goes by, and I pass them and say I REALLY NEED to cut those damn things off. And still more time goes by, and finally I'm like OK DAMMIT! I'm cutting those things off right now! But some voice in my head knows they are called garlic scapes, and thinks, maybe they are edible. So I run to Google.

Turns out, that not only are they edible, but they are some sort of eagerly anticipated food dork delicacy, and people pay offensive sums of money for these at fancy local organic markets. You seem to use them as a cross between an herb and a scallion - like a garlic flavored herb but the flavor is really mild and blends well into lots of foods. A little more digging, and I found some recipes for scapes & eggs, along with garlic scape pesto. This was all Tom needed to know to get rolling, and we ate and served garlic scapes to people for weeks, and stored a bunch in the freezer - all because procrastination rules the day.

3.) Rampant volunteerism

I'm not talking about heading to the local food pantry to plate up stuff for the needy. Volunteerism is my favorite aspect of lazy gardening. It's my reminder that no matter what you do, nature has its own agenda, so you may as well just let it go and see what happens.

So, here's some basic life cycle plant info. Every plant's job is to reproduce itself somehow. Lots of typical garden plants do this by producing flowers which get pollinated and produce seed, at which point the plant knows it has done its genetic duty and can happily die. If you continually pick the flowers or seeds, the plant cannot happily die and has to keep producing flowers until the weather causes it to die or take a long nap. Therefore a good gardener knows, that to keep flowers at proper show stopping production, you must snip off old flowers before they go to seed, otherwise known as deadheading. A good gardener putters about the garden every day, plucking off fading flowers. It is the right thing to do. However, I do not have the time or energy to be a good gardener.

That means, many (most) of my flowers go to seed, put on a crappy flower show, and die proudly as scheduled knowing they did fantastic work, because their seeds have hit the soil and will grow again next year on their own. These babies are called "volunteers" by gardeners, and these can be good or bad .... bad when it's an invasive weed, but awesome when it's your favorite vegetable or herb or flower. I had lots of great volunteers this year, therefore, I have lots of good reasons to never walk around deadheading plants. Did you see that? Once again, I have found a way to justify not working that hard.

In the event that you would like to take up gardening but not do the proper amount of work, here are some of my favorite volunteers:

• flowers: columbine, cleome, impatiens, calendula, cosmos (something with the c's, don't know why), pansies
• herbs: purple basil, parsley, chamomile
• veg: spinach, bok choy, arugula. Tomatoes will also appear again next year anyplace you let one fall off the plant and rot. They are not necessarily going to exactly resemble the plant they originated from, but that's a story for another entry. In the meantime, if you need an explanation, ask Mendel.

I have to give a special shout out to my favorite volunteer, my Sicilian arugula. I bought these seeds literally in Sicily in 2003 and smuggled (gasp!) them home in my suitcase, thinking I was getting some special exotic plant. We went there on a week long tour in the fall and every restaurant we ate in had the same main foods billed as the "typical Sicilian dish" of the season. Trust me, the Sicilians have been on the local-seasonal-fresh bandwagon forever, and after my 18th eggplant caponata, I got the message loud and clear. However, there was also this salad that I swore was called "rocket salad" with this green leaf that was spicy and vibrant and amazing, reminiscent of arugula, yet making arugula the ugly step-sister. It rocked, as the name indicated, and I had to have it. Turns out, once I got home and looked though some books, it was actually called roquette, and is a variety of arugula that is likely referred to as "sylvetta wild arugula." And it's perfectly accessible for purchase online. Not quite as exotic as I thought.

BUT here's the best thing - if you plant something, and let it reseed every year, over time, it will grow to adjust to the specific conditions in your garden, climate, zone, etc. Like, I may have started out with "arugula, sylvetta wild variety," but after years of the strongest plants surviving to reproduce in my particular patch of dirt, I have created "arugula, sylvetta wild variety, laura knott zone" meaning my arugula's internal monologue is "I grow in a zone 6 garden in New Jersey in full sun. Sometimes I get water every week, sometimes I don't. I never get fertilized, and no one cares much about me. One time, this super creepy spider moved into my flower stalks and totally freaked me out and STILL no one cared. *sigh* I'm like, whatever, dude. I'm just here to grow and shit."

Do I need a recap here? I think I do. In summary, it is good to be a lazy gardener because accidents can wind up being beneficial, and Mother Nature will pick up the slack where you fail. Of course, at the moment I'm not telling you about my disease ridden potatoes, broccoli riddled with flea beetle bullet holes, and Frank the groundhog, who I'm pretty sure threw me the finger the other day after he ate every bean plant in the ground. Ah, but that's another entry, isn't it? Biggest garden failures of 2008 - coming soon!!!

Joyce's Mothers Day Heist: Part III - the feel good conclusion

What happened next, you might wonder? Well, I bought my grandmother a brand new box of chocolate covered cherries, made fifteen copies of the emails, and went to Scranton. I passed out the emails, did a dramatic reading for my entire family and presented my grandmother with her missing gift. And, as expected, everyone was hysterical laughing. My mother got the candy from her hiding place and still refused to let anyone try them, and my grandmother interrupted the reading to point out that she never got the pretzels either. It was quite a heart-warming Knott family moment, and there was no ill ill. After all, it was about the chocolate, and none of us are really sharers.

Do you have a crazy mother, or are you working towards being one yourself someday? Do simple family holidays degenerate into madness at the hand of the head matriarch? This is your moment to share - not your chocolates, god forbid, just your stories. From what I hear from my friends, Joyce is not the only nutjob out there to have ever given birth. Take it away, readers!

Joyce's Mother's Day Heist: Part II - the deed is done

Once again, if you did not read JMDH part I, here's the quick story. I mailed both my mother's and grandmother's gifts for Mother's Day in the same package. Each gift was clearly labeled as to who got what, but they weren't wrapped. I assumed my mother would give my grandmother her gift. My mom emailed me to thank me, and the following madness ensued.

Email #1:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

Thank you for the card and ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS candy. I told
Grandma you sent her candy when we talked last night. I will bring it
to her the next time I go for a visit.



Email #2:
From: Laura
To: Joyce

i'm glad you liked the candy. does grandma like chocolate covered cherries? i always remember eating them at her house, but i don't remember if she liked them. i remember she liked maple though, but the cherries took up the budget.



Email #3:

From: Joyce
To: Laura


I must confess, I ate the cherries bec. carmel is not one of my
favorites. Hopefully, it is one of hers!!!
Love you, J.


Email #4:

From: Laura
To: Joyce

sorry, i couldn't remember besides the pretzels what you like. doesn't grandma have dentures? i don't think she can eat carmels if she does. i hope you didn't eat ALL the cherries on her, and if you did, you'd better tell her that they were meant for her! if neither of you can eat the carmels save them for me.




Email #5:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

I didn't eat all of the cherries since I only got them yesterday and
decided to ration myself to one a day bec. they are soooo good and it
would be nice to let that great flavor linger for a few weeks. What a
great treat!!! I will give grandma the caramels and the pretzels and
ask her if she wants them, if not then you can have them and I can pick
up something else from Gertrude Hawks for her.


Email #6: this is where I foolishly cc my dad, thinking he can help

From: Laura
To: Joyce
CC: Jim

JOYCE ANN, YOU SHARE THOSE CHERRIES!!!! i mean it! the pretzels and the carmels were supposed to be for you, as the placement of the cards clearly indicated. if you want to barter with grandma who gets what, that's fine, but you'd better let her have some of those cherries if she wants them. boy, that'll teach me to send multiple gifts in one box. you are a crafty crafty little woman.

i am alerting dad by cc so he can enforce the fairness of this trade mission.




Email #7A: my dad responds to me, but does not cc my mom

To: Laura
From: Jim

I am a little confused here. I assume your mother received some food that
she is hiding and/or hoarding. This is the first I'm hearing about it. You
should know by now she doesn't share when it comes to delicious treats. She
has always hidden food in the bedroom when she doesn't want to share. Your
grandma is on her own, your mother never did listen to me anyway. I guess
we will be seeing you in a few weeks. Take care.



Email #7B: my mom responds to me, having not seen my dad's email to me


Why are you telling on me? Your father never even saw the candy bec.
it's hidden in my bedroom. Boy, I can't believe you are doing this. I
DON'T WANT TO SHARE THE CHERRIES!!! This is just awful.


Email #8:

From: Laura
To: Joyce

you just made me laugh right out loud. i KNEW you were probably hiding them in your room. you're lucky grandma doesn't have email, or i'd tell her too. in fact, if i had uncle walter's email with me at work i'd tell him so he can tell grandma, just in case you knock dad off in his sleep before he has a chance to talk. uh oh, now i realize i put dad's life in jeopardy. well, hopefully all those years of private investigator shows will give him some tips on survival.



Email #9:

From: Joyce
To: Laura

I hate to tell you this but your father is not going to do anything to
help you because a long time ago he HAD to live with you but now he HAS
to live with me. Because, I'm the one who puts a smile on his face (it
has to do with sex) he will not upset the applecart and my dear, whether
you realize it or NOT you are living in another state. On the serious
side, I did not eat another choc. cherry so there is only one missing
from the box. BUT I still haven't decided if I am going to give them to
grandma yet and you CAN'T make me. If I decide to act like a grown-up
then she will get to taste a few but if not, they will remain hidden in
the bedroom and she can struggle with the caramels. You just gave me an
idea. Now that you know my hiding spot, I may have to look for another
one!
J.




Email #10:

From: Laura
To: Joyce

re: dad smiling - gross. i did not need to know that.
re: chocolates - on second thought, i'd better not reproduce because i hear insanity skips a generation and i'll probably just have the luck of birthing some child who will some day stab me in the back and steal my mother's day gift.


Happy Mother's Day to all you honorable women out there, who will one day be thrown under the bus by your own spawn!

Joyce's Mother's Day Heist: Part I - the beginning

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Specifically, it was the time my mother switched out the Mother's Day gift I got her for something better - for something I had gotten for my grandmother, in fact. Confused? You're not alone. There was no one more confused than me at the time - confused, shocked, offended, and secretly impressed. Ask any of my friends and they will agree: ain't no story like a Joyce Knott story.

The following are actual emails sent between myself and my mother in the year 2003. They are unedited. This story is completely true. There is no poetic license. There is no James Frey I-meant-it-as-a-memoir crap. This is totally Will & Grace style ..."JUST JOYCE!"

By way of background, in the year 2003, I did not return to Scranton, PA for Mother's Day. Because of this, I sent two gifts of boxed chocolates to my parents' house - one for my mother, one for my grandmother. Each was wrapped with ribbon and had a card attached noting the beneficiary of said gift, but no wrapping paper was involved (my fatal flaw).

By way of further background, the Knott family sweet tooth is legendary. We are not big on food. Food keeps you alive so that you can wake up another day to eat chocolate. I STILL have to physically restrain my adult (may I say OLD) parents from diving into the pumpkin pie prior to Thanksgiving dinner. It is perfectly acceptable, and even praiseworthy, to show up at a family dinner with a half eaten dessert. Well, at least we shared, didn't we? You're welcome!

It was a strange juxtaposition then, to marry into my husband's Italian family. To people who behave as though cured meats and aged cheeses are exotic treats. To people who can taste, smell, and consequently discuss at length the quality difference between different brands of extra virgin olive oil. {You didn't notice it, but I LITERALLY just capitalized "olive oil" as I was typing, and had to fix it - as though I had just typed "God" or "President Bush" or "Tuesday".} To people who put hours and courses between themselves and dessert. On purpose! And then when dessert finally does come, part of it's nuts and fruit. NUTS AND FRUIT. What the hell kind of crazy joke is this? You mean you don't spend most of your waking moments trying to destroy yourselves with fat and sugar?? You mean that just because fruit tastes sweet and good that is counts as dessert??? AND YOU CALL YOURSELVES AMERICAN????? Oh wait, you don't. You call yourselves Italian. Der.

Here I stand, ten years later, a foot in each food world. I've largely adopted the Italian way of eating. Frankly, it's just better. Vegetables, when not from a can or in a casserole, are not a type of punishment. Meat, when properly seasoned and prepared, can taste wonderful. And most importantly, there is an enormous difference between brands and styles of olive oil. Seriously. If that's not enough to convert, it's also acceptable during these meals to drink fantastically excessive amounts of red wine! Woo-hoo! If you are not Italian (or some other culture where food is a big deal) please do yourself a favor, and fix that immediately.

But does nurture ever really win over nature? Can we as humans be more than the sum of our genetically predetermined components? Maybe you can, but I can't. I can eat relatively well most of the time, but if you sit me in a restaurant with a menu, a slight variation of the following meal will be ordered: gigantic piece of medium rare red meat, mashed potato, token vegetable to be ignored, carafe of house red (keep it comin!) and dessert - always chocolate, usually prefaced by "triple" "death by" or "flourless". The only acceptable fruit involved are reduced in a sauce and drizzled artfully over the chocolate, with maybe one tiny piece garnishing the whipped cream. And so help me Jesus, if you try to pass off some frigging cobbler, or pie, or some shit like that as dessert, I swear on my life I will KICK YOUR ASS.

Perhaps now the events of Part II in our drama will make sense. Please proceed, but with caution.

Question of the Week: Stink Bugs

In order to be a reputable and information oriented gardening blog, I've decided that I need to do a "question of the week" segment - or question of the month, as is more likely the case. This is the part where I field legitimate questions from my loyal readers so as to spread my wit and wisdom far and wide. The only catch will be that the answer to said question is likely to be filled with a few random facts surrounded by fantasy, exaggeration and outright lies. Sound good? Come on, let's play!


In a previous comment, Andy writes:

"Are stink bugs real, or is this another one of Tom's personalities?"


Excellent question, Andy. Stink bugs are in fact real, and do indeed stink. According to Wikipedia, stink bugs are also called shield bugs, and are in the Hemiptera order of the Heteroptera suborder. According to me, they are strange prehistoric looking insects with ridged backs and inferior reasoning abilities. They are in the phyla of bugs that feel the overwhelming need to slam themselves repeatedly into light fixtures, not quite realizing they can never go into the light, as they are all instructed to do by the bug version of the creepy "Poltergeist" lady. If that's not annoying enough, they fly as though piloted by drunken five year olds, and as a result, I've caught a stink bug to the head on more than one occasion. The good news is that they are so loud when they fly, that you can usually hear them coming and duck.

However, stink bugs in general seem to prefer plodding around morosely to flying. I once described a parade of Mummer style stink bugs marching around my house, but really, the Mummers are way too "up" for a stink bug. I imagine the internal monologue of a stink bug sounds a lot like Eeyore, with some depressed mutterings about not being able to get into the light ... again.

Oh yeah, and the stink part. They emit some gross type of defense-mechanism stink when faced with aggravation, which is likely why my idiot cats won't bother them - that and the fact that they move so slowly, they are of no real interest to chase down. Not that the cats COULD chase anything down - Captain seems to be reaching Jabba the Hut capacity and will soon need to be hand fed from his permanent throne in Sophia's beanbag chair, and Tennille is much too busy following me around howling for treats and trying to trip me.

Although Tom does have many personalities, some of them as of yet unnamed, I am not embarrassed to admit that stink bug is all me. Although I do not fly drunk or slam my head into my desk lamp, I highly recommend to all the married ladies reading this post some defense-mechanism stink factor to avoid, uh, nightly extracurricular activities. A weekend of gardening and no showers works every time!

YOU are welcome.

Tomato Lust ... Awww, Yeah

Well folks, I have gone and done it. It's April 25th in my zone 6 garden, and my first round of tomatoes is properly planted and watered. I am super excited, and the early pangs of maniacal tomato lust have begun.

If you are not a gardener, you are saying to yourself, "Lady, you are a FREAK. Tomato lust? Seriously? Besides, what's the big deal, anyway. I can get in my car right now and go to the store and get an organic tomato. I have a Whole Foods."

If you are a gardener, you are saying to yourself, "Lady, you are an IDIOT. You're going to lose those to frost, or at least stunt their growth. Everybody knows you don't plant summer crops until at least mid-May, and even then, Mike McGrath says June 1st is better."

To that I say the following:

1.) Whole Foods - well goody for you, but I am not impressed. If you are eating a tomato in April in New Jersey, it is likely not grown in New Jersey, picked green, ripened in-transit with gases, and even after all that, winds up being a variety that doesn't taste that great. AND even if it was grown in New Jersey and picked ripe, it was in a greenhouse, and it's still not the same. If you love tomatoes, and I mean LOVE tomatoes in a somewhat inappropriate way, you must must must grow your own, pick them perfectly ripe, and eat them straight from the vine. Which leads me to my next topic.

2.) Tomato Lust - There are two kinds of tomato lust: the kind that ends in -itis, and the kind that ends in -ism. Tomato Lustitis is a summertime temporary virus. It starts in July and August with the onslaught of the "Jersey Fresh!" signs, and the popping up of random farm stands. You hear your tires squeal at you swerve to the side of the road, hop out of your car, and start buying them by the bushel. Tomato sauce, tomato slices, tomato salad, tomato SALSA, SUN-DRIED Tomatoes, FRIED GREEN tomatoes, T O M A T O I C E - C R E A M!!!! And yet the instant your tomato frenzy reaches a fever pitch, it violently recedes, leaving in its tsunami-like wake nothing but a few leftover skins, and the dull realization that if you see another tomato you will literally throw up in your own shoes.

Tomato Lustism is something quite different. A cross between religion and affliction, Tomato Lustism is a quiet dark force lurking far beneath the surface of many completely normal looking human beings. You might THINK you're having a conversation with someone about current events, but that person is off in his or her own world thinking, "Will my San Marzanos produce enough this year for canning, or will I be stuck with the Romas? And is the cage I built strong enough for the Brandywines? And why won't this person stop talking about Darfur when I have mulch to refresh?"

Not only do these victims think obsessively about tomatoes, but they also possesses a need to grow more tomatoes that ripen earlier, take up less space, and taste better than anyone else's tomatoes. Taking a page from the Book of Dennis Leary, tomato lustism does not lead to other vegetable addictions, but to carpentry (see above image). Only 2.5 people reside in my house, yet a minimum of ten tomato plants will be planted, eight of which will be indeterminate heirloom varieties plus the two token early hybrids, just so I can brag about having garden frnesh tomatoes in early July. Did I lose you at "indeterminate"? It's OK. That means that you are free from the above mentioned illness, and should remain so ... unless you keep reading these posts and find your mind wandering...

3.) In my final point, I speak to other gardeners. Just how do you plant tomatoes in April in a zone 6 garden? Why, with Wall-O-Waters of course! This is my favorite tomato trickery. I start seeds under lights in the basement in February, put out the WOW's in the raised beds in March or April, and ta da! The WOW's warm the soil so you can get your plants in early, and then protect them at night from chilliness. Of course, for best early tomato results, you should put in an Early Girl, or some other super early hybrid, but at the moment I've got 3 San Marzanos, 2 Sugar Snackers, 1 Brandywine and 1 Purple Calabash ready to plant. So maybe none of these guys will be producing in June (my ultimate tomato goal), but my caprese salad is going to be the cat's meow. Now, if only we could get a handle on the homemade mozzarella cheese...but that's another day, another blog entry.

Cast of Characters: The Humans

Due to the fact that I will be referring to the same folks repeatedly, I think I should take a moment in do some introductions...



Tom, devoted husband - also, executive chef of our house, manual laborer, and professional eye roller. For example, "Tommy, I just got done reading my free copy of 'Hobby Farms' magazine - let's get chickens!!!" (insert dramatic eye roll). Tom has various sub-personalities, which I have also taken upon myself to name. Tom/Francois is the self-taught French chef who once asked me, in complete seriousness, "Do you need anything brined?" Tom/Hurricane Bob exists mainly during the fall, when he enjoys speaking to me at length about the relative wind speeds and trajectories of various tropical storms brewing in the south. And then of course, there's Tom/Ray Romano, which I think all husbands seem to channel at different points in time. When you find yourself having a fight that's straight out of a sitcom, it's time to blog. Why not? It worked for those freak shows for ten seasons.



Sophia, dear daughter - also, four year old, destroyer of flowers, confuses all raised beds with sand boxes. Sophia is my garden sidekick, in the sense that I drag her around in her wagon trying to weed, while she howls and gestures wildly to her swing until I give up and prepare myself to sing "Six Little Ducks" for the 4000th time. Since Sophia is a woman of few words but extremely expressive eyebrows, I will be translating her signs and dirty looks Sunny Baudelaire style, depending on the situation. Sophia's sign for "where?" often is better described as "just what the frig is going on here?" or "why must I persist in dealing with these complete morons?"



Brian, the bug guy - One of my best sources of news and information of all the goings on in the entomological world. Brian is our Ehrlich rep, and no, Ehrlich is not organic. Organic gardening? Yes. Organic management of wood eating critters invading my home? No can do, sister. That bug be GONE indeed. But Brian is a good soul who abides by the "good bug vs. bad bug" rule of organic gardening. And, no matter what weird shit is going on at my house, he makes me feel reassured that it's completely normal. Me: "Brian, yesterday my front door flew open and a parade of 200 stink bugs dressed as Mummers marched around my house playing 'oh dem golden slippers'. They scared the crap out of my cats." Brian: "Oh yeah, yeah, they're going around. Everybody's got 'em at this time of year. You should see some of the outfits though, quite spectacular. Not much you can do about it. I'd just get a lawn chair and a beer."



The Captain & Tennille, kitties - OK, so they're not humans. But as indoor cats they reside entirely in the world of humans, and have human personality traits (meaning they are as annoying as most human beings are), and in the battle of me vs. outside creatures invading my garden, they are generally on my side. But they don't eat stink bugs, which is unfortunate. At the very least, the cats could take away their godforsaken banjos.



Are these all the characters in my garden melodrama? Oh no. I haven't even gotten to the outside critters yet. There's Frank, Sisyphus, James Bond and his Bond girls, Ma'am & Sir, the Mancusos and many more to come. I'll post their histories as time allows.



For now, it's time to look outside at the unfinished/unstarted projects in my garden on this beautiful 68 degree Spring day, and think to myself "Hmmm, I'll get to that crap later. I need more coffee."



Happy garden procrastination to yous!

Is Organic Gardening Funny?

Well, no. Not exactly.



Organic gardening is a lot of things these days. For some it's a part of a spiritual belief system that includes nature as a life force. For others it's about getting the highest quality and best variety of food possible. And in today's "greener than thou" culture, it might even be considered trendy and a potentially good business investment. However, very few conversations start with "I planted peppers today, and it was hysterical! Ho ho ho! Just thinking about it cracks me up - hold on, hold on, I need to sit down. I think I just peed a little."

OK, so maybe the act of putting a plant in the ground is meaningful, and not funny. But you know what is funny? Slowly losing your ground while straining to hold up a toppling cage of 2x4's housing your prize heirloom tomatoes, hoping beyond hope that your husband will notice your absence and just LOOK OUT THE FREAKING WINDOW!!!! Or finding yourself shouting obscenities after a groundhog, who is waddling away at full speed in his attempt to shake the crazy lady in mud boots and parachute pants (please find yourself a groundhog and shout at it in order to see just what 'waddling at full speed' looks like). Or taking large amounts of time to set up your new expensive anti-critter-motion-detector-water-squirter-thingy...and then forgetting to shut it off before you go in the garden. Or giving human names and elaborate life histories to the variety of creatures who frequent your vegetable patch (if my high school AP English teacher Mrs. Timms finds herself reading this, that's a little bit of anthropomorphism for you, lady!).



Let's face it. Even for a good gardener, taking a small patch of earth and remodeling it after your own vision is nearly impossible. Mother Nature will light up a clove cigarette, put on her ergonomically sound shoes, and happily stomp all over your parade. Add to that issue a gardener with a tendency towards laziness and procrastination, and when things actually DO work, it's mostly a happy accident. But I'm all about the happy accidents and am willing to lose to Mother Nature most of the time to get them. Plus when stuff doesn't work, well, that's just another funny story for you at my expense. And YOU are welcome!