Avdat

Marvin's garden: June 24, 2011

My brother-in-law's wife is who you want to be when you grow up. She can do it all. She's hiked the Appalachian Trail. She's a civil engineer. She builds hospitals! She's run the Boston Marathon. Heck, she's run 5Ks into her ninth month of pregnancy. She's mother to a great niece and nephew of mine.

She's also an epic chef. Behold her Asian peanut slaw salad!

Now here is where I have to do a little braggin' on myself too. See, the purple cabbage that gave its life for this amazing dish was raised in our garden. And I would be remiss if I didn't brag on our boys, for they helped me put in the cabbage on a President's Day school holiday.

Every so often I post pictures of our garden on Facebook. It's a form of self-discipline. If people are going to see the garden, I've gotta weed it! Here's the situation as of today:

 

Not all that impressive, I'll admit. But there's a reason. It's a small garden, so we had to wait for the spring crops to finish up before planting the summer crops. And we have learned this year that brussel sprouts take up a lot of space and take their sweet time to mature. No wonder they're so expensive in the store. On Tuesday I pulled them, even though a lot of the sprouts were mere nubs. Gotta make way for the okra! And that's what I hope will fill that empty spot in the middle, where the brussel sprouts used to be.

Ah... tomatoes, summer squash and okra. Not the nasty, slimy boiled okra, but lightly breaded and cooked in a skillet with a little olive oil. If it weren't for the fresh vegetables, southern summers would be unbearable. As it is, I often wonder in July and August, How do we not starve the other ten months of the year?

Casserole seasons

Here in the south we have mild winters. Another way to say it is that we have long springs and long autumns. The leaves aren't all down until after Thanksgiving, and the city's leaf removal efforts don't begin in earnest until December.

Now this December we've experienced a cold snap and some snow. I welcome it. It really puts you in the Christmas spirit, especially in these parts where snow is rather rare. But now the snow has started to melt, revealing a truly revolting sight: soggy, half-rotten piles of leaves under the discolored snow.

It's gross. It's... it's... it's SEASONS TOUCHING! That's what it is. It creeps me out like when I was a kid and the foods touched on my plate.

I'm glad that this big storm blowing in from the west coast is going to swing out into the Atlantic and leave us dry on Christmas Day. This city needs a good two weeks of hard core raking and leaf removal before it can snow in decency again. Just like you need a clean plate before you go get dessert. Apple pie sitting in mashed potatoes and gravy residue just won't do.

Let everything that breathes respect my garden

I did get a bit carried away Sunday.  In truth, not all is sweetness and light in "the verdant gardens of chez Lindsay."  I bought a flat of marigolds to plant around my tomatoes.  Legend has it that the stinky flowers keep away noxious insects. 

Maybe, but they failed to ward off something else, for the next day every single marigold was mowed flat to the ground.  All that saved the tomatoes, I believe, were the cages.  I week later I put in some cucumbers, and they got the same treatment.

We think the culprit is a rabbit.  We watched the little feller today, munching on the clover that runs rampant through our back yard lawn.  "Isn't he cute?"  cooed my wife.  "Daddy, can't we buy a hutch and keep him as a pet?"  pleaded my firstborn.

While they were fawning, I was getting in touch with my inner Elmer Fudd.  Make yourself useful, little critter; or else.  There's plenty of weeds in the garden you haven't bothered.

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

It's another insanely beautiful day in Salisbury, North Carolina, and a dramatic departure from years past.  I can't tell you how many springs we've had that jumped straight from dogwoods blooming into summertime.  But this year the Good Lord has blessed us with a month called May!  Upper fifties by night.  Upper seventies by day.  Generous rain every three to four days.  The landscape is green, green, green, and the irises and roses are just as enjoyable as last month's azaleas.

One more garden pic

Candytuft and fennel.  Both, I'm told, attract beneficial insects.

Friday "How does your garden grow?" blogging

There's not a lot to show of the verdant gardens of Che Lindsay.  But I was inspired to go out and snap some photos of what is growing this time of year.  And speaking of snapping pics, these sugar snap peas should grow up to yield plump, sweet pods!

The kingdom may be already and not yet, but not the asparagus!  After three years of patience, mulching and watering and modest harvesting, we've been chopping at it with reckless abandon:

The drought really took a toll on the Piedmont flora.  You can see that this dogwood in our front yard is not nearly as spectacular as dogwoods usually are in these parts this time of year:

But these unknown bulbs are lending some spring cheer underneath our still dormant grape vine:

And the azaleas are lovely:

That shade of pink is not what I would have planted against a red, brick house, but thankfully there's some white in there as well, and the green acuba in the back to offer contrast rather than clash.

And while I am aware of the existence of a whole other hemisphere who greets the resurrection in the fall of the year, spring nonetheless renews my faith as no other season can:

Tis the spring of souls today

Christ hath burst his prison

And from three days sleep in death

As a Sun is risen

Now rejoice Jerusalem!

And with true affection

Welcome in unwearied strains

Jesus' resurrection.

I'd Love to See Your Pretty Little Face on a Chilly Easter Morn

I went to Lowe's the other day to buy some pansies.  And would you believe that there was not a single pansy showing her pretty little face in that whole monstrous store?  Plenty of petunias and impatiens.  But no pansies.  "It's too late for pansies," said the cashier, proving that "no experience is necessary," to say nothing of knowledge, in order to work at Lowe's.

Sure, it's been in the 80s this week.  But it's April.  Global warming hasn't settled in for good.  The average last freeze in this part of the world is April 2.  But that's only the average.  Which means what, boys and girls?  Yes, my dears, those petunias you planted over the weekend are liable to get creamed in a week.

And they will.  Easter sunrise forecast?  Upper 20s.

Now the rocket scientists that man the cash registers at Lowe's don't know when the last freeze is, but you can bet that the people in sales and marketing do. 

So it's a racket.  They get to sell you impatiens twice.

God, I'm sounding grumpy.

Friday Rose Blogging

Freeze warning tonight.  The forecast low is 26.  So Laura cut the few roses still on the vine for our indoor enjoyment.  I collected what tomatoes had any size and shades of something to the left of green on the color spectrum, but I won't bother you with pictures of them.

God Answers Prayer

We take prayer requests at my church.  This is always somewhat terrifying.  On the eve of the Iraq War, a disabled vet asked for prayers for "good mental hygiene for our nation's leaders."  Once, someone used this opportunity to ask why we never sing any of the old favorites anymore.  A few weeks ago, a recent graduate of our local high school asked for prayers for the old trees on the school's campus that had been felled to make way for a parking lot.  The principal of the school also attends my church.  I saw him in the back, red-faced because he'd been put on the spot, but grinning.  I think he liked it that I too was on the spot.

It can be something of a high wire act forming a petition that takes seriously the petitioner's concern and is something that everyone can assent to.

It's always a high wire act when my older son makes prayer requests.  He's asked for prayers for his pumpkin, which, alas, molded and collapsed in upon itself just a couple of weeks shy of the County Fair.  Last week he asked for prayers for his pond.

Let me explain.  For a couple of years now he's been fascinated with those rubberized ponds that you can install in your back yard and put goldfish, cattails, or whatever in.

For his birthday, my in-laws bought him a kit, and even assembled it for us in our back yard.  Our son did a lot of supervising, but as it was August, he did work up a pretty good sweat out there.

To everyone's great shock and grief, no sooner was the pond up and running than we discovered a disaster one Sunday morning.  The water was gone, and the plastic liner had collapsed in on itself.

Our theory is that the water went astray from the waterfall we'd created; the pump pumped all the water out, and the weight of the surrounding soil pushed the liner in.

So our older son asked for prayers for his pond.  Can't really remember what I did with that one.

But Hey, when God closes one door, he opens another!  Forced to dig out the liner, we decided to relocate the pond to a shadier area in the yard.  Less algae growth.

My in-laws returned on Friday to dig out a hole in the front yard, under a dogwood and pine tree.  A dainty little azalea branch, like an extended hand, reaches out over it.  We added water, plugged in the fountain, added the goldfish (who miraculously survived the first pond disaster), and I'd have to say, we're all pretty pleased with the results!

It's a mystery why God spared the pond but not the pumpkin, but we'll take what we can get!