Monday, June 9, 2008

Garden update and other stuff

Time for a little garden update since, well, that's about all that's going on around here! I went out this morning with my two canine helpers to visit the garden. Isn't it purdy?



The raised bed in front contains (barely!) spaghetti squash. And there is good news and bad news here. The good news is that the squash are growing.



The bad news is that the bed has a case of dodder, which a creepy parasitic plant that can actually smell other plants to find and attach to them.



These nasties, sometimes called witch's mantle, witch's hair or devil's hair, can't survive without a host plant to suck the life out of and coil up the host, draping bright orange tendrils over the top of the plant, smothering the host until it dies. Nice, yeah?

I have been madly ripping the dodder off of this poor squash plant, and finally had to yank the whole plant!

If left to it's own devices, this is what would happen!

Photo by Martin LaBar

But the garden news isn't all bad. The tomatoes are plumping up nicely.





The apples are doing well too.



I do have to watch Sassy in the garden, though. Yesterday, I caught her in a raised bed rooting around for carrots. And this morning, I saw her licking peas hanging on the vine!!

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Road, glorious road!

I took a little tour of the property down my really nice road this morning.



Even this little turtle liked my road as he crossed it!



I had to check out the beeeg drain pipe. From this



to this:



I drove past the field that I worked so hard on in the fall to clear, Yeah, if you let Mother Nature have her way, she will take it all back!

I even had started dragging the field to remove stumps and roots. Sigh.

The blackberries are starting to ripen!





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In the "Slap my *ss and call me Judy" department, last night, Stud Muffin and I had parmesan encrusted Talapia for dinner! I know! Fish and Stud Muffin in the same breath! And it was good!! We will be having that again with angel hair pasta with butter and lemon, just like last night!

Okay, everyone who knows us can get up off of the floor now!

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And last, but not least, as I was writing this post, the dogs started barking and whining like crazy! Nick was standing up on the window sill, but I couldn't see anything outside! I let them out the front door, and while Sassy ran off to get a toy, Nick headed straight for the shrubs in front of the new white fence.

He found a turtle!



Nick poked and sniffed, then he barked at it, and then he did what any self-respecting dog would do when the turtle didn't show it's fright at his ferocious barking... he whizzed on the shrubs around the turtle. Take that, you turtle!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful garden you have there Mommy! I also think the fence looks quite spectacular, if I do say so myself.

My puppies are very silly, but hey, at least they're entertaining!

Miss you tons! xoxo

AG

Martin LaBar said...

Looks good!

Thanks for giving credit.j

Martin LaBar said...

Sorry about the j. I'm having keyboard issues.

barefoot gardener said...

Yet another reason why I am so happy to live up north where we don't have no steenking "dodder" or whatever the heck that thing is.

I love the little bit about doggy and the turtle. That is the Barefoot Family philosophy in action right there. "Try to figure it out....if you can't figure it out, try to boss it....if you can't boss it, piss on it!". Haha!

Anonymous said...

MIL here--FISH of any kind and my son!!!!!!!Are you sure it was really him, and not an imposter? You really are a magic person-----next it will be veggies!!!! It all looks so beautiful---the garden, the road, even the turtle looks good. I'm so proud of you!!!!!

Celticspirit said...

Your garden looks great. I never heard of dodder....it sounds oddly creepy.I hope you manage to get it under control. So...Studmuffin ate some fish huh? Tilapia is such a mild tasting fish that most people like it. Do you think he will try salmon? I think it's so yummy and healthy.

Lisa said...

It looks great. We are still having nasty weather here. Down in the low 40's last night, highs in the 50's today. No tender plants grow in those conditions. I'm worried I won't eat a local tomato this year.

sewtakeahike said...

your garden looks like heaven Lisa! And darn that dodder, looks like nasty, nasty stuff! I'm so excited that you now have a road again, it really is very handsome!

Mysti said...

What a gorgeous garden! Oh so green with envy... (pun intended)LOL I need to update about our new garden since it's been 1 1/2 weeks since we put it in. I wish we could have done raised beds, but the landlord thought in the ground would be better.

The new road looks awesome and hopefully there will be no problems from here on out. :)

Anonymous said...

I love that you have a whole department for Judy- calling, *ss- slapping. You crack me up :)