Tragedy in the Garden

So, I knew I should have deleted that (thanks, Shelley, you are right again)...True Minnesota summer weather came through on Wednesday afternoon and tossed my plants all around. Half of the tomato plants were bent over to the ground and the carrots really took a beating. The baby carrots that just started to come up seem fine; the ones that are a month in were really knocked around and some were down for the count. The damn cucumbers seemed unharmed-figures. I tied the tomato plants back up and tried to straighten out the tomato cages around some of the plants but I am not all that confident that I was successful. One of the tomato cages seems to not want to straighten out and the plant is too big to take the cage off at this point. Its lying there in the middle of the garden looking very sad. I think I am going to have to cut it off and stake the tomoato plant as opposed to using the cage because it simply is not going to work anymore. I also found little black bugs all over my eggplants eating away at the leaves which was very disappointing. At lunch I'll be doing some research on what they are and how to organically get rid of them...The weather also muddied up the few stawberries that the birds have not yet gotten to and one basil plant was overcome by a tomato plant and I think is a goner. However, all is not lost...today is gorgeous, I watered this morning and perhaps by this evening everything will have come back stronger than before!!! Ah, gives me renewed respect for those whose livelihoods depend on farming; how fickle the weather is and how little control (um, none, actually) we have over nature does not often come to mind when sitting on the 17th floor of an office building looking at tax "stuff" all day long!

D's Butterfly

So the kids learned all about butterflies at school. Starts as a caterpillar, turns into a chrysalis, becomes a butterfly, yada, yada, yada. My mom gave M a butterfly cage and an order form to get little caterpillars for Christmas so once it got warm we ordered the bugs. They came in a little jar, gross little caterpillars with enough food in the jar to see them through their metamorphosis. All we had to do was set the jar out and watch and wait. Eventually they did their thing and turned into little hanging sleeping bag looking things, at which point per the instructions we moved the cocoons into the butterfly habitat. After about a week, out came a beautiful butterfly...well, actually 5. Very neat.

Along about that time, D's class went on a nature hike and the teacher let anyone who found a caterpillar egg on a leaf put the leaf in a petri dish and bring it home. D told us all about the caterpillar eggs, how they lay them only on this one kind of plant called milkweed and that this egg would hatch into a caterpillar which would then become a butterfly. I was unconvinced.

However, D was very concerned that once the egg hatched we would HAVE to find the caterpillar milkweed to eat so off we went on our own nature hike to find milkweed. For an egg. That was in a petri dish. That I was pretty sure was going to start mildewing any day now. But, off we went, to a place in our neighborhood that is close to a pond (or a tiny lake...since we are in Minnesota we might as well use the local tongue and refer to everything bigger than a pothole as a "lake" (land of 10,000 lakes and all). Anyway, I had no idea what milkweed was or if it really would grow there but D picked it out right away and showed me how the "milk" would come right on out of the milkweed plant if you broke a leaf off. Which he did.

And there in the milkweed leaves he found two tiny baby caterpillars. Somehow, he convinced me to bring them home. On a recent high from the success with M's butterflies, I was an easy target. However, I was not all that convinced that this was going to be successful. I mean, those other things (and they are THINGS...its hard to believe that those gross little bugs turn into lovely butterflies...almost makes you think there may be hope for humanity after being at the movie theatre on a Friday night and seeing all those teenagers...but I digress....) that we ordered from M's Christmas present came with food and all we really had to do was open the package and set them out. This little adventure of D's was going to require me to like, find a jar and poke holes and stuff...was I really up for this?

Anyway, home we went and a spaghetti sauce jar became the home to two caterpillars. One succumbed almost immediately...we tried to put water in the jar and that was a mistake. Take it from me, all they need is milkweed, nothing else. Don't try and get fancy...a jar and some milkweed...then just watch.

D knew just what to do. We proceeded to feed that little thing a new milkweed leaf every two days. At one point it started going through the leaves rather more quickly. One night I put a new leaf in there at about midnight and by dawn it was all gone. "And it wasn't a little caterpillar anymore...it was a great, big caterpillar"...Eric Carle was right on...those things get big fast! Its phenomenal. Literally, a phenomena (or something...this is no English essay so I don't lose points for mis-spelling or mis-pluralizing a work, thank you very much)...Anyway, that little booger, after eating like five leaves in two days, took all its stored up milkweed and turned itself into a chrysalis. Neat, neat , neat. Now, we got that far...would it really turn into a butterfly? I was not convinced. Meanwhile, Daniel found another caterpillar and we made another jar into a home and we started round two...before we were even sure round one would work.

Miracles do happen, every day it seems. Darn if that thing did not, after about 10 days, emerge as a beautiful butterfly. There are pictures of D letting it loose in our garden. As I type, the second one is in the office in the butterfly habitat feasting on sugar water. We'll let him go in the next day or two. This most recent one is absolutely gorgeous, with huge yellow and black wings. The first one was orange. Also pretty, but this yellow is something else.

In any case, this is all a lot of hoopla about what you probably think is a pretty every day occurrence. Which, I guess it is. But to have your first grader guide you through the whole thing all on his own with the utmost confidence that this was going to work out right...that is something else. A miracle in itself.

I think nature is cool. And I think kids are cool too. Put them together and what you have is darn near a perfect thing.

Afterword: That egg that D brought home from school that started this whole thing? Molded and got gross and was unceremoniously tossed. Ick.

Star Wars in Concert

The kids, Jason and I were all enthralled...it was really neat. We got tickets through my office and got to sit in the Green Tree suite...it was really a fantastic show. M's costume got a lot of comments...one lady even asked her to pose for a picture!!!

Star Wars in Concert...sooooo cool!!!

How big is J? SOOOO Big!!

Pictures of (and the first Cucumber from!!!!) the Garden...One Month In

Observations of a First Time Gardener: One month in

• When the little card with instructions says to space the cucumber plants a certain # of inches apart, you should probably double that instead...otherwise those vicious little suckers will, overnight mind you, wind their creeping (and creepy) little vines around their innocent tomato neighbors and attempt to suffocate them to death. Putting up a couple of stakes with wire for the cucumber plant to attach to instead seems like a good idea; we'll find out soon enough.
• Cucumbers ripen in no time flat. In the morning you might thing, well, that one is not ready yet, and by the evening you're thinking, oh my goodness, did I let that go too far? Is it still going to be good? It is, but I can't believe how these things grow!
• We're three cucumbers in and so far they have ripened one at a time. All good. However, I have fear in my heart because there are about a hundred little tiny cucumbers that look like they are going to start growing into "real" cucumbers all at the same time...what the heck do I do then? Oh, neighbors, want some cucumbers? Fresh from my organic garden...
• OK, so I was excited about this whole garden thing when I bought the tomato plants. A couple of romas, a couple of beefstake, a couple of cherry tomatos...sounds about right, right? But then I wanted some bigger plants too offset by smaller plants with the theory that they would produce at different times. And there were the tomato plants that were not labeled that were on sale that I could not resist...so now I have 13 tomato plants. EVERYONE who has had tomato plants before laughs when I tell them that. It did not seem so ridiculous when I bought and planted the things. Then, it was just fun and exciting. Now, still fun, still exciting and they are growing like gangbusters. Only thing is, I kinda see why they laughed now...The two roma tomato plants have a number of tomatos on them and will ripen first...the others are all a few weeks behind, but I see based simply on the number of buds on the plants that this could get interesting...again, oh neighbors, want some tomatos? A good problem to have, and frankly I am not counting my chickens before they hatch...just let me get a few good, yummy, fresh from the garden tomatos and I will be forever happy...but I am going to admit, even at this early stage, that it is possible I made a rookie mistake and planted too many tomatos!!!!
• Eggplant plants are pretty. They really are. The flowers are pretty, the plants are robust and lovely, and I can't think what the heck I am going to do with eggplant. I mean, I'll eat some of it and maybe do an eggplant parmesan...but how many eggplants come off of one plant? I planted two (showed restraint, I did) and we'll see how that goes. So far, I really like those plants. They keep to themselves (take a lesson, cucumbers) and they don't need to be staked (that's for you, tomatos). At least not yet. Both eggplant plants are growing up and out at about the same rate which seems to be working out nicely. I am very pleased with them thus far.
• Strawberry plants were kind of a waste of money. I mean, we bought a bunch and then the birds have eaten every stinkin' berry they produce. Actually, Macey salvaged two so far but they were not yet ripe when she picked them. I think we need to get some netting to put over the strawberry patch to keep the birds away. I know that strawberries usually produce better in the second year than the first (assuming I can remember to mulch them and all that before winter hits so that they survive the Minnesota winter) but really, I thought we'd get SOME berries this year. Darn those birds!!
• Basil gets much taller than I thought it would. Based on some advice I read, we put a handful (OK, I admit it, 6) basil plants around the tomato plants and the smell lovely. Put some fresh basil in our spagetti sauce tonight and it was delicious. Basil is good. Easy too.
• When I did the original planting in early June, I could not find squash plants anywhere. I tried three different places and no one had any that looked like they would make it to my house, nevermind through the whole summer. Last weekend I stopped at Pahl's Nursery to use a gift card from my birthday and they had all their veggies on 75% off. Practically free!! I found 2 yellow and 2 green sqash and we planted them right away. They seem to have taken to the garden and are doing well. There are couple of baby squash already on the yellow ones...lovely!!
• Against Jason's advice (and frankly my better judgement) I let Macey talk me into two pumpkin plants and a watermelon plant. Again, 75% off, so for about .80 I guess its no big deal, we planted them in the garden. This was before the cucumbers started to take over the world....now I am a bit concerned about what those guys are going to do when they really take off. Hum. Again, lessons learned...
• Having a garden is fun. Its not nearly as much work as I thought it would be, helped perhaps by the fact that we had the dirt brought in and it was the perfect garden mix of soil, clay, manure, etc. that a backyard garden requires, along with having no weeds at the beginning....next year will be the real test. Even so, I pull weeds up daily and its not really much of a chore at all...again, I may regret even saying that! Probably should delete it. SHOULD I delete it? Give me a nother month and I'll let you know...
• Carrotts grow slowly. Surely, surely, those little green sprouts keep getting bigger, but slowly, slowly, slowly. Our neighbors have some that are probably a foot high...mine are like two inches high. However, those are the only things I planted from seed so I am taking a particular pride in the fact that they came up at all. If I get one carrot that we can serve up for dinner, I'll be SUCH a pround mama!!
• Kids love gardening. They love seeing things grow. Not so much with the weeding, but all in all they are really into the garden too. It will be fun to see if their enthusiasm carries over to when they are grown. Or to the end of the summer.