Thursday, August 30, 2012

Garden 2012


Well. It’s been a bit of a year, in terms of veggie gardening. I guess you can’t win them all. The spring was confusing, with record highs, then normal cold temps, up and down. It was the hottest July on record; we’ve had several violent storms, including one massive hailstorm. All during a drought. It’s not ideal. Our apple CSA was cancelled for lack of a harvest.

Add to that the damn varmints. Something is eating my large tomatoes. On the vine. Even the green ones. My very promising peach tree started out with 60 peaches. I finally brought in the last three green ones, in a fit of spite. I put out extra water bowls (we always have two filled birdbaths) hoping that that would help stop the destruction. It didn’t. The vine stem borers are slowing killing my zucchini. A total of 2 zukes harvested to date.

N put up a fence. Today I saw a baby bunny inside the fence. I think it’s keeping out exactly 0% of the animals. But it makes it harder to weed and harvest, so there’s that.

Behind the garage I started out with 4 melons, 4 pumpkins, and 4 winter squash. I’m down to one acorn squash plant. The others were trampled. What kind of jerk opossum or chaotic evil raccoon do you have to be to do that?

We moved the green beans. Turns out it’s not as sunny as we thought in the new location. Getting some decent yields now, but not like last year.

But to focus on the positive, I have a decent-sized cantaloupe hanging on the vine. One Red Rome apple left (all 6 Honey Crisps were eaten by squirrels). I’ve got some potatoes, and I didn’t even plant any this year. The peppers have finally set fruit. The carrots and radishes did well. Oh! And I grew daikon radishes for the first time, which was fun. Have also harvested a few cukes. Enough for two batches of pickles.

However, the real plus this year is the various neighbors I’ve been trading with. I got Egyptian walking onions (a perennial! woo!), some big zucchini, and a bunch of cukes. I handed out fresh basil, oregano, parsley, and pole bean seeds. I still have some. Wanna trade?

Monday, August 6, 2012

Book Club

So, the last few selections were: 

  • May -  The Fault in our Stars by John Green (looove this book. Contains both a Venn diagram [but not that one] and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Win!)
  • June - Sh*t my Dad Says by Justin Halpern (actually a better discussion than you may imagine)
  • July - Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt (good fun)

We've been skipping August for awhile now, as vacation plans make it too difficult to read or show up. 

So, September is my pick: 

  • Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

You know me and my whole end-of-times books. I claimed at that time to be over this genre. But this one is different! Cuddlier! No cults! Just a mom and her kids, trying to survive a global weather-changing event and the breakdown of society. You know. The usual.

I'm expecting a good, if depressing, discussion.