Before (April) and After (June) II

Here are some more "before" and "after" shots of the garden. (BTW, I noticed that my last post on this topic ended up formatted a little strangely -- sorry about that. I was trying to post photos side by side and I noticed -- after the fact -- that it didn't display well on M's laptop at home until I added a bunch of spacing in there, but that makes it look weird on my machine at work. Oh well. I'll just lay out the photos vertically this time.)

Back Bed
The angles from which these two photos were taken aren't exactly the same, but you get the idea.

Back Bed, North Corner

The big surprise in this corner is how well the Ageratum houstonianum (aka floss flower) did. I grew a few of these last year, and they didn't get nearly so big. It's probably proof of how much better the soil is, thanks to the raised bed project. The bumblebees love it!

Back Bed, South Corner

This area has its own surprise: the incredible spreading Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop) "Golden Jubilee," which is that gorgeous chartreuse plant whose leaf color lights up the whole corner. Eventually, it will have purple "bottle-brush" shaped blooms, but I'm thrilled to have it just for the foliage. I had no idea it would get this big; clearly, it's very happy here.

The Big Picture (Ground View)

The Big Picture (Arial View)

A Good Day

Damn, work was good today. Energizing. Anybody else have a boss who:

• Listens completely to your concerns,
• Uses your feedback to make principled, "risky" decisions that eliminate the obstacles you've encountered,
• And then empowers you to take use all your creativity to take charge of a problem?

I hope so. :)

Before (April) and After (June) I

My wrist is much better, and we're expecting a cold front overnight, so I'm geared up to do a bunch of gardening later this week! In the meantime, I had some fun taking some "after" pictures. :)

Tomatoes

Trellises with Thunbergia Vines

Flower Bed Near Veranda

Schruteball!

Okay, I'll admit, this isn't that funny. But when two of my favorite things collide unexpectedly like this, I gotta share it. :)

P.S. Thanks to ETC for the link!

Beware iTunes 7.2

Even though I'm a Windows user, I'm a huge Apple fan. To me, Apple epitomizes the incorporation of user-friendliness and attractive design into good functionality. I loved working on Macs when I was in grad school, and I adore both my iPod and -- usually -- the iTunes software.

That said, beware iTunes 7.2. After installing this upgrade, my tracks -- all 6509 of them -- mysteriously disappeared. M was a total sweetheart and pounded away at it until he was able to relocate the missing library and get the software to point to it. So the music is no longer missing, but I've lost a ton of preferences and all my playlists. (And if you've heard me talk about how much time I spend keeping my iTunes metadata "clean," you know that Sparklegirl is not amused by this turn of events.)

My least favorite part about it is that I have more tracks in my library than can fit on my current 20G iPod, and when M reconstructed the music library, all those tracks come across "checked" to sync -- resulting in the data equivalent of trying to shove a ten-pound turkey into ... something that it can't fit into. (I need more coffee this morning.) So I can't sync until I spend a couple of hours in iTunes and specify about 2500 tracks not to sync. Some of that will be easy -- I'll search by the genres "Christmas" and "Jambands" and un-check those tracks -- but some of it will take a lot of time, and as I've mentioned, I'm not really supposed to be forcing my hand around a mouse these days more than I have to.

I've always felt well-treated in the past by iTunes/Apple (I admit it: I drank Kool-aid), so this is a real let-down. Turns out, discussion of issues with 7.2 seem to be popping up all over the place, like here and here and here. Some folks who upgraded are recommending moving back to a previous iTunes release. The moral of the story: think twice before upgrading to 7.2.

True Believers? Nope

“If that’s true, then I like baseball even less than I thought I did.”

-- My husband

You’d think that I’d be mild to moderately dismayed to hear that particular comment from M, because I do like baseball and it’s just easier in our household when we like the same stuff. (I’m not talking about agreement to the extent that you lose independence or anything. But it’s truly more convenient when we both want to watch the same thing on TV, and that’s not necessarily the case when I want to watch baseball.)

But in this case, I completely agree with M. Why? Because we were talking about the Yankees -- specifically, the concept of a “True Yankee.”

As I often tell anyone who will listen, I hate the Yankees for the simple reason that they take a lot of fun out of the game. I understand that, generally speaking, capitalism is a good thing, and that if there’s demand for your product, you should be able to charge what the market will bear. A corollary: if supply and demand means you end up with more money than anyone else, that should be okay. But you know what? It’s not. At least, it’s not to me. (M and I spent a lot of time debating this when watching the "Commanding Heights" DVDs. I kept getting upset that market-based reform in South America left a lot of people in poverty, while M kept arguing that it’s still completely better than the central-planning alternative.)

You can argue all day about whether it’s “right” or “wrong,” I suppose, but in the case of baseball, the fact that the Yankees have goo-gobs more money than anyone else means a very uneven playing field. Even George Will -- generally a pro-market forces guy -- has a problem with that.

So I don't like the Yankees, and it turns my stomach a bit to hear people bandy about the concept of them getting Torii. At the same time, if the Yanks do want him and are willing to pay him what he deserves (something that the Twins don’t seem likely to do, despite his having a career year and repeatedly saying he’d like to stay here), then I certainly couldn’t blame him for going. Not just because of what it would mean to his career, but also because of the prestige of playing with the Yankees. Or so I tried to explain to M the other night.

He responds, “What does that mean? They’re a completely bought team, which is practically the same as cheating. What prestige is in that?” (Ah, so he has been listening to me rant!)

To answer his question, I try to explain a concept that I myself barely understand: what it means to be a “True Yankee.” I say that there seems to be this perception, not just in New York, that playing for the Yankees means attaining the pinnacle of baseball. It’s almost another form of getting “called up.” And then drilling down deeper, there’s yet another level of éclat: the “True Yankee.” What does that mean?

• Jay Mohr (he’s an expert on baseball now?) seems to think it's about a calling. He writes, “Some guys are meant to be Yankees and some are not.”
• FJM defines a “True Yankee” in their glossary as “A guy who’s full of intangible qualities that help him triumph -- with class.”
• (Of course -- and this is one reason I love FJM -- they also say: If you ever -- ever -- hear someone use the phrase "True Yankee," for any reason, I want you to find the nearest exit, form an orderly line, and leave the premises quickly and calmly. Seek shelter. Cover head. Report the incident to your nearest FJM representative immediately. You are in great danger, because the person you are talking to is an idiot.)

But the best “explanation” of the concept I’ve seen was in an E-Sports posting, wherein Billy Davis writes:

There's a distinction between wearing the pinstripes and being a New York Yankee. You're not a Yankee just because Bob Sheppard says so. Being a Yankee isn't about statistics or salary or track record. People who unbendingly argue that there is no such thing as a "True Yankee" wouldn't be able to see Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other ballplayers if they were in "Field of Dreams". They don't believe. And if you ask any diehard baseball fan, believing is what makes baseball so exceptional.

True Yankees are like your grandmother's signature chocolate chip cookies -- imperfectly perfect, special, and completely genuine. Other chocolate chip cookies are good. You accept them. You try them, yet all the while you know that your grandmother's cookies will always be True.

Let’s ignore the fact that Davis doesn’t know to put the period inside the quotation marks and move on to how much his comments nauseate me. They imply that Yankee fans -- and especially those who acknowledge this fallacious concept -- are purer. Chosen, in a way, because they are the real believers in the poetry part of baseball.

Bullsquat. Offensive, even. But as I said, it’s the existence of this very notion that makes me understand why Torii would go to New York in a heartbeat and with a spring in his step. Not just for the $60 million over four years, but because there’s this idea of maybe being a True Yankee, whether or not such a thing really exists, and what that would do for his -- for lack of a better word -- legacy. And that, I explained to M, is why if Steinbrenner comes calling, it’s all over for us.

At which point, my husband said, ““If that’s true, then I like baseball even less than I thought I did.”

And I totally get that.

No Gardening for a While

In spite of the slightly lower temps this week, I'm getting no gardening done at all. That on-again-off-again problem with my wrist is acting up this week and causing a little more pain than usual.

The problem seems to have originated when I fell down (shocker, right?) in dance class and landed funny on my hand. It was at my old studio, so it was probably about four years ago, and the pain and swelling in my wrist has shown up a couple times a year since then. I finally had it looked at last fall, and Dr. Mark determined it was De Quervain's tenosynovitis. It was oddly reassuring just to know what it was (versus "you know, that weird thing with my wrist), and I was kind of tickled that it had such a fun name (c'mon, that's nine syllables right there!). But when it's acting up, it's no fun at all -- mainly because it means I need to take it easy on my right hand and that's difficult in a job that requires tons of typing.

Actually, what did the damage this time wasn't typing, but editing by hand. Last Friday, I was helping out our training area at work by reviewing a bunch of quick reference guides and a couple of scripts for Web-based tutorials. Making consistent edits across lots of documents is easier when I'm working on hard copies, so I printed everything out, grabbed my red pen and went at it. I didn't notice any trouble with my wrist at all while I was editing, but when I finished three hours later, I couldn't really feel my thumb. That afternoon, I went to happy hour and noticed that I had trouble holding my glass in my right hand (because of the pain, not the martinis). Saturday morning, my right thumb was about twice the size of my left one, so no gardening.

That's a bit of a bummer, but I figured it would go away in a few days and that I could live with it in the meantime by pounding Advil. But it's been almost a week and it's still not back to normal. I've had to watch a whole slew of lovely evenings go by this week with no gardening ability (particularly bad because I need to get on that powdery mildew problem). I'm going to try some heat on it tonight in hopes of holding off on the recommended-but-dreaded cortisone shot (needles = bad). In the meantime, no gardening. Maybe I'll post on some baseball-related topics instead. Go Twins!

"She thinks I'm real!"

I heard the most amazing story this morning; it comes from a book on psychology, although I don’t remember its name.

A family -- a mother, a father, a son and a daughter -- are sitting at a restaurant table, getting ready to place their dinner orders. When the waitress arrives, she asks each person at the table for his or her order. When she comes to the daughter, a five-year-old, the little girl says, “I’d like a hamburger, fries and a malt.”

The father says, “No, no, you’ll have [fill in something more sensible here].” The waitress keeps writing on her pad, then moves on to the next person at the table.

A little later, when the food arrives, the waitress puts down each meal in front of the person who ordered it. In front of the little girl, she puts down a hamburger, fries and a malt, and then leaves the table.

The little girl looks at her plate, then leans over to her father and whispers, “She thinks I’m real!”

I was so moved by this story, and then had a hard time putting my finger on why. There are probably many reasons -- not the least of which is how in touch I am with my inner five-year-old -- but oddly enough, I think some of it comes down to my job.

Let me preface this by saying that, although I really freak people out when I say this at the firm where I work, I love my job. I’m consistently shocked by that, because:

• a) I’m not doing what I would like to do in the long-term, although I’m doing something for which I feel incredibly valued;
• and 2) The firm is going through a pretty horrific merger/migration that’s been wearing everyone down for -- seriously -- years now. Entire departments seem to be going through mass depression. I myself was absolutely miserable in the job I had last year at the same firm, but this year, after leaving and coming back into a different part of the business, everything’s different. I can honestly say, most days, that I love my job.

What is it that’s so wonderful? There’s a lot of stuff: they really need me, they’re infinitely grateful for what I do, my boss and her boss are just wonderful -- I could go on and on. But the thing that amazes me is this feeling I get when I’m there, and I’ve had a hard time putting my finger on it, but I think the story above really gets at it. They think I’m real.

More Visitors!

In addition to more butterflies, moths and dragonflies, we've enjoyed seeing a few other visitors around the patio lately.

First, this is Ori.

Well, I should say that "Ori" is the name I gave him, and that's just what I do if I'm not formally introduced to a neighborhood animal. If I don't like them very much, they get names like "Barky Dog." If I do, they get names like "Ori."

ANYway.

Ori loves to come walking through our backyard late in the day, but not for a leisurely stroll. He walks like he's on a mission. The funny thing is that his determined stride is undermined by the fact that he only walks on the sidewalk, never on the grass. It gives the impression that he's a bit high-maintenance and can't get his toesies wet. It really confused him when we put in the patio, I can tell you. He walked all over it and smelled every inch of it the first time he came through -- hilarious.

Unlike most of the neighbor-owned animals in our neck of the woods, Ori isn't very social. He's one of the few neighborhood cats/dogs that won't let me near him -- he skitters away pretty quickly, hence the photo of his rear end.

And this is Blackberry. (Wow, these photos really aren't turning out that well, but you get the idea. He's a bunny.)

Granted, he doesn't match the physical description in the book, but something about his attitude is clever, hence the name. Blackberry's the first rabbit I've seen regularly this year. When I do see him, he's usually in the backyard of the empty house next to ours, or scurrying around the front of it.

It's particularly nice to have him around on a regular basis. Back when we lived in St. Paul, two rabbits named Zoe and Dozer frequently hung out under the cherry tree in our tiny backyard. But when we first moved into the Minneapolis house, I saw rabbits only on my walk to and from the train station, so it's nice to have a rabbit around again.

I was lucky enough to be on the patio -- and had the camera! -- with M and the Awesome NeighborsTM when both of these critters showed up last night. I'll keep you posted on their return visits. :)

Dusk on the Patio

That Is *Not* Purple

One of the first things that I learned about in terms of garden planning was the importance of a color scheme. Along with things like repetition of patterns, staggered bloom times, and interesting foliage, having a color scheme to a garden helps give it a sense of unity and harmony.

Luckily, I read about this stuff before I got too far down the perennial-purchasing path. I'd also done some reading about native plants of Minnesota and the plants attract butterflies and birds. Putting those concepts with the plants and bloom colors I found that I liked best, the color scheme for my garden emerged as red, yellow, purple and white. Why?

• In terms of what's not in there, I think we've already covered how there's no pink in my garden, just like there's no crying in baseball.
• Red is pretty much at the top of the list in terms of attracting birds -- especially hummingbirds, although I have yet to ever see one in the city -- and butterflies. Plus, my mom always taught me that every room in a house needs a tiny bit of true red -- and the garden is one of my favorite "rooms."
• Yellow also works well for attracting birds and butterflies, and there are lots of easy-to-grow natives that are yellow (e.g., Solidago/goldenrod, Rudbeckia/black-eyed Susan, etc.). I also think I wanted an excuse to grow sunflowers -- either the dwarf varieties that I grew last year to feed the orioles or the giants I'm growing this year.
• When I was reading up on native plants, there were lots of purple natives. (Early on, I went so far as to consider a native-only garden, although I eventually decided that was a bit too rigid for a beginner. Given that I was leaning that way, though, you can see how that could contribute to me using purple.)
• White is important in both bloom color and foliage color, hence my choice of pale-leaved annuals like Senecio (Dusty Miller) and perennials like Stachys (Lamb's Ears). White not only works to blend colors harmoniously in the garden, but it gives your eye a "baseline" that helps you perceive the trueness of each color.

Given the reasons above, combined with the fact that those four colors worked well together, I've stuck with it. I'm throwing in a bit of blue this year, but I think that works pretty well with the purple/yellow/red/white thing.

The part that gets tricky is when I select something based on its color, and I get something I didn't expect. One example is the Thunbergia I planted along the part-shade trellises. When I grew Thunbergia last year, the varieties I got were all yellow-bloomed. But I purchased these before they had flowers on them, and they're turning out to be a nearly electric orange. I can't be too upset: they're growing well and at the moment they're only next to white blooms, so there's not a major clash.

Unfortunately, that's not the case with my Echinacea Purpurea, or purple coneflower. A perennial, Echinacea has a good chance of not blooming the first year it's planted. I popped three of them into the ground last year, and moved them into new homes this year as part of the raised-bed project. Last Friday, one of them bloomed for the first time.

WTF?!? That's not purple; that's full-on pink! Sparklegirl is not amused.

Ahem. Excuse me. So:

For a), There's no pink in my garden. No crying in baseball; no pink! I definitely would not have chosen this if was going to be pink.

For 2) [Yes, a) and 2) -- I always do that.], Who the honk would have known this was going to be pink?!? The name of the fricken' plant has "purple" in it!! OK, that's not really a guarantee: purple foxglove (Digitalis Purpurea) comes in several colors including white. But still.

For three), It's bad enough that it's pink, but it has to be a cool bluish-pink right next to the bright warm-red of the Salvia -- gross. As the Renegade Gardener says, you look at a color combination like that and "you'll need a brisk walk in fresh air to keep a cold shrimp dinner." I'm not sure the photo really does justice to how awful the red-pink clash is. Trust me. It's nauseating.

So now what? Well, first things first. I got out my fantastic new pruning shears and lopped that pink flower right off. Into the compost pile with you, my pretty. But now what about the plants?

• Well, I pawned off that pink-and-white phlox on our Awesome NeighborsTM, and it looks really nice next to their Dicentra. (I don't have a problem with pink in other gardens, just mine.) But they've recently mentioned that they're worried about the crowding in their perennial beds, so I'm not sure they're up for another three plants.
• I could maybe move them to the front of the house next to the pink Spirea, but I'm planning on getting rid of that thing this fall (I'm hoping to replace it with a Eunonymus Alatus/Burning Bush). Plus, the hose doesn't reach around to the front of the house, and I know I won't be able to transplant successfully without lots of watering. (I realizes that compromises my Eunonymus plans.)
• Much as I love the idea of Craigslist or the Twin Cities Free Market, I'm not sure I want to invite that much involvement from strangers. This certainly isn't a "come help yourself" situation; I get worried when M starts walking to close to some of my plants.

So although it's an odd solution for perennials, maybe I'll pot them and bring them to work. For the first time in years, I've got an office with a window and lots of light. Oo! And maybe someone here will fall in love with them and take them home to a place where they can be their beautiful pink selves.

Stupid Heat and Humidity

It's finally back in the 70s today, but we've had a string of days that went into the 90s. With temps like that, plus all the wind, I try to water a little more often. Unfortunately, all that watering plus the high dewpoints (resulting in humid nights) created the perfect conditions for powdery mildew.


It's actually my first serious encounter with a plant disease. Er, that I know of.

Luckily, it has only infected the mystery groundcover under the pine tree, but as you can see below, it's affecting quite a lot of it.


I did a little research and am going to try an organic approach: a mixture of water, baking soda, and dish soap, sprayed on once a week for three weeks. I'll also need to cut back all the infected foliage and burn it. So it's manageable, but it's kind of a bummer.

In addition, I've got some weird crisping action going on with two of my new Rudbeckia (below). I added them late last month because I needed a little more yellow in the bed near the veranda. I was thinking about Digitalis grandflora (yellow foxglove, which I may plant someplace yet), but thought it would be better to repeat the Rudbeckia, which is also in the bed by the back gate. All the Rudbeckia I've had up until now has been very easy-going, but these two look slightly toasted. I did put them in right before the heat wave, unfortunately, but I planted a lot of stuff that day -- most of which is doing better than this.

The worst yet, though, is my poor Lobelia, which looks almost dried to a crisp. I moved her back to the shade under the pine tree; we'll see what happens, but I fear the worst.

More information on this distressing situation will be distributed as it becomes availabe. We appreciate your patience.

Poor Pinata!

If you don't live in the Twin Cities -- and I realize most of y'all don't, as least ones I know about -- you've missed the opportunity to see a tremendously fun series of "Twins Territory" commercials this year. It's hard to set aside my personal bias (I'm a major Twins fan doing a lot of baseball learning this summer), but I think these are just so fun. This spring, we've seen:

• Johan "El Presidente" Santana carpooling with closer Joe Nathan and explaining the importance of his wicked change-up,
• Cuddy -- an amateur magician in real-life -- cutting Johan in half as new daddy Juan Rincon looks on (Bat-girl was right; he does look like BooBerry),
• And the "Little Piranhas" up close and personal at Underwater World.

But my favorite, which I hadn't seen this year until I bumped into it on YouTube, was one from 2006 starring my boyfriend. Ladies and gentleman, kids of all ages, Torii "Sweetcheeks" Hunter.

Mojito Magic

The first mojito I ever had was on the deck of one of the big fancy hotels on Old Town Square. I think it cost about $8 -- a fortune by Prague standards because the location was, if not a "tourist trap," then at least a tourist-centric destination.

But it was worth it. It was so hot that day -- far hotter than the day of our wedding later that week -- and the mojito was perfect. It was crisp and cool without being a gin and tonic, which had long been my default hot-weather (or post-sunburn) cocktail.

Of course, mojitos are terribly trendy (unless they're already passe -- who can tell anymore?), but I hadn't thought much about them post-Prague until M came home from the store one day with a funny mojito tale. It seems that someone at the store got the idea that mojitos would be necessary after work. The crew had assembled all the ingrediants -- white run, club soda, ice, sugar, limes -- with the exception of fresh mint.

M decided that finding it would be his personal challenge, and ran around all over the West Bank that evening looking for fresh mint. The co-op near the store seemed like it would have been a sure thing, but they were out. All he managed to find were some dried mint leaves in a jar. Mojitos with dried mint flakes? Sounds awful, doesn't it?


Look at these dried mint leaves. Can you imagine putting these in mojitos? M and the boys tried it; I'm glad I wasn't there to partake.

When he mentioned the story again recently, three things crossed my mind:

• "I'm a gardener! M should never have to be without fresh mint!"
• "Hm. It is really hot out -- a mojito sounds great."
• "Whoo hoo! An excuse to go to the nursery!"

So off we went to purchase and plant mint.

Before you react ("No! Not mint!"), I have done enough gardening research to know how invasive it is. This is container mint only. Of course, that didn't stop everyone at the Minnehaha Nursery (Mother Earth had closed for the evening) from warning me about it. OK, it was only two people, but still, they evidently felt is was their duties to share their respective cautionary tales about how mint had taken over their plot of land. I assured them, this is container mint only.

(On the car ride home, M asked, "Total strangers stopping to give gardening advice? Is that normal?" Well, at least in my experience, it is. )

Despite being tempted to get one of every kind of mint (I just love that there are naturally occuring mints that taste and smell like chocolate or pineapple), we bought one peppermint and one orange mint. That night, we picked and "muddled" a few leaves to make blender mojitos, substituting crushed ice for the club soda. I'm sure that's probably a sacrilege, and that I'd be burned for heresy in Cuba, but it was so so so so cool on a hot Saturday night.

Then the next evening, our friend Peter stopped by, having heard about our mojito-making, so I gathered a few more leaves for another batch, sipped in the shade on the patio. It was lots of fun, but I have to be a little careful: after two nights of cocktailing, I'm hoping my baby mint plants aren't too stressed. That said, it's not a bad problem to have -- it gives me an excuse to go back for the pineapple mint!

Just Like Honey...

... with apologies to Sophia Coppola and the Jesus and Mary Chain. :)

This post is ostensibly about a flower, but actually starts with a heavenly wine we had at La Belle Vie.

First off, our meal at La Belle Vie -- which City Pages has called "the best restaurant in the history of Minneapolis" -- was one of the best I've ever had. It reminded us a lot of our wedding night dinner at Alchymist.


Mmm, Alchymist: saffron risotto, foie gras, Monrovian wine, chocolate truffles -- I could go on and on.




ANYway. La Belle Vie was meant to be a special treat for us to celebrate extending my contract at work. And because it was a celebration, we decided to go all out: the five-course tasting menu plus a foie course and the sommelier's wine flight. The cool thing about the wine flight was that all the pairing was done for us to match the courses, and all the wines were a surprise.

Really and truly, I can't come up with anything we ate or drank that night that didn't surpass all expectations, but out of everything we had, I keep daydreaming about two things: the seared foie gras (I really struggle with the ethics of foie, but it's just sooo heavenly) and the Muscat that arrived with dessert. I've definitely come across ports and other fortified wines (icewine comes to mind) that I enjoy, but this one left them all behind. It tasted and smelled of honey and sunshine, in the same way that good Irish cream tastes like honey and mists and heather.

The whole ride home, I kept thinking about that wonderful fragrance. It was still light out when we got back, so I stopped to check in on various new plantings in the garden. One thing I'd recently added was alyssum (Lobularia maritima) for edging, and as I bent down to make sure it was settling in well, I noticed something I'd missed before: its fragrance. It was just like the Muscat, that same warm, wonderful honey aroma.

Of course, while alyssum practically made for edging, I now wanted to put it somewhere I could enjoy the scent more. One of my gardening books suggests planting small fragrant plants/flowers (including thyme) near pathways so that they will "release their scent when brushed by a pantleg." But our backyard sidewalk isn't really where I linger to enjoy fragrant flora; that's what the veranda's for. So I added it to some new containers I potted up last weekend that will live near the veranda. The only thing better than reading the paper on the veranda with a cup of coffee is doing it amid the honey scent of alyssum.


Alyssum is the little white-flowered plant near the brick edging (right). This particular variety is "Snow Crystals," but I've also had good luck with "Carpet of Snow." Evidently, there are folks who don't like the smell, but to me, it couldn't be more glorious.

(Tomato) Variety is the Spice of Life

As I mentioned in my last post, we now have six tomato plants. This means we'll probably end up with more fruit than we remotely need, but between all the various varieties, I feel like I'm covered in terms of both timing and flavor when it comes to our harvest.

• "Early Girl": This is the variety that really helps out with the timing because, as the name suggests, it matures earlier in the season. I'm glad to have it for that reason, but I don't expect the same quality of flavor as I know we'll get from the heirlooms. We have two of these.


• "Brandywine": Ah, Brandywine. Arguably the most well-known of the heirloom varieties. We grew this with great success last year -- eventually they got so big that I had to lash them to the fence. (Heirlooms tend to be indeterminate tomatoes, which sprawl all over compared to more compact and well-behaved determinate ones that stay in place. This was one of the things that led me to get those crazy bamboo teepees.) Brandywines have a beautiful color, a deep rosy pink, along with an amazing texture and a wonderful, almost fruity taste. Like any heirlooms, I find them outstanding in panzanella (always a good way to use my herbs, too), but they're fantastic in caprese salads, too. Perhaps my favorite
  way to serve (and eat!) them is sliced, spritzed with a little truffle oil and sprinkled with kosher salt. Mmmm.


• "Halfmoon China": I had such nice heirloom experiences last year that I wanted to try some other heirloom varieties that I wasn't as familiar with. This one is pretty unusual looking, with a creamy white color (or so reads the label). The flavor described as "mild" -- I'm hoping that doesn't turn out to mean "bland."


• "Black Cherry": Last year, I grew a cherry-sized yellow pear tomato last year, and it was lots of fun having smaller variety around. This, another heirloom variety, looks like a red grape when ripe.

So far, they're all doing fine, but Halfmoon China and Black Cherry in particular have been growing like gangbusters -- probably because of their placement (they get the most sun).

Here's one of our two tomato trellises, with "Brandywine" on the left, "Early Girl" in the center, "Black Cherry" on the right and creeping thyme thrown in for a little groundcover.

Tomato Timing: Feast or Famine?

In late May, I planted four heirloom-variety tomato plants -- which will give us more than enough tomatoes. So why was I compelled to add two more? I mean, do we really need six tomato plants when there are only two of us in the house? Granted, we do eat tons of them; as with spinach, we eat tomatoes almost every day (which I'm hoping balances out some of my less-healthy choices).

There's always the possibility of giving them away, but it's actually hard to find folks who want them at harvest time. Everyone we know seems to either have a tomato plant or two in the backyard (Sarah and Tim, our Awesome NeighborsTM, have six or so plants of their own), or else they hit one of the many Twin Cities farmer's markets regularly enough not to need produce hand-outs from us.

So, again: after putting in four tomato plants last month, why was I compelled to add two more? It's a timing thing.

When I originally picked out the four heirloom varieties that we're growing this year, I was concentrating on the diversity of the actual fruit, looking forward to having lots of different kinds of tomatoes. (Lund's, a very nice supermarket near us, frequently sells containers of mixed heirloom tomatoes in the summer, and the variety of colors and sizes is just gorgeous. That's the effect I was after. It's amazing to make a panzanella -- an Italian bread-tomato-and-herb salad-- with lots of colors and shapes of tomatoes.)

Look at this gorgeous mix of heirloom tomatoes! Imagine them chopped and then tossed with grilled chunks of crusty bread, roasted onions and peppers, a red wine vinaigrette and a mix of fresh herbs. Pair with chilled Pinot Grigio. Tastes like summer!

So in looking for varying types of fruit, I didn't think about selecting tomatoes that would be ready for harvest at different times. As a result, I picked heirlooms that will probably all be ripe within weeks or even days of each other. And until that time, I got nothing. It's tomato feast or famine.

Well, after a couple of weeks of buying boring old Romas at the grocery store, I got to thinking about staggering the harvest by adding a tomato that would mature a little earlier: hence, two new "Early Girl" plants. While Early Girls won't have quite the flavor of the heirloom varieties, they're still heads and shoulders above the taste of generic grocery store tomatoes, and we'll get to start eating fresh tomatoes a little sooner.

Cast-Iron Peonies!

OK, "cast-iron" might be an exaggeration. But they must be pretty strong: they survived the move! As I mentioned in my "Landscaping!" post, my biggest fear about installing the raised beds this year was that the peonies couldn't handle the move. (I'm still unclear about whether that's a legitimate concern, or a gardening myth.) Either way, I've been holding my breath for a while.

Even after I saw the buds emerge, I wasn't confident. After all, the plants themselves looked so small and feeble. And thanks to all of the wind we've had this spring, the leaves looked downright crisp on some days. But lo and behold, the buds -- few in number, but evidently healthy -- opened up last week, with all the usual allure of those big, full flowers and intoxicating scent. It looks almost like gardenia, doesn't it?

Best BLT Ever

Ingredients:

• Sourdough bread (preferable "Murphy's Sour" from P.J. Murphy's), lightly toasted
• Thick-cut apple smoked bacon (at least three slices per sandwich)
• Hellman's Reduced Fat Mayo
• Sliced tomatoes, sprinkled with kosher salt and white pepper
• Sliced ripe avocado
• "Red Sails" (I swear, at first glance I thought it was "Red Snails" -- pretty unappetizing) and "Black-seeded Simpson" lettuce right from the veranda (which has performed much better than either of the two batches of now-composted spinach seedlings I attempted)

Mmmmm! Suprisingly good for Sunday breakfast on the patio.

Sugar Shock Alert!

After seeing all the awesome videos popping up on Addie's blog, I did some googling this morning to learn how to post video clips here. To test, I went back to one of my favorite clips from CuteOverload!: otters holding hands.



When I first saw this clip earlier this year, I think I had a little seizure. I was at work, and I'm sooooo glad I have an office with a door to shut, because otherwise, someone would have called 911. :)

A Visitor

I've seen quite a few of these little guys (I think they're a kind of moth?) in the backyard since April, but this one seemed to be enjoying a particularly leisurely stop on the warm bricks this sunny afternoon.

It's not too much of a surprise that he was in this particular part of the garden. The birdbath is nearby for water, these bricks get the most sun (and are therefore the warmest), and the red Salvia splendens (which is starting to look pretty sassy, as you can see below) attracts birds and butterflies.

We've also been lucky enough to see quite a few cardinal couples in the backyard. As more things bloom -- perennials, annuals and vines -- our little oasis should become even more tempting.

Of course, there are less-welcome visitors, as well. I think we encountered our first mosquito of the season on Monday night. Last year, I had slugs eating my Sedum "Indian Chief" (I tried baiting them with beer in a low dish, but moving the plants to the other side of the yard was much more effective). And if that stupid fat squirrel keeps burying nuts in the mulch around my new baby tree, I'm going to get a pellet gun.

Not really. But I might encourage M to get one.

When You're Born, *That's* Your Birthday. Duh.

OMG, I'm so embarrassed. I missed Addie's birthday on Monday! :(


I think somehow in the hubbub surrounding her arrival last year (her delivery was pretty complicated and drawn out over several days), I forgot that the actual day she was born became her birthday.

How dense am I? (That's rhetorical, people.) Oy. OK, so it's now on my Outlook with a great big "ding" set to go off as a reminder, and a gift is in progress.

Lobelia Lust Redux

Well, I was right to be worried about its location. After about a two weeks under the pine tree, the Lobelia didn't seem to be doing terribly well . Even M noticed: "It doesn't really look as spectacular as it did when you brought it home." (Compare the basket in the photo below with the one pictured in the previous entry, and I think you'll see a difference.)

A friend of mine has a similar hanging basket, so I asked about location. At his house, it lives it under a pergola, which creates that perfect, dappled, sun/shade blend that Lobelia seems to want. Unfortunately, I don't have a pergola. For that matter, I don't have dappled anything in the backyard: nearly every location is all sun, all shade, or morning-shade-with-afternoon-sun (which you'd think would equate to "dappled," but afternoon sun can be pretty harsh).

So a little experimentation is probably in order. For now, we're trying it by the veranda. We'll see what happens.

Lobelia Lust and Impulse Purchases

I didn't go looking for it. Really. When I got to Bachman's last Friday night, I had a carefully planned shopping list of a few perennials and some groundcovers. After all, I learned the hard way last year that garden center impulse purchases don't pan out well. Really, what had I been thinking when I bought that weird pink-and-white phlox? There's no pink in my garden, just like there's no crying in baseball. But I digress. (Shocker, right?)

ANYway. I was committed to buying a few more Rudbeckia and Perovskia, some creeping thyme and alyssum, and then getting out. But I couldn't find the Perovskia (I'm still learning my way around Bachman's humongoloid Lyndale facility), so I accidentally ended up in the greenhouse with the hanging baskets.

That's when I saw it. Lobelia erinus, spilling riotously out of its container in airy masses of perfect periwinkle blue.

I wanted it so badly that my chest hurt a little. (I have funny reactions to this particular shade of blue, as evidenced by the Blue Room in our upstairs.) I walked away from it, then came back. Three times.

After I finally gave in and hung in on my cart, I headed to the register -- only to be stopped by no fewer than four complete strangers wanting to comment on how beautiful it was.

As I mentioned above, I really do try to avoid unplanned plant buys. All the gardening shows I've ever watched recommend that approach, because you get home only to find that you have no places suitable for your impulse purchases. (It's easiest for me to liken this to buying an adorable pair of shoes without really considering the fact that they don't go with anything in my closet.) I think it's an especially good rule of thumb for anything that goes in the ground (e.g., that aggressive groundcover that's unexpectedly taken over a whole bed in just a few seasons). But with a hanging basket of annuals, what's the harm? So I fell, and I fell hard, and I'm not sorry about it.

My only less-than-solid feelings on the matter: I'm a little concerned about its location. The light information on the tag reads "partial to complete shade," but other sources I've consulted say it can likes a fair amount of sun as long as the soil stays moist. Given that everyone seems to agree that it prefers cooler temperatures, I'm learning toward keeping it a little more protected by having it in the partial shade under the pine tree. This placement also gives me the opportunity to admire it from the hammock, the chairs on the veranda, the patio dining table and just about any other spot in the backyard.

Other than concerns about the location, it's love. Or at least, Lobelia lust.

All By Myself!

OK, to be fair, M hauled the bricks.

But I installed them all by myself. 1200 pounds of 'em!

Finally having edging in place meant being able to add a few more annuals and ground covers at the front of the beds.

I'm pretty happy with where we ended up. Check it out!

The slightly scary thing is that I'm starting to run out of things to do in the backyard. Oh, I realize there will be plenty of weeding and watering and weeding again, but other than that, it's almost time to just sit back and just watch what happens. Seriously, it's freaking me out a little bit.

P.S. Sam seems to like the new edging, too. :)