Tomato Twister II

Growing vegetables and flowers on the high plains of Western Kansas requires eternal hope much like a child’s expectant, devoted belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Because we trust, we will harvest succulent, homegrown vegetables and fruits. Each spring gardeners across this region sift through garden magazines and seed catalogues or visit local garden shops with a gambler’s hope that this will be the year.

Eleven years after moving to our limestone hilltop, payday arrived. Yes, Virginia, that garden will produce a bonanza harvest. 

Due to a combination of timely rains and chicken poop, we had a dream tomato harvest--this despite hail that totaled our roof and left tender tomato plants shattered and broken. Despite the setback, vines began producing at the end of July, only a bit later than they might have without Mother Nature’s challenges. Produce was an understatement. The plants burgeoned with softball-sized fruits that tasted like captured sunbeams and covered chins and necks with flavorful juice.

That led to a dilemma. We had a small, raise-bed plot due to our topsoil- challenged circumstances. Based on past plantings, I’d left plenty of room between seedlings so they could stretch, grow, and still leave space to harvest ripe tomatoes.

That year’s timely, ample rains and the perfect addition of cured chicken droppings inspired legendary vine growth. The intertwining plants were over three and half high by three and a half feet wide. That’s a minimal estimation since it’s hard to tell how tall the plants might be if they weren’t weighed down by humongous orbs. I couldn’t get through that green jungle without playing a contortionist game.

My visiting mother explored the maze and discovered scores of ready- to-pick tomatoes. Other than the fun of digging hills of potatoes, I don’t think there’s much my mom likes better than finding every ripe tomato on eight very crowded, over-grown plants. She turned into a tomato General Patton as she stood outside the fenced garden and directed the placement of my feet and hands so I could pluck every mature fruit she’d spied. 

           

“More to the left, down a few more inches, don’t step too hard with your right foot, stretch, can’t you see it, oh look, there’s a great big one on  the other side of that plant, watch out, you’re bending that branch, oh can you get all four of those and pass them to me….”

I decided I was playing garden “Twister.” My limbs knotted so I barely kept my balance. However, in the real Hasbro game, you don’t have to worry about destroying producing tomato plants. The worst you can do is bruise a fellow player or black an eye.

           

By the time I followed all Mom’s directions, we’d filled a five-gallon bucket two days in a row. Taking our harvested trophies into the house, we rinsed, blanched, peeled, and quartered them until I had six  large freezer bags of ready-to-turn-into-salsa frozen tomatoes. I had to recover from that spine-twisting garden game before I could lift the jar-filled canner from the hot stove.  

Pests Everywhere You Go

It’s the time when heat and pests aggravate the best of gardeners. It’s hard to keep tomatoes setting fruit when days and nights break record temperatures. To compound matters, grasshoppers and tomato hornworms appear and gnaw tender fruits, leaves, and stems to little nubbins. Plains green thumbs frequently face daunting challenges. So do horticulturists everywhere, I’ve learned.

Trying something new, I experimented with a high altitude garden in the Rockies. Of course, that means inhaling thinner air, but cool mornings and nights compensate for short breath. Despite planting later and facing shorter harvest dates, I sweat less and face fewer pests. Or so I thought.

 No one told me about picket pins, Wyoming rodents that love cruciferous veggies. Since this is an experiment, I rented a community garden plot. I figured I’d learn from locals used to the altitude and temperatures. My 8 x 4 foot raised bed came filled with fertile soil just waiting for me to show up with trowel and seeds. In no time, tidy rows of kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, spinach, radishes and onions absorbed soil nutrients, spring rains, and sunshine. I patted myself on the back, thinking my mountain garden would escape difficulties I’d faced back home.

Once sun warmed the earth in this raised bed, greens grew thick and plentifully. In no time, we enjoyed fresh spinach and lettuce, crisp radishes, and crunchy onions. It was lovely to harvest veggies that didn’t have a single beetle or grasshopper bite taken out of them. My pleasure didn’t last long.

Within days, something had nibbled away at kale and kohlrabi planted near the garden’s edge. I looked for insect droppings but found none. A high fence around the garden prevented trespassing deer so I couldn’t imagine what devoured my dream harvest. It was certainly healthy because it consumed entire rows of healthful greens.

Finally, I caught the thieves. Bigger than chipmunks but smaller than prairie dogs, they were speedy rodents. I learned they’re ground squirrels that natives call picket pins because of their tendency to stand up straight outside their holes , looking like stakes that keep a horse from straying. They also really like cruciferous vegetables.

A fellow gardener lost her cabbage plants to the hungry hordes. Yes, hordes. These creatures reproduce like rabbits so scores of them call the hillside near our fenced plot home. While deer can’t leap over the ten-foot fence, these intruders have no trouble sneaking between posts or under gates. I caught one perched on the wooden edge framing my rented garden. He unhurriedly nibbled what was left of my last kohlrabi plant before scampering out of reach. I swear he winked when he left.

Unconcerned with his human visitor, he didn’t run until I swung a canvas garden bag his direction. Ironically, this guy and his buddies have done far more damage than any grasshoppers or hornworms that visited my Kansas gardens. The verdict is still out about exchanging high plains planting for mountain tilling. What I have figured out is that no matter where vegetables grow, there’s a pest waiting to snatch them from my plate.

A Good Thing Turned Monster

Wallace Stegner suggests specific landscapes speak to a person’s heart, and he’s right. Many have a favorite place that roots the spirit. Plants have a similar effect, and that preference is genetic at my house. Mom and I love clematis blossoms. We can’t grow too many or take enough photos of those blooming in our flowerbeds.

We’ve found we can cultivate them in western Kansas if we nurture them tenderly. That says volumes because this plant succumbs easily to heat and drought, natural elements of Kansas summers. Ironically, a wild species thrives in Wyoming’s cool mountain air and takes on kudzu-like characteristics, wrapping prolific tendrils around fences, trees, and anything else that holds still a moment too long.

Four Easters ago, I gave my mom two plants, one purple and one white. She tucked them in soil east of her front door and watched them twine up metal porch poles. That first summer, blossoms were sparse and plants stunted. The next season, they decided to showoff and bloomed prolifically as they advanced toward her guttering. Despite the resulting fuzzy seeds, sometimes called old man’s beard, her plants didn’t spread. In fact, the opposite occurred.

The third year, only the white vine re-sprouted. Her purple variety didn’t survive. Despite our disappointment at losing the deeper-hued plant, its companion compensated. At one point, Mom had 50 saucer-sized, white blooms climbing toward heaven. To support the extra weight, she added a chicken wire frame.

After watching her success, I planted clematis near my back porch. This year it flowered for the first time so I can expect hordes of blossoms next spring. Like mom’s plant, the seeds haven’t spread. Until I visited Wyoming during the summer, I thought this was unfortunate. After seeing what happens with unchecked clematis growth, I’m delighted our plants haven’t reproduced.

In central Wyoming’s Wind River Range, wild clematis fills river bottoms and takes over yards of anyone naïve enough to try to domesticate it. When I view the acres of green vines climbing logs, trees, bushes, fences, and bridge foundations, I see how it got its folk name--virgin’s bower. I might not understand the virgin part, but left to its own devices, this plant forms shady tunnels big enough provide napping space for several classrooms full of students. Less lethargic children could play hide-n-seek for days in these green grottoes and not find all their playmates.

In one familiar yard, previous owners turned this wild vine with delicate yellow blossoms loose along their fence. Once they realized its capacity to overtake everything in its path, they wrenched woody stems loose from metal fencing and considered that a closed episode. Imagine their surprise to discover  hairy seedpods had blown about their lawn and took root the next spring. Instead of an orderly row of trailing creepers clinging tightly to chain link, baby vines sprouted and spread across two lots.

Once I saw this favorite plant growing unchecked, I was glad the cultured clematis growing in mom’s flowerbed and mine hadn’t reproduced. Despite having lovely flowers that succor bees, this plant growing out of control is a monster that becomes too much of a good thing.

Masochistic Flowers

Take a close look at a rose bush, clematis vine, or slender columbine stalk. You’ll see perfectly formed leaves that bugs can chew to look like fishnet stockings in a feeding or two and fragile blooms that appear as if they’d unravel at the seams during high winds. Anything this delicate looking ought to frighten new gardeners. Not so. My mom has tested these three species and discovered they like abuse. In fact, they thrive on it.

For the last five decades, Mom has grown lovely roses in yards in two states. Her plants are always healthy and bloom profusely through the summer. Last year, her plants continued to produce huge, scented blossoms into mid-November when a visit from Jack Frost nipped them and ended the display. In this case, she feeds the plants regularly. Then in late February or early March, she grabs her clippers and takes out any stored up winter aggressions on those thorny stems. When she’s done, stubs of the former plant remain. By May, it’s clear the roots enjoyed this shearing as they produce hordes of new shoots that soon sport lovely red, white, and pink flowers she can enjoy on the plant or cut to put in a vase to perfume her house.

Mom’s green thumb includes more than roses. This last summer, Mom’s showy clematis overtook much of her front flowerbed draping itself over surrounding plants. Unsure of how to handle this issue, last fall she grabbed her shears again and took after those dry stems, cutting the vine back like a pedicurist trimming too-long toenails. All winter long, she worried that she might have gotten carried away and killed her favorite spring harbinger. Imagine her delight when she saw new growth earlier this year. Triple that emotion to describe how she reacted when she came home from a short trip to find over fifty saucer-sized blooms climbing her trellis.

Not surprisingly, cutting back that aggressive clematis also benefitted the yellow columbine growing in the area in front of Mom’s treasured vine. Last year her Colorado flowers were two feet tall. This year, they’re at least six inches to a foot higher. And she didn’t fertilize them. This growth is the result of receiving more sun along with abundant spring rains. You’d think towering, long stemmed blooms would succumb to some of the “breezes” we’ve enjoyed lately. Not these guys. We had a doozy of storm the other night and by sunrise, those yellow flower stood at attention to welcome those bright rays.

I tend to garden cautiously, but after seeing the results my mom gets by energetically trimming her plants and then not worrying about what the weather does to them, I’m going to change my ways. I’ve concluded that plants are like feet and hands. Anyone watching a pedicure or manicure for the first time would swear the technician was abusing the client during the process of softening and pushing back cuticles and dealing with calluses. In reality, anyone who’s enjoyed such services knows the treatment feels great, and like my mom’s treatment of her garden, produces lovely results.

Enjoying Somebody Else’s Garden

I know people who insist on creating original landscapes in their yards. They either begin with a clean palette and scrape their property down to bare earth or they buy homes in brand new subdivisions where all the dirt is recently backhoed and then leveled by earthmoving mega-machines. Once these individuals draw up their plans and plant accordingly, they have designer yards that draw the eye to appealing areas throughout their lot. This is one way to create beauty around a home. Another is to enjoy what previous occupants have planted and work around the property’s history.

Since I was a little girl, I’ve enjoyed investigating other people’s gardening talents. My great grandmother lived near Buckner Creek in Southwest Kansas where she cultivated irises, peonies, and black berry canes someone had tucked around her house before she moved in. As a toddler, I examined her bearded irises and thorny berry plants from a nose to petal point of view. Somehow, I understood these mature plants had lived in this place longer than Grandma had. I also got the idea that they connected her and me as well to whoever optimistically planted them in a land of little rain.

Because of those early experiences, I’ve always loved moving into homes with already established plantings. Lovely wild rose bushes with once a year yellow blooms, peonies, poppies, purple and bronze iris, naked ladies, and lilac borders graced our first bungalow built in the early 1900s. Their cycles of scented blossoms brightened that yard for decades and continue to do so two owners later.

We were only the second residents of our next home, but the couple who built that house transplanted iris tubers and lilac starts from their family’s original homestead into their new yard. In addition, they’d added rose bushes, purple phlox, and blue flax to enhance the native prairie flowers that surrounded them.

One of the attractions of our most recent real estate purchase was the pretty yard surrounding the house. That owner landscaped with new plantings to increase the curb of appeal of her property, but she also incorporated old-fashioned poppies, peonies, daisies, butter and eggs, day lilies, and violets that add a nostalgic touch to the yard. While I love the roses and shrubbery this gifted gardener chose to border the house, I most enjoy the plants she transferred from her farm and other people’s flowerbeds.

What I like best about plantings passed down from the generations who first turned these prairies into homes is that they connect us to real people who longed for reminders of where they came from. They were dead tired from just surviving, yet they made time to turn up flowerbeds around their homes. Even more telling, they shared precious water with rootstock or seeds they either ordered or carried from more settled regions of America and Europe.

Drive by any dying community or abandoned farmstead and you’ll see remnants of lilac borders, iris or peony beds, and poppies that now escape confinement. The humans who planted them are long gone. Equipment they left behind rusts in weedy yards that come to life each spring with improbable lavender, pink, and bright orange blooms that fleetingly tell stories of those who came before.

Mining Gold in the Garden

Miners may have headed to the mountains hoping to discover gold nuggets and tiny gilt grains in streams and veins of rock. We’ve stayed home on the prairie and discovered it in our Kansas garden after experimenting with new crops. One such Eureka moment arrived in the form of beta-carotene, vitamin A rich sweet potatoes.

From the time my mother fed me pureed orange spoonfuls from a Gerber jar, I’ve loved the flavor and bright color of this still favorite food. Thanksgiving recipes incorporating butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows or pecans into the mix confirmed my cravings. With the advent of cooking shows and online recipe sites, I’ve discovered sweet potato pie, casseroles, fries, chips, and soups. Those dishes mean I no longer wait for holidays to gobble this favorite goodie. What I didn’t know until recently was that I could grow my own tubers and enjoy them fresh from the garden.

Our family has planted traditional potatoes many times over the decades and enjoyed the fun of digging them. It’s a thrill to stab a potato fork into the soil and turn it to see how many thin-skinned, big and little spuds one seed potato produced. Planting sweet potato slips doubles the fun for anyone who loves to guess what treasure lurks beneath those vibrant green plants and vines.

To grow these holiday favorites requires shoots you can buy at the garden center or start in the kitchen window in February or early March. While you plant a cut up russet or Yukon eye to produce the traditional tater, to harvest these sweeter forms of starch, you tuck a single leafy slip into a mound of soil. This produces a beautiful vine that generates orange-tinged gold underground. As a bonus, sweet potatoes are not in the nightshade family so gardeners can eat tender leaves as well as the tubers multiplying beneath them later in the season.

My husband dug ours recently and struck an unexpected Mother Lode. We planted 12 tiny slips, losing four to frost. Later, another plant succumbed so we were down to 7 plants. Examining  our reduced hopes, I wanted a large enough harvest to supply our family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners along with  a batch or two of mashed or baked sweet potatoes for the two of us.

Conditions this summer must’ve been perfect for this crop because once my sweetheart turned the soil beneath the drying vines, he discovered various sized orange tubers in a large enough quantity to fill an old-fashioned washtub. One potato nearly the size of a football will feed our extended family! Others grew large enough to serve multiple  mouths per spud. Thank goodness, they aren’t all humongous. A few are small enough to feed a single diner.

It’s as if Midas with his golden touch produced these  grand champion sweet potatoes. If they were actual gold nuggets, we couldn’t find wheelbarrows enough to haul the money they’d be worth to the bank. We’ll let miners slog through the cold, dark, and damp to find wealth deep in the Rockies while our family celebrates our summer harvest of gold this holiday season.

It’s All in the Perspective

Last week I wrote about my gardening efforts to encourage black swallowtail butterflies to lay eggs. My hopes were that these would become caterpillar hordes that would munch my fennel and dill until bare stems remained. We’re almost at the naked stick stage, and I’ve learned that folks don’t always see things my way. We’ve had friends and family drop by to enlighten me about my insect cultivation practices.

The first visitor happened to be a farmer. His view of caterpillars in quantities great enough to wipe out the fern-like fronds of a fennel plant in a couple of days doesn’t jive with my dreams to expand this specific butterfly population. He tossed out a few agricultural terms that I’m pretty sure equate with killing pests. At first, I was traumatized to think anyone would consider my green, yellow, black, and white decorated worms as nuisances. However, I didn’t have to think very long to see why our friend might have this attitude. 

In another setting, I’d see these creatures much the same way. For instance, I don’t encourage tomato hornworms. In fact, when they show up in my garden, I’m on a determined mission to turn those vine-stripping monsters into premium fresh chicken food. I pour over my plants from top to bottom removing any sign of these destructive fiends. Ironically, they are closely related to the caterpillars I’ve been intentionally feeding. 

The giant worms that aim to destroy my tomato harvest happen to be the result of sphinx or humming bird moth pairings. Those big old fluttering things that trick our eyes into believing we’ve got a hummer sipping at our flowers lays its eggs on tomato plants. When those little ovals hatch, the result is that nasty green hornworm that can wipe out a garden in no time. The bottom line is that black swallowtail butterflies and sphinx moths are in the Lepidoptera order—cousins I’d say.

Our next visitor who rattled my perspective was my mother, an avid fisherwoman. She’s also an ardent gardener who doesn’t tolerate anything that damages her beloved plants. As soon as she got out of her car, I led her over to my half-eaten fennel plants to show her my 50 plus soon to be swallow tail pupae. The first words out her mouth were, “Are they good fish bait?”

Using these decorative bugs to catch fish hadn’t crossed my mind.  However, I have seen some lures at sporting goods stores that are every bit as brightly decorated as the guys currently devouring the greens I planted to tempt them into my flowerbed.

When I planted fennel and dill, I wasn’t planning on any lessons other than learning firsthand about the life cycle of black swallowtail butterflies. Despite this intention, this exercise has reminded me that nothing in life is simple. Everything we do is a matter of perspective, and that can alter something as unassuming as the mere change of a plant or the purpose for a worm. In my case, fennel is expendable. Tomatoes are not. Black swallowtail caterpillars are not fish bait. Earthworms are.

If You Plant It, They Will Come

Kevin Costner’s character Ray in the movie Field of Dreams listened to a mysterious voice telling him, “If you build it, they will come.” Against others’ advice, he sacrificed a cornfield to construct a baseball diamond in the middle of Iowa farm country. If you’ve watched this film, you know the end of the story. Shoeless Joe Jackson, members of the banned 1919 Black Sox team, and others show up to play some spirited games.

I loved the concept behind that story. When you listen to good advice and prepare, exciting adventures begin. In my case, the result isn’t nearly so mystical, but it’s certainly as rewarding. I listened to a biologist friend who is particularly knowledgeable about butterflies. She told me to garden not only to produce food but also to support this species. I’ve written before about adding dill and fennel to my garden. This year, I took that a step further.

I planted fennel and dill amongst my zinnias, larkspur, Indian blanket, bachelor buttons, and marigolds. Over the summer months, an occasional visitor would ask about that that ferny-looking stuff that smells like licorice.

“Oh, that’s fennel.”

 I’ve also had a couple of friends who remarked on the dill thriving in my flowerbed.

“ Yes, that’s dill. No, I’m not making pickles. I’m growing butterflies.”

Butterflies? 

Yes, butterflies. Specifically, black swallowtails. Each spring we see these stunning black-winged creatures with blue and yellow accents sipping nectar from blooming lilacs and later from our summer blossoms. By following my girlfriend’s advice and planting to attract these brilliant colored guests, I’ve seen scores of funny looking green caterpillars this summer. They’re each marked with details every bit as stunning as those sported by their parents. 

If gardeners provide enough host plants, adult females will lay yellow eggs on the leaves. After several weeks’ incubation under warm sun rays, these tiny deposits hatch into segmented creatures dressed in vivid green adorned by yellow, black, and white stripes, dots, and dashes. This developmental stage camouflages the pillow-like caterpillars  from hungry bird eyes, but humans easily spot their summer visitors munching lacy leaves. If you don’t see them on the plants, you’ll know they are digesting away by their healthy poopers dotting the soil and landscaping rocks beneath your greenery.

In years past, I was happy to see two or three of these ugly bugs in clown dress each summer. After adding additional fennel and dill, I’m tied up for several minutes each morning counting growing numbers chomping through the foliage. Two days ago, I counted better than two score of these potential butterflies gobbling fennel fronds.

I’ve discovered blessings often require patience, so I hope to see these little guys transition into the pupa stage. Despite research, I’m not sure how this works. I don’t know how these insects move from their feasting grounds to the site where they morph into a neutral colored chrysalis. I suspect this is going to be a live and learn lesson. I don’t know if I will see them emerge as butterflies this fall or next spring. What I do know is that I’ll ignore my husband’s requests to trim the fennel.

If every egg that made it to the caterpillar stage survives the transition to butterfly, my front flowerbed will be a brilliant colored sight next spring. All that fennel and dill should multiply as well, so we may have a record book black swallowtail swarm come summer 2016.

A Freeloader in the Garden

Something’s been eating my strawberries. Yes, the luscious berries that we planted two springs ago and carefully nurtured so we’d have fresh fruit over our ice cream and cake or sliced to sweeten a fresh  spinach salad. Since they first began blooming in May, I’ve harvested about 15 scarlet bursts of flavor that hip hop on my taste buds. Last week, I went to pick some for supper and discovered I’m not the only one that likes this spring treat.

We have flocks of birds zipping in and out of the yard, so I checked to see if beaks had pecked at the berry chunks still attached to the plant. Nope, whatever picnicked in Grandma’s garden took actual chomps from the ripest sections of the fruit, leaving hard green stems behind.

Trying to imagine what would devour my luscious treats, I remembered that at our former home, a box turtle would creep into the garden to sample tomatoes. Once in, it levered its pointed upper and weaker lower jaws to snap good-sized chunks out of the orange half of my BLTs. When I first noticed the actual bites out of my strawberries, my first thought was I had another reptile sampling the wares.

On a detective mission, I roamed through tilled rows, lifting lettuce, kale, chard, and spinach leaves in an effort to find and evict the invader. When I didn’t spot it, I inspected nearby plants and flower beds, thinking maybe it dined al fresco and then headed for a more sheltered area to digest its tasty meal.

Again, no luck. After searching fruitlessly (pun intended), I knew it was time to consult my planting partner, who is a much better sleuth than I. With decades of hunting experience, his sharp eyes zero in quickly on clues I miss.

It was the right move to involve my husband. After a short review of the rain-dampened soil, he turned to me to ask, “Do skunks like strawberries?”

“What?” I said. 

“We have skunk tracks in the garden, so that’s probably what’s eating your goodies.”

After a few moments on the internet, I confirmed my sweetheart’s suspicions. These stinky critters like berries of any kind. To confirm his findings, I remembered when our dogs got sprayed by a black and white kitty right in our back yard not so long ago. This current trespasser could be the very creature who perfumed our pooches.

Considering the super powers of this berry thief, we’ll have to strategize to make certain we don’t end up needing a hydrogen peroxide/baking soda bath. No tiptoeing through the garden in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. 

When my girls were little, they loved the book The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. The tiny grey rodent satisfactorily solved his fruity theft problem by sharing his red treasure with the bear. I don’t think this plan will work in this case. Once again, the potential of facing eye burning, stomach-wrenching stench forces me to consider other options.

I’m not certain, how this story will end, but I don’t intend to support that freeloading, strawberry thieving skunk much longer.  Stay tuned for further adventures.

Lazarus Is Back!

Typically, my mom and I don’t name plants, but in this case, the moniker is perfect.

The first Mother’s Day after my mom moved to Kansas in 2008, I searched Hays for the perfect gift to welcome Mom to her new home. After scouring department store aisles, I gave up in defeat and stopped by a local garden center to buy a few plants so my trip wasn’t wasted. The moment I pulled up, I knew I’d found the perfect present. Its magenta color was gorgeous. In addition, that particular plant would remind mother of happy years in Southern California where a vibrant bougainvillea larger than this one grew up our fence.  

I was right.  Mom loved her new addition to the blooming pots in front of her house. Because it was in a planter, she could move it to best capture sunrays and yet protect this tropical native from scorching July and August temperatures. It thrived under her care and soon needed a larger home. Mom replanted her “baby” and nurtured those scarlet blooms.

By the end of September, she wondered what to do to protect the stunning foliage from harsh seasonal elements. It seemed a shame to let it freeze after it had grown and produced so many beautiful blossoms. Inside wasn’t an option due to poor natural lighting. After asking around, Mom found a spot in the Ag greenhouse and donated winter rent to house her treasure.

After the last frost date arrived the next spring, Mom ransomed her baby, reinstalling it on the east side of her garage. At first, the woody stem appeared dead. Both of us mourned and planned to find a replacement. Fortunately, we procrastinated long enough that little green shoots had a chance to develop and inspire a name for this seemingly expired plant—yes, that was the first time we called it Lazarus.

For the next three years, Mom shuttled the increasingly larger Lazarus into shelter each autumn and retrieved it each May. It did so well under her care regimen that mom repotted it at least one more time. After she brought it home each spring, she’d trim it to a stub and wonder if it’d come out of it. By August, that nubbin turned into a full size bush of flaming color and reminded us why Lazarus was the perfect name. 

This last fall, Mom’s standby wintering spot was unavailable. We hashed over choices, none of which seemed suitable. Just before the first freeze, we transported it to my sunporch where we hoped it wouldn’t get too cold. 

By late November, Lazarus dropped every leaf and looked truly dead. I broke the bad news and left the ugly remains on the porch until spring when I planned to pull the goldfish trick and replace mom’s plant before May. I intended head to the greenhouse in a few weeks to buy a similar sized bougainvillea to put in her big pot. 

I should’ve known better. After five years of Lazarus returning from the grave, it happened again! That dead-looking skeleton sprouted green shoots at its base the second week in April. As much as I hated calling Mom last fall to tell her miracle was dead, I couldn’t wait to announce this unexpected resurrection. I don’t know how long Lazarus will be with us, but I’m shooting for passing it on to one of my daughters after I’m gone.

What To Do with a Left Over Easter Lily…

Thinking about Easter brings to mind loss, hope, resurrection, sunshine, courting birds, greening yards, bunnies, colored eggs, and lilies. Yes, lilies. Each year, members of our church celebrate the lives of loved ones who’ve passed on with a parade of towering white Easter blooms. I love to walk into the sanctuary that first Sunday the white blossoms outline our altar. My nose picks up their sweet scent, and I think about how the first historical evidence of this flower was imprinted on a Cretan vase over 2500 years ago.

Just seeing the ladder of leaves that lead to the balloon-like blooms shouts Easter to me. When the florist wraps deep purple foil around the pot and ties on a fluffy, white bow, I’m transported across time to my first memories of this special holiday. I think of lacy dresses, shiny white patent leather shoes, basket- shaped little bonnets that I only wore one time a year. I recall soaring hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross,” “He’s Alive,” and “ In the Garden.” I can almost feel the warmth of my mom’s or  grandma’s bodies as I recall times I stood singing those songs next to these much loved women. My mouth waters at the recollection of ham dinners followed by homemade chocolate and lemon meringue pies. 

Now, those trumpet-shaped flowers are reminders of too many loved ones who’ve wrapped up their business on earth. Despite this overpowering sense of loss, I’m glad that our church family shares these recollections of good times and happy hearts. Here’s the dilemma. After Easter each year, each of us is supposed to take our plant home. 

That’s good for a week or two. Often times, ours is still blooming so we enjoy setting it in the window. Once the flowers dry up and fall off, it’s time to make some decisions. In our case, that means it goes to the lily bed out back.

The woman who lived here before us started the tradition with a leftover Easter bloom. Since we moved in, the plot has grown. Right now, it’s manageable and hasn’t taken over the rose garden. Looking ahead, I see issues.

Lilies spread, and if I keep adding to this bed each year, I’m going to end up with a yard full of plants that bloom only once a year. Granted, they are lovely at that moment, and the scent is heavenly, but afterwards, they are leggy, green plants.

I guess I need to keep in mind these are symbols of the resurrection, and they’re easy to grow. I can’t say that about everything in my yard. Once established, they bloom later than the ones we place on the altar at church so I get to enjoy them a second time each season. One article I read suggested tossing them on the compost heap. It’s hard to do that when these will thrive, and I’ll enjoy even more fond memories of a favorite holiday.

Practicing Patience in an Asparagus Patch

Longer, warmer days work function as a Siren call to gardeners.” It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to plant.” Tillers and shovels turn over winter-rested soil in plots around town while grocery stores and garden shops advertise seed potatoes and onion sets. Aggressive green thumbs have tiny shoots of lettuce, radishes, and spinach peeking through and stretching toward the sunshine. Our patch isn’t that far along yet, but we’re celebrating a landmark at our house—we picked our first homegrown asparagus this week!

Since I was a child, asparagus has meant springtime to me. This began when the eight-year-old me discovered a bed of the funny looking shoots in an abandoned field on my way home from school. I didn’t know what the alien-looking stuff was so a neighbor boy and I plucked a stem and took it home for my mom to identify. She immediately identified it and warned me not to trespass and steal. I assured her this came from an empty lot that didn’t have a house anywhere near it. Knowing what I know now, I realize this must have been an old, old plot growing where a home once stood.

Not long after that, my mom cooked asparagus for our family, and I discovered it tasted much better than it looked. Once I got married, asparagus became a rite of spring at our house because my husband liked it every bit as much as I did. We had a couple of fronds growing in the yard of our first home, so we looked forward to sampling the few bites we harvested each season.

Once we moved to the country, we found a few shoots growing wild along our creek. Again, we’d relish those fresh spears, but there were never enough to make a mess of our favorite spring veggie. We bought and planted crowns a couple of years in a row, but due to bad weather conditions, they never took off. I swore then that if I ever had a yard with good soil, I’d have my own asparagus bed with enough to share.

Finally, that dream is coming true.  One of first plantings in our new home was a long row of asparagus crowns. We studied the complicated planting procedures and followed them. We learned that successfully growing asparagus takes effort and time. We planted in April and didn’t see a single sprout until August of that year. We’d begun to think we’d wasted time, effort, and money. Despite their slow start, once those shoots peeped through, they thrived.

The patience part came into play the following spring. The asparagus rulebook says you can’t harvest asparagus the first few seasons it grows in your garden. You have to let those roots get well established, so you water it, tend it, trim back the foliage in the fall, and think longingly about tender spears of buttery goodness for at least two seasons. 

That brings me to the moment. We ate our first mess of homegrown asparagus this week. Each of us had enough on our plates that we could gobble to our hearts content.  This wasn’t a tiny sampling. It was a feast. The flavorful shoots were so tender they melted in our mouths. That isn’t something I can say about store bought asparagus.

So thirty-eight years into marriage, we finally have an asparagus bed big enough to harvest more than a few tiny tastes of spring. Watching us savor each forkful, you’d agree that it’s been worth the patience and the work.

April May Not Be the Cruelest Month

Decades ago, the poet T.S. Eliot told us April was the cruelest month. For years, I’ve accepted his word on this without question. After all, her weather is a bit more than schizophrenic, switching from balmy spring breezes to stinging ice pellets in a matter of hours.

After this past Saturday, I’m thinking September may beat my birth month out for this title. How do we go from stunning 90 degree temps one week, late summer blooms, happy butterflies and jewel-toned hummingbirds fattening themselves on autumn –tinged nectar to curled and blackened leaves and no lovely creatures flitting from one blossom to another overnight?

In less than a fortnight during early September, Mother Nature switched gears on her big and little darlings. Humans replaced shorts and t-shirts with slacks and sweaters. Some turned on furnaces to burn off that early morning chill caused by temperatures in the 30s. Unfortunately, birds and insects caught mid-migration didn’t have the same options people had to adapt to this harsh change.

Within 24 hours, weather that had provided a lush fall banquet for flying creatures sent any still moving to fly south as fast as their wings could carry them. Unfortunately, some were either too busy eating to pay attention to the shift in the barometer, or they just didn’t get going fast enough. I don’t know the answer. However, after that tomato-killing frost, I saw monarchs with wings like stained glass windows frozen to death, their bodies flattened on the ground beneath their last perches.  

Recent autumns have spoiled me into believing the first frost wouldn’t come until after the beginning of October. Though I’d noticed a slow-down and smaller sizes in tomato production, I assumed we had at least a month before we had to worry about Jack Frost swooping into our yard with his chilling crystals. I was sure the Weather Channel frost advisories were just apocalyptic hype sometimes promoted by the media because it draws ratings. Even my husband, who reads weather better than most, thought the meteorologists were crying wolf. 

While covering my tomatoes might have lengthened their season by a couple of weeks, nothing I could have done would have saved either the two little hummers frequenting our plastic feeders or the butterflies still flitting from one zinnia or cosmos blossom to another where they extended their curling tongues to taste one last bit of Kansas summer.

Fall is a still my favorite season, but  Mother Nature has put me on notice that I can’t count on enjoying weeks and weeks of bird and butterfly watching. I’m wondering how long we have before we see only stark skeletons of once fully dressed trees. She may also be telling me that this winter will be a bit rougher than those in the past were. Perhaps I better prepare better for this and stock up on sunflower seeds and suet blocks to feed overwintering birds.  

Planting for Butterflies

It’s funny how humans can plant parsley in their garden because they want to dry it as seasoning only to discover this action changes planting practices forever. This happened to my hilltop garden and me a few years ago after I tucked my first batch of breath-freshening herb into soil that was already home to lavender, chives, and oregano. I’ve continued this practice at my new address where I sowed the equivalent of a plant welcome mat for many varieties of visiting butterflies.

Once I introduced parsley to my herb bed, I noticed a big black butterfly with blue dots on funny looking wings fluttering about the new green leaves. This required photos, which I then posted on Facebook. A friend who is a veteran lepidopterist or butterfly expert soon identified my visitor as a swallowtail. I could have discovered my creature’s identity online if I’d looked, but doing it this way prompted my contact to ask if I’d also planted fennel as a butterfly attractant.

That question made me stop for a moment. I’d planted that parsley for me, not insects—even pretty ones. Her question led to my considering adding to my garden for the sake of creatures and not my taste buds. Once my friend slipped this noisy thought into my head, I visited the greenhouse to buy fennel, dill, and a butterfly bush. Colorful action in the little fenced off area increased as my thriving vegetation enticed more and more vivid visitors.

I googled Kansas Lepidoptera sites to learn that people who create butterfly havens introduce both host and nectar plantings. Hosts include dill, fennel, parsley, alfalfa, clover, hollyhocks, sunflowers, and milkweed, among others. Various trees and forbs also nurture a variety of butterfly offspring. Flowering plants provide nectar as an adult insect sipping beverage while host plants offer a nursery for egg laying and caterpillar nutrition support. Spend time online, and you’ll soon have a clear idea of which winged critters will find your yard desirable.

It didn’t take long to understand the benefit of expanding my garden. While we had scores of little white butterflies hovering over cabbages and yellow ones that liked alfalfa, we didn’t see many lovely swallowtails, painted ladies, viceroys, admirals, and monarchs. (Kansas has enough species of butterflies to keep your mind busy learning their names and attributes for months.) Once I added more herbs and other butterfly attractants, we saw even more delicate winged guests regularly.

By late summer, not only could we observe these flying works of art, but also we noted their colorful offspring in the form of caterpillars munching away at the herbs I’d planted. I hate to think of all the years viewing such treasures was a happy accident because I hadn’t intentionally attracted these creatures. Lately, I’ve added an orange milkweed and plan to introduce several pink flowered native monarch host plants next spring. My plan is to see monarch caterpillars filling up on newly added garden goodies during the annual migration a year from now.

This summer, I’ve had adult swallowtails gobbling nectar and  their caterpillars mowing down herbs. I haven’t managed to find a pupa yet, but it’ll happen. They’re bound to be hidden nearby. Perhaps I should more closely examine the plantings I’ve added so I could watch butterflies.

Labor of Love

Picking and shelling peas is a labor of love, not practicality. After three evenings bent over knee-high vines finding and shelling full pods, I conceded the payoff—healthy calories—doesn’t match effort expended. Some folks might wise up and start buying canned or frozen peas at the market, but they’d miss what some researchers call the intangibles.

A first value added of this pea crop was that day in January or February when too many gray days made me doubt the arrival of the first spring robin. Blue as an indigo crayon, I searched garden catalogues online (that’s how they come nowadays) and planned this summer’s garden. After looking at all the pea varieties, I decided which ones would perform best in our region and decided to add snow peas to our selection for something different.

Our next bonus was the day we decided we could till our now warm enough patch of soil and microbes. Anyone who loved playing in the dirt as a kid has to love that magic of turning hard packed earth into loamy particles that sift through fingers like fine flour. When you combine what you feel and see with the rich scent of fresh turned soil, that is a red-letter day on the calendar.

Plotting the garden’s layout is another joy for those of us who relished planning wars or building new worlds in our sandboxes. Arranging areas for barracks and battlefields in that square confine got creative juices flowing in childhood. Now planning where to put peas, tomatoes, onions, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, asparagus, and melons for maximum development stimulates dreary weather-dulled brain cells. You never really know if you made good decisions until you see the outcome in mid-July.

When you look at corn seeds in your palm, it’s hard to imagine that one shriveled yellow or white nugget will produce two ears with approximately 700 kernels each. That’s a return of about 1,399 times what you invested. I’d love to see my savings perform so well. Peas don’t pay off nearly so effectively, but still for the one you plant, you harvest 40 to 100. Who on Wall Street can claim better yields?

Gardening isn’t only about the end result. You have to factor in getting your daily dose of vitamin D while weeding. Time hoeing and repacking soil along rows or making wells around tomato plants doubles as meditation or prayer time. Some people pay for CDs with nature sounds to improve their relaxation practices. Soothing noises come free with gardening.

When you’re outside tugging invasive grass out by its deceptively long roots or picking potato bugs or tomato worms off your plants, you’re listening to at least a dozen different birdsongs and untold numbers of insects as they hum and buzz. Most gardeners meet s beneficial neighbors as well while they check dense rows of green to discover they host bees, praying mantises, ladybugs, a toad or two, a lizard, and maybe a garter snake hiding amidst the foliage. 

I like to maximize these bonuses so we set two metal lawn chairs near the garden. After I’m done picking, I can enjoy evening breezes and insect serenades whileI sit there shelling peas for supper or maybe just letting sweat dry from my hair and face.

Finally, canned and frozen peas don’t compare with the color and flavor of those fresh picked from the garden. No matter how much butter or spice you add, those little green orbs taste better when you grow and shell them yourself. Cheaper is not always better.  

Efficiency at Its Peak

We’ve enjoyed a lush garden this summer with tall corn, big cabbages, sweet potato vines that should be art, and towering tomato plants. Imagine our horror when we visited the garden one morning to find an interstate of raised trails weaving in and out our plantings. This was my introduction to a live mole.

Frankly, I didn’t know much about these creatures, other than that they don’t have much for eyes. I had no idea that in one night, a six inch mammal could tunnel through long rows of corn, cabbage, tomatoes, and potatoes. If I’d been betting, I’d have told you an army of mole engineers had worn themselves out moving all that earth. I’d have been wrong.

After we discovered our visitor, I did some research. They don’t eat roots, they eat insects—earthworms are a particular favorite menu item.  They are loners. The only time they get together with other moles is in February and March to, well, make other moles. Socialization is very low on their activity list. One source suggested five moles an acre would be a crowd.

Though they are small, a six inch torpedo-shaped mammal, they’re efficient.  As I first observed, these  critters are digging machines.  Their front feet look like miniature ping  pong paddles with Freddie Kruger nails. Apparently the muscles attached to these pink shovels are especially strong as these long nosed critters have a “lateral digging force equivalent to 32 times its body weight.”  An expert explained this compares to a 150 lb. man exerting a 4800 lb. lateral force.That’s some serious earth moving ability.

Not only can these guys tunnel earth at 18 feet per hour, their respiratory systems adapted to their underground existence.  They have twice as much blood and red hemoglobin as another mammal of their size. This enables them to thrive underground in a world with low oxygen and high carbon dioxide ratios.

Since they can’t see so well in their dark world, they don’t have much for eyes. In fact, looking at one, it’s hard to see an resemblance of these orbs that most humans take for granted.  If they can’t see potential food, they have to do something. And they do. Their noses work at optimum capacity, allowing them to smell an earthworm and latch onto it in no time. Their saliva contains a toxin to permit them to paralyze their prey so they can eat it lat their convenience.  As I noted earlier, they are a miniature model of efficiency. 

Knowing more about these dirt throwers gives me a new appreciation for them and their capabilities.  However, I don’t want to see their craftsmanship in my  garden, even if they aren’t eating the roots to my thriving greenery.

Pickin’ Potato Bugs ‘n Livin’ the Dream

Deep in every woman’s heart, no matter how practical she is, lives a die-hard romantic. That’s the reason commercials promote products displayed against a field of wind-blown wildflowers, stunning sunsets, or white sand beaches bordered by intensely blue waters. All the while, a simple but sweet tune plays behind the scenes if it’s a TV ad. These commercials aren’t designed for men. Trust me.

After the early dating years, much of the romance that attracts lovers in the first place gets lost in daily survival. It’s hard to set a candlelit table for two when a ball game begins at 6 p.m. or cattle need fed before the winter sun sets. It’s difficult to maintain that passionate gaze that connected you and your sweetie back in your courting days while a toddler and infant throw their evening hissy. As a couple adds anniversaries, a few special occasions have to make up for a lot of get-through-the-day-chaos.

Despite messy, unpredictable reality, the essence of the sweet young thing who wanted Prince Charming to swoop her away on his white charger keeps fanning her ancient dream. Why else would so many women keep romance novelists busy writing and selling books enough to fill jillions of library shelves? Why else would Hallmark devote an entire channel to happy-ever-after endings? 

Folks, mostly female, reading those novels and watching those programs are typically between the ages of 30 and 54. According to one source, the Hallmark Channel’s family friendly programming was listed number 1 with 96% audience retention. Those viewers are loyal too.

So what’s a long-married guy have to do to add sizzle to his true love’s life? According to my husband, he should invite her potato bug picking. He’d tell you timing was important because both dusk and dawn add that special ambience. If you make it a contest, that really spices up your together time.

I guess it must work because we met in the garden the other evening for a round of insect collecting. I wasn’t familiar with the nymph stage of these hungry critters so he graciously showed me several of the little orange and black squishy bugs before the competition began.

Once I understood what to look for, we each took a section of potato plants and began searching. Remembering that I appreciate chivalry, he was ever the gentleman and let me have the area with the most obvious snacking creatures. While those were easy pickin’, I quickly learned to scan the undersides of leaves to increase my chance of winning.

He already knew this species is particularly fond of hidden regions of potato plant anatomy and had significantly more bugs in his jar. Seeing his half-full container inspired me to double my efforts. I swished potato plants so wildly that the objects of my hunt tumbled from their dinner table to the ground below. 

The extra time I spent searching for lost prizes gave my darling more time to increase his Kerr jar’s contents. Soon, I had to admit I’d lost the game. 

While that might have upset a more competitive woman, I looked up to see the moon rising against the fading blue eastern sky. Evening’s cooling breeze blew my hair away from my face and riffled through the oat field behind the garden, making rolling waves. Birds flitted past, adding their simple but sweet songs to our evening. While standing knee high in potato plants, I realized I was living the dream those advertisements promote with the best fella a girl could find.

It's Not Good to Want a Thing Too Much

One of my favorite novels to teach was John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.  I loved his use of landscape, the very human ways the main character Kino and his young wife Juana faced ills that befell them, and truths about human nature the author unfolded in quotes that emerge from my memory at odd times. One of those instances occurred last week.

Ever since we moved, I’ve anticipated planting a garden behind our shed.  A neighbor used his tractor to till well-rested soil to crumbly powder that sifted through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. After gardening on a rocky hilltop for almost two decades, I was giddy thinking about tucking seed potatoes and onion slips into fertile earth.

While some folks use an almanac to tell them the best time to plant, the weather channel’s rain predictions guide me. There’s nothing like a heaven-sent soaking to get seeds off to good start. Based on the report, it looked like Mother Nature would aid me in christening my new seed plot.

According to the internet, I could expect a 90% chance for moisture. That offered good odds even in these dry times, so I cut up seed potatoes, prepared onion slips and bulbs, and organized packets of early season seeds. The whole time I loaded my garden cart with supplies, words rattled inside my head like seeds in a dry gourd—“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away . . . .”

Those syllables haunted me because I couldn’t remember where I’d heard or read them. In my imagination, I saw an Indian woman saying them, so I started a mental inventory of books, movies, and  TV shows I’d read or seen, hoping to come up with a source. Finally, I recalled John Steinbeck penned them decades ago when he told the parable of a young man and his pearl of great value.

Straddling rows of freshly planted Yukon gold, Kennebeck, and red Pontiac potatoes, I wished mightily for rain and remembered Steinbeck’s words. Surely the weatherman was more correct than a long dead author. When I rose from popping onions in fresh-plowed earth, a desire for sprinkles crossed my mind only to have that repeating quote attack. 

It made me wonder if a similar superstition drives farmers to understate their dreams for good harvests. I don’t know that I’ve heard an agriculturist boast about the quality of a crop in the field.  Too many factors can drive either production or prices south to make a person with expectations still rooted in dirt voice hope. 

Sunday dawned damp and gray. Perhaps I hadn’t wanted rain too much. Surely I had wished just enough. I turned on my computer to search the weather report. Rain was north and east of us, not over us. We’d had a hint of moisture, but not the real deal. 

This experience helps me understand why farmers are cautious. Steinbeck must have learned this restraint growing up in an agricultural region. Perhaps words he attributed to a young mother living beside the Sea of Cortez initially emerged from the mouth of a farmer visiting John’s father’s feed and grain store in Salinas. 

Tomato Twister

           Growing vegetables and flowers on the high plains of Western Kansas requires eternal hope that compares to a child’s expectant belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Because we believe, we will harvest succulent, homegrown vegetables and fruits. Each spring gardeners across this region sift through garden magazines and seed catalogues and visit local garden shops with a gambler’s hope that this will be the year.

            Eleven years after moving to our limestone hilltop, payday has arrived.  Yes, Virginia, your garden will produce a bonanza harvest. 

Due to a combination of beneficent rains and chicken poop, we have a dream tomato harvest--this despite hail that totaled our roof and left tender tomato plants shattered and broken.  Even with the set back, our vines began producing at the end of July, only a bit later than they would have without Mother Nature’s challenges. Produce is an understatement.  The plants absolutely burgeon with softball-size, juicy fruits that taste like captured sunbeams.

            Here’s the dilemma.  We have a small, raise-bed plot due to our topsoil- challenged circumstances. Based on past plantings, I left plenty of room between seedlings so they could stretch, grow, and still leave room to harvest ripe tomatoes.

           This year’s timely, ample rains and the perfect addition of cured chicken droppings induced unbelievable growth. The intertwining plants are over three and half high by three and a half feet wide.  That is a minimal estimation since it’s hard to tell how tall the plants would be if they weren’t weighed down by large orbs.  I can’t get through my garden without playing the contortionist game of Twister.

            My visiting mother discovered huge numbers of ready- to-pick tomatoes.  Other than the fun of digging hills of potatoes, I don’t think there is much my mom likes better than finding every last ripe tomato on eight very crowded, over-grown plants.  She became a tomato General Patton as she stood outside the fenced  garden and directed the placement of my feet and hands so that I could reach every last one of the ripened fruits. 

            “More to the left, down a few more inches, don’t step too hard with your right foot, stretch, can you see it, oh look, there’s a great big one on  the other side of that plant, watch out, you’re bending that branch, oh can you get all four of those and pass them to me.”

 It was a form of garden “Twister.”  I was so contorted I barely kept my balance.  In the real Twister game, you don’t have to worry about destroying a producing tomato plant.  The worst you can do is bruise a fellow player or black an eye. 

           

            By the time I finished following Mom’s directions, we filled a five gallon bucket two days in a row.  Taking our harvested trophies into the house, we rinsed, blanched, peeled, and quartered them until I had six gallon bags of ready-to-turn-into-salsa frozen tomatoes.

            I must recover from my spine-twisting garden game before I can think about lifting the jar-filled canner from the hot stove.