Mantis sightings

Here are pictures of two praying mantises I encountered in the garden this week.

The green one was about half the size of the tan one - that probably means the tan one is a female.
Now if only that tomato under the female would turn red-- I have hundreds of tomatoes on my plants, but none are ripening yet!

Fun squash pics and garlic and onion harvest

I know I already wrote about Tromboncino, but here's one last pic from this morning:

And check out the variation in colors and shape (one double, too) in this selection of fruit from Sunburst pattypan squash:

I have been watching the onions and garlic carefully for signs of maturity, and finally dug the  yellow onions and  hardneck garlic this week. They are drying in the garage because we've had a lot of pop up thunderstorms recently, though nothing like the wild storms the rest of the country has experienced this summer.

The red onions are still actively growing. I wonder how much longer they'll go?

tromboncino squash invasion!

It has been a hot and dry week, and the summer crops love it. The tomatoes, peppers and squash are all  big, healthy, and full of fruit, but the growth of the 'trombone squash' is amazing.
I first read about zucchini tromboncino, aka zuchetta rampicante in an essay by Ray Magliozzi, one of the just retired "Car Talk' hosts on NPR, who is an ardent organic gardener. He wrote proudly of this Italian squash and it's enthusiastic growth habit.  The common names are wonderfully descriptive -- this is  indeed a a rampantly growing plant with trombone shaped fruit. According to my research the proper latin name is cucurbita moschata, and this makes it a kissing cousin of the winter butternut squash. 
 Both squash are vining, not bush selections, but beyond that they aren't much alike. The average butternut vine forms about 5 to 7 squash over a three month season, while the tromboncino can potentially form hundreds. 
I now know this as fact, not exaggeration, because I have two truly vigorous vines in my garden right now.  I have been pinching them back daily to contain their growth, and picking the strange (and tasty) long-necked fruit very young. But I definitely can't go out of town for a day or two-- they might take over! 
Here is a picture of the vines in innocent youth a month ago:

And here are the much contained (really) vines today:

Here's a fruit about the size I've been picking:

It is already a foot long and the flower has not yet finished blooming. At this stage the squash is pale green, seedless, and great as a vehicle to soak up flavor in curry, chili, chinese food, etcetera.  I like the firmer texture of green zucchini in bread.
And because I still love flowers (but only grow the easy ones now) here's a pic of the bouquet on my dining room table right now, featuring 'Pink Beauty' butterfly bush, 'Silk and Honey'  and "Becky Sharp' daylilies, and 'David' phlox.

July 4 2012 video tour of my garden

I shot a video this morning between rain showers. It doesn't show everything-- the video would have been too long if I showed all the planters on the deck and in the far reaches of the garden. Maybe I'll do a separate video of those plantings another day.

Happy fourth and happy gardening.

Don't squish that (lightning) bug!

It's almost the fourth of July, and time for fireworks. My neighbors across the  back meadow have a big party every fourth, ending with with a spectacular amateur fireworks show, but I'm in bed by the time they light the fuses.
I don't mind, because I've got fireflies. Wow, do I have fireflies! When we moved here twenty years ago I knew the hayfield out back was a good thing. I thought that was because it was a privacy buffer between us and neighboring houses. We'd moved from the city, and craved privacy.
But the field has been so much more. It is a factory for producing life in all forms, from insects to deer, and we get to watch it all from our patio. The lightning bugs (also known as fireflies) are spectacular every year, with hundreds displaying across the field and in our yard from June through September, peaking right around the fourth. I wish I could capture the display on camera, but I'm not tech savvy enough to do a long enough exposure.
I looked up some details on the fireflies of New England, and learned a lot. Here's a link to one of the posts I read:http://uconnladybug.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/in-appreciation-of-fireflies/.
One of the most important things I learned is that all the species native to my area are carnivores, and that their grubs hunt and eat other grubs and earthworms under our feet in the soil, some for up to two years before hatching into the beetles we call fireflies. As adults all they care about is sex, and they use their glowing tails to attract a mate (except for the sneaky species that eat other lightning bugs by pretending to be mates...).
I wander the garden morning and night this time of year, harvesting crops and squishing insect pests, including Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles and potato bugs (also a beetle). But I always pause before squishing an unknown beetle, tilt my head and look under it's body. If it's back end is pale yellow, it's one of the several species of local lightning bugs, and I say hi and let it be.  Usually the bug will ignore me, unlike the sharp-eyed cucumber beetles, which often drop into the leaf litter before I can squish them. Lightning bugs are distasteful to many predators, and so spend their days unworried,  resting and waiting for the night's show. My pesticide free garden, combined with the field of tall grass beyond, make a perfect place to rest safe from lawnmowers and poison sprays.

Here's a firefly I caught napping on the Jerusalem Artichokes yesterday. I'll see him and his buddies at dusk on the fourth, celebrating their right to light up the night.

How to grow lots of peas

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am a card carrying legume lover. This has been a very productive year for peas in my kitchen garden. Some of that success is due to good weather, but I have also learned some important things about growing peas I'd like to share:

1.) Grow tall varieties if you have room.  Shorter pea varieties are cute, but they are not as productive.  I've grown many pea cultivars, and the most productive have been Mammoth Melting Snow Peas and Miragreen podded peas, by far-- both tall. I couldn't find my leftover Miragreen seeds this March, so I planted Little Marvel, which is a solidly tasty and productive  three foot pea, but nowhere near as productive, delicious and heat  tolerant as Miragreen, which reaches  five feet. And the Mammoth Melting Snow peas have produced a quart a day for the last two weeks-- enough to hand out like zucchini  in August!  They are so tall and heavy that the vines tend to fold over at the top, but they keep on producing. (note: I initially thought Miragreen and MMSP were hybrids, but they are not, they are just superior open pollinated varieties).

2. ) Prep the soil. Manure, deeply dug a month before, makes a difference.

3.) Use inoculant. Yes, it costs $5 every year for a small bag of fresh inoculant, but bacteria are living things, and you need to buy them fresh every year. Legumes make a lot more of their own nitrogen with the help of the bacteria in the inoculant.

4.) Water well in hot weather. Peas like cool weather, but many varieties can survive a short hot spell if their roots don't dry out.

5.) Pick every day. If you don't the plant thinks it has done it's job of reproducing and stops or slows down blooming.

6.) Give them good support. Yes, lots of books say just stick some twigs in the ground for them to climb on. Phooey! That may be quaint but it won't be productive.  Peas need a strong vertical structure  to grow up.  A tall, narrow planting is easy to harvest, especially one you can reach into from multiple sides. And the tall varieties I prefer need lots of support.

7.) Plant peas close together. They don't mind two to three inch spacing!

Pretty simple stuff, but it  usually works.

Here are some pictures of this year's pea crops, in order over time.

Little Marvel:

Mammoth Melting Snow Peas:

And how about some color after all that green.

Amaranth:

And a bouquet from the perennial garden:

Early Haying

I walk Sol by this dairy farm every day.  There is always a beautiful, ever changing view over the fence from the road.  I was struck yesterday by how golden the first cut of hay was- everything has been early this year!