Green Ethics; Black Thumbs - Part 2

A few months back I wrote a post about my adventures in patio gardening... This is an update on all of the seedlings that I so hopefully sowed.



The clothespin tells me what is planted in each pot.
Helps me know what died before it sprouted.



I started seeing my seedlings from the second round of seeds almost a month after planting. They spent some time in my living room each day in June. (June in El Paso is the HOTTEST, DRIEST month ever!) You can see a few sticking up (the light spots on the dirt) and a leftover seedling from the previous round ( yellow pot with sad looking plant). I figured I had planted too deeply so I carefully exposed a lot of the tiny leaves from beneath the soil.

From the previous round of seeds, the one to survive, and even thrive, was my lovely Genovese Basil. Packed with spicy flavor and prolific! This plant has supplied me with basily-goodness for several months. Upon my discovery of Vegenaise (YUMMMY!), I began eating tomato-avocado-basil sandwiches weekly. This basil served me well during the hot hot months of summer.

Green!

Ahhh, morning coffee with the plants

I spent a few lovely, non-hot mornings sitting on the porch, soaking in my green patio. The basil is doing great, the lemon tree is photo-bombing from the left, and the basil seedlings are sprouting. I placed them close to the larger successful basil to give them something to aspire to. :-)

The aspiration technique seemed to be working. For several months in the heat of summer, these guys grew and grew.

This yellow pot basil was one of the ones that I had to uncover. It seemed so very grateful and as soon as it got some sun, it grew like crazy!

Here it is only a week later, nestled in with some cilantro. We know my history with cilantro but I never seem to learn. Never Give Up! I stacked the pots because my patio is small but it also served to help retain moisture and made it easier to move everything around to follow the sun.



The little sage plants never did come up. Sage definitely doesn't like the heat. They seemed to wilt beneath the surface. I think I'm still watering them in hopes of a random fall growth spurt.








So to recount - cilantro dies, sage doesn't like heat, Genovese Basil is the shit and grows well, and the lemon tree is hanging in there.

The sad news is that last week we had a wind storm that knocked over my table, breaking my pretty yellow pots in the process. I was able to transplant the basils and they are possibly rallying. I guess their condition should be listed as "stable". The big awesome basil has reached its peak and is now winding down. The base of the stems are browning but new little leaves are still appearing. I'm not sure how much longer that guy will be around.

I'm thinking of fall crops now... spinach, more basil, more sage, possibly cilantro (see, I'll never learn) Any other ideas?

Also, its that time of the year when the hummingbirds are starting to fly by again. I need to get my feeder out and attract these great little guys. I so miss the hummingbirds that were a part of every morning in the Sonoran Desert. Maybe what I need is an ocotillo? They love those.

A List of Random Things You May or May Not Know About Me

• I only need about 10 minutes of Justified-watching before my southern accent comes on thicker than cold molasses.
• Speaking of Timothy Olyphant, can we all just agree that he should only ever wear a wife-beater (look it up!) or appear shirtless?
• If I were a water-molecule on a highway, I'd prefer to be run-over by an AquaTread tire.... the idea of shooting down the middle tread like a flume sounds fun.
• I've been named the VOOP... the official Voice-Of-Organ-Pipe. Call Organ Pipe Cactus NM and listen to the voice on the phone tree. That's me!
• My toes are double-jointed..... freaked out my parents when I was young.
• I love those gross late-night surgery shows that are on Discovery Health.
• I guess you've already read how I have an odd belief that bodies are going to float up beneath me when I'm sitting in a body of water. No? Read it here....
• The first bottle of wine I ever opened was tough to get into but I managed to work the corkscrew. Upon showing my parents the fruits of my labor, they laughed and pointed out that it was a screw-top bottle....
• I love period-films but anything involving amputation scenes is unacceptable.
• Severe Roach Phobia
• I enjoy crosswords mainly because it involves placing letters in tiny neatly arranged boxes
• I can't stand to watch, or be watched, people brushing their teeth. The beginning of Stranger Than Fiction was tough for me.
• If I ever have a child, I want it to be a girl so I can name her after my grandma. Little baby Evelyn... I'm sure I'll regret my desire as soon as she hits her pre-teens.
• One year for Christmas I gave my father a box of bat-shit... he's a gardener.
• And then one birthday, I received my father's ponytail in the mail.
• I was a twirler... and was offered a scholarship for it.
• I'm the first born in my family  



my 1st birthday

• My favorite time of the year is Fall. I love the changing colors on the trees and plants; I love the crisp fall air; I love baking fall treats.
• I broke my foot but demanded a walking cast only because I was planning to visit Big Bend NP and wanted to be able to hike.
• I've recently discovered that most of my travels are to the same places as my grandparents. Very odd...
• I took, and taught, photography in college.
• I busted my tooth on my swingset in elementary school

see the pull-up bar on the left...
it will forever have a dent from my tooth!

• I love architecture!
• I've been vegetarian for many years and am embarking on veganism.
• I was the last of 4 grandchildren to get a tattoo.
• I was pretty terrified of everything as a child. Sometime in high school that all changed and my life of adventure began.
• I've taken road trips my entire life; with my family as a child and with friends, or alone, as an adult.
• I've used the excuse "but I'm from out of town" several times after driving the wrong way down a one-way road.
• I'm named after my mother's maiden name, and I share my middle name with her.
• There are 2 people in my family with my exact name - first and last - and spelled exactly the same.
• I have never mowed a lawn... and i hope that will remain true forever.
• I have eaten lichen.
• I've also eaten guinea pig, snails, and frog legs.
• I developed a pork allergy from a tick in the Appalachian Mountains. True story.
• I wish someone would invent some type of garbage disposal for the shower drain. Someone with long hair - go! Invent! Become a millionaire!
• My favorite movie is 50 First Dates.... followed closely by Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I think its partly because Hawaii is so relaxing, and partly because I'm a mushy romantic at heart.
• I have a huge girl-crush on Pink.

Alright, I feel like this post is becoming an exercise in narcissim, but please excuse me because I'm sick and bored on my couch.

Stalking the Wildest Asparagus

This'll be a really short post. Just wanted to tell you internet folk about the time that C and I went in search of wild asparagus.

I guess it started my first year of working at Capitol Reef, when we got so very used to picking our own fruit off the freaking amazing orchards. This park likes to keep it a bit quiet but growing among the canyon walls are acres of apples, peaches, pears, quinces, mulberries, cherries, and apricots.

How easy the ranger makes it look!

We had so much fruit we had potlucks with all-fruit themes. So much fruit the deer were fat and happy. So much fruit that the orchard furrows literally run with apricot brandy (fermented apricot juice). So much fruit that the campground raccoons spent their nights rolling around the grounds, drunk on apricot brandy, drunkenly running into traffic!

So, the second season we were there, I guess we got a little cocky and went in search of the non-NPS sanctioned wild asparagus. A co-worker told us what area to look in, and with the advice "you'll know asparagus when you see asparagus", off we went.

Stalking the Wild Asparagus!

We walked a mile or so to the alleged asparagus location. It was an impromptu walk so I was in flip flops with no water, in the desert, in May. (Read: hot, uncomfortable, and a bit buggy). C and I wandered into an orchard that we'd never explored and split up, stalking for stalks.

Bolstered by our desire for amazing fresh (free) asparagus for dinner, we combed every inch of the weedy furrowed landscape. After 30 minutes or so, C found what she thought was the asparagus and called me over to consult. Since we should have known it when we saw it, I thought we should keep looking since we didn't know what this was and only the wildest guessing was taking place. However, an hour later, seeing no other asparagus-esque foliage, we headed back to the original suspect and began the harvest.

We probably should have guessed that since it was 3 feet tall and brushy, it was a few years old. But, cocky and hungry, we tugged the thing out of the ground and walked home.

yummmmy, just like store-bought asparagus

After rinsing sand and grit off our crop, C "prepared" the stalks, which included sawing, yes sawing, the things down so they'd fit into the stock pot. Another clue that things weren't right in asparagus-hunting world. Some of the asparagus was simply too tough to saw so we resorted to chewing it, and to general shenanigans. (Famous for our shenanigans, see our 70s party, or stay tuned for our international adventures)

All good asparagus needs to be gnawed on, right?

We managed to get a few measily stalks into our pot, steam them, and sit down for a lovely toddler-tall asparagus dinner. Perfect... yeah right. What really happened was we steamed the crap outta them hoping they'd soften up and after an hour, we were so invested in making this work that we vowed to eat them any damn way we could.

Here's the mental image I want you to create: C and I sitting at the kitchen table, gnawing on brushy tough steamed asparagus lightly seared with garlic and olive oil. We sucked as much asparagus-ness out of each stem before spitting the husks (they can only be described as "husks") into the trash can. We spent the meal laughing at how ridiculous we, and the situation, were.

It was not a very filling meal, but it was free and we did it all by ourselves.

The next day we learned that our asparagus was possibly several years old, nobody could believe that we'd messed it up that bad, and the good week-old asparagus was in the DITCH next to the orchard. Thank you, coworkers, for leaving out that tidbit....

Where was YouTube when we needed it!