June eats stash

To minimize widget sprawl I'm going to keep these notes to a month and then store them as one entry...Canning and pickling is on deck for next week. Woo-hoo!

• June 30 - okra, cherry tomato, & habanero hash
• June 29 - coleslaw!
• June 25 - Green bean & eggplant pesto
• June 24 - Pork chops with kohlrabi greens, okra, romano beans, garlic, onions, and Hungarian wax pepper
• June 19 - Lamb's quarter & basil risotto
• June 17 - potato salad

Wastrels and the wastey wasters they rode in on...

Maybe I'm getting old.

Maybe I'm getting such an utter head change from being on a downward consumption shift over the past few years that I've gone a bit stodgy.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood.

But SERIOUSLY. There are some college kids I work with who have no sense whatsoever of conservation (prime teaching opportunity, right? If I can be delicate and encouraging rather than ranting like I am right now...)

They turn the thermostat down to 66 degrees. They leave the (single stall) bathroom light on constantly. If we run out of coffee they make a whole new pot, even if it's 4:30 and we close at 5. They leave all the lights on in all the rooms even if they're not in there and won't be (this is the one that makes me feel old and revives the spectre of my dad c. 1982).

And god knows it's not just them. Our neighbors always have gobs and gobs of trash to put out twice a week since they recycle nothing. Most of it doesn't get hauled away since we're only allowed two bins each per pick-up. We barely have enough trash for a once a week haul...I'm just sayin.

A co-worker will have an entire conversation with the door of the refrigerator open while I'm itching to shut it, even though it's being held open...

People drive down our street and gun the motors on their giant-ass pick-ups and SUVs. They do seem to be fading in popularity, but still! Why waste gas that way??

When I worked in the Borders Cafe several years ago I used to have nightmares about all the plastic and paper cups being thrown away. A lot of times people would ask for a double cup instead of using the heat sleeve. I would try ever so casually to encourage people to use the ceramic dishes we could wash and re-use but it rarely got me anywhere. I would imagine stacks of cups stretching to the damn moon...

I know I have things I need to work on - so I'm trying to remember to refrain from judgment and recognize that we're all at different steps on the journey (even if it feels like some people haven't yet packed their bags). So I'll take a deep breath and calm down.

In that spirit here's a confession of what I need to work on to reduce waste:
* stop with the Diet Coke already! Cans and cans, even if they're recycled! Lame!
* get the solar oven thing going, either by homemade option or by buying one. A hot house is lame!
* line dry every time, even if it's 8000 degrees outside. No excuses. Lame!

What do you need to work on? I promise I won't make fun of you.

Please don't kill that bug!

Hello everyone! Hope you're refreshed and enjoying yourself after the 4th weekend. We had a great time relaxing with friends and family. Even snuck in a discussion of peak oil and its ramifications here and there...poolside, no less. Ah, sweet irony.

After my blog on nasty garden bugs, I promised to follow up with this one, which will feature some of the dudes you want to keep around. So if you see these guys, please don't raise your fist or get out your pinching claws. These are the ladies and fellahs who help support your organic jones. Don't kill them!

Now why do they support your organic jones? Because diversity is the key to a healthy garden (and many other things, but we're talking gardens here). If you have a plethora of veggies, foliage, fruit, and bugs they all get to benefit from one another. Multiple plants draw in multiple bugs which helps balance their populations (i.e. they eat each other like mad). This is probably also why mono-cropping organically, particularly on a large scale, is an unlikely prospect. We want riots of color, texture, and variety.

Many of these bugs you probably recognize right off, like the adorable ladybug.

The Lovely Lady Bug

(image courtesy: http://www.allergizer.com/50226711/dealing_with_ladybug_allergies.php)


Fewer Spots
(image courtesy: http://photoalbum.davison.ca/ZhenPhotoDiary/Pages/..%5CPages%5CLadybugs.cfm)


Slightly different shape

(image courtesy: http://www.ent.iastate.edu/imagegal/coleoptera/lady/0156.29cmaculata.html)


Why we really love them - beheading an aphid(image courtesy: http://www.ladybugindoorgardens.com/controls.html)

Ladybugs also come in oranges and ivories, although I haven't seen any ivory ones. Be sure to protect the nymphs and the eggs, too.

Nymph

(image courtesy: http://entomology.unl.edu/images/beneficials/beetles/bene_beetles.htm)

Eggs

(image courtesy: http://www.entm.purdue.edu/entomology/urban/new_urban/misc_photo.html)

Next, of course, is the bee of which there are many varieties. The honeybee is a major pollinator and is also falling prey to a mysterious illness euphemistically called Colony Collapse Disorder, which you can read more about here.

Honey bees(image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/56119072@N00/519742656/)


Get well soon, little fellah!(image courtesy: http://www.carolinabees.com/about/bees/)

If you really want a massively hungry and warlike creature in your garden (a good warlike creature, a scourge, if you will) then be sure to cultivate any and all friendships with these guys:

Hi!

(image courtesy: http://www.mzephotos.com/gallery/insects/praying-mantid-dark-eyed.html)

Praying Mantis(image courtesy: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Praying_mantis_india.jpg)

Mantises eat flies and aphids and the bigger dudes actually have a taste for meat, stalking lizards, frogs, birds, rodents, and snakes! Holy camoley.

Lacewings are a common garden visitor, as well, and someone you want to be friends with. While the adults stick to pollen and aphid honeydew, the larvae are voracious feeders, pigging out on aphids, caterpillars (yes!), beetles, scale insects, leafhoppers, thrips, small flies, mites, and sometimes one another. I guess they're temperamental.

Here's a good website on lacewing activity with loads of pictures.

Adult Lacewing

(image courtesy: http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/pests/ipm1025beneficial.htm)

Lacewing nymph

(image courtesy: http://adlib.ac.uk/adlib/content.aspx?doc=10816&id=10835)

Another keeper is the ground beetle. It eats anything it can catch and kill, including grubs. Hang on to them. They only come out at night and they mind their business. Don't pick them up, though, because they emit a nasty smell.

Ground beetle

(image courtesy: http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2006/5-15/insects.html)

If you're lucky you might spot a robber fly. I saw a couple of these over the past few weeks in the back yard and I didn't know what they were until just now (as of this writing when I found them online!)...they look like mean-ass dragon flies but they eat all sorts of things we prefer not to be bothered with ourselves, such as wasps. Call in the robber flies and avoid the poison sprays! They also eat grasshoppers and other prey as big as themselves oftentimes. Now that's some insect muscle flex!

Call me deadly - Robber Fly

(image courtesy: http://www.visitingnature.com/)

I will eat you!

(image courtesy: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Robber_Fly_1_REFON.JPG)

The tachinid fly does us a favor by laying its eggs on another species, typically caterpillars but also bugs and grasshoppers. The eggs eventually hatch and burrow into said species, basically using it as a food source. Like that giant alien did to humans in the Alien series (Sigourney, I love you!). Very medieval nasty stuff. But hey, in this case, we benefit. There are 1300 species of tachinid fly in North America - mostly they're gray, black, or striped, but they can be hard to distinguish from regular house flies.

Tachinid fly

(image courtesy: http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_tachinids/index.html)

House fly

(image courtesy: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/publications/books/housing/figure_list.htm)

If they're flying around, chances are you won't be able to tell which is which. Moral? Leave 'em be. The other predators and frogs should be able to sort out extras of either species, anyway.

Predatory wasps do much the same thing. You can tell a predatory wasp from a regular wasp because the predator is smaller. The ones I've seen are a slightly orangey color and have small greyish-bluish wings - they remind me of flying tripods, sort of like a cross between a wasp and a fly.I'm not sure if they sting humans, but they haven't ever bothered me (then again, I'm not the sort of person who freaks out when they see a wasp or bee). They eat aphids, whiteflies, and moths, such as cabbage loopers and hornworms. Think small attack drone, specially designed for dangerous reconnoitering missions.

Brachonid predatory wasp predatorizing

(image courtesy: http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1323021)

Eggs on a caterpillar becomes parasite and host

(image courtesy: http://www.texarkanacollege.edu/~mstorey/bugs.htm)

Here are a few more to keep around - be friendly-like...

Assassin Bug - flies, mosquitoes, beetles, caterpillars

(image courtesy: http://kaweahoaks.com/html/assissin_bug.html)


Centipede - slugs, worms, fly pupae(image courtesy: http://ruudvisser.wordpress.com/2007/01/)

Damselfly and Dragonfly - beautiful and voracious, love mosquito tartare and aphids

(image courtesy: http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washington/insects/default.aspx)

Rove Beetle - aphids, springtails, mites, nematodes, slugs, snails, maggots, and compost makers

(image courtesy: http://www.duke.edu/~jspippen/naturephotos/beetles.htm)

The day the Rove beetle larvae met the housefly maggot... (friendship did not ensue)(image courtesy: http://entomology.unl.edu/images/beneficials/beetles/bene_beetles.htm)

Yellow Jackets - caterpillars, flies, beetle grubs (and sting us human folk, too)

(image courtesy: http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/yellow/jacket.html)

Spiders eat more bugs and insects than any other beneficial per year, combined!!! Do watch out for black widows which like to make webs inside stored planting pots.

Spiders are garden heroes!!!

(image courtesy: http://www.spiderzrule.com/superstitions.htm)


Soldier Beetle - aphids, caterpillars, grasshopper eggs, beetle larvae
(image courtesy: http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_beetles/CANTHARIDAE.htm)

Firefly!!! - larvae, snails, slugs

(image courtesy: http://entomology.unl.edu/images/beneficials/beetles/bene_beetles.htm)

So that just about does it...I'm sure there are many more and I thought about including earthworms, which are my personal favorite garden creature. But I think I'll dedicate a whole blog to the precious worm.

In the meantime, please know your bugs. Get to know them. Watch them. See if you can catch them eating. I got to watch a lady bug take down an aphid bite by bite last week - it was amazing! Re-think the use of broad-spectrum pesticides...use diversity to invite good bugs to do your dirty work for you.


Two good websites for more information:

http://www.gardenguides.com/pests/tips/beneficial.asp

http://www.govlink.org/hazwaste/house/yard/problems/goodbugs.cfm

¿Dónde está la freedom?

Freedom...Lately when I hear that word, it comes out in my head in a thickly Te-jas-accented George W. Bush voice, which is sad. I don't want to make a political mockery of such a fine word.

I also think of fierce survivalist types who use freedom to mean more of an anarchical state - no rules, no taxes, the ultimate survival of the fittest (in a heavily armed little shack in the woods).

Then I think about when I was a little kid and freedom was more innocently connoted in my mind. Freedom meant George Washington, and Fromseatoshingingsea, and the Civil War that emancipated slaves.

In A Language Older that Words Derrick Jensen said that with increased awareness comes decreased happiness. When we know too much, it's hard to recapture the easier, blissfully ignorant stage of ourselves that believed in over-arching concepts. I'll show my jaded side and state that the idea of freedom in the US seems skewed to me. So many people hold the idea that we are a meritocracy and that with enough work or sweat equity anyone can do anything. Well, I don't necessarily think that's true - we don't all start out on an even playing field. If we did, I might believe that. But some people grow up in urban wastelands dodging bullets and dropping out to help feed the fam by age 12. Some people have parents who beat them or severely neglect them. Can some people rise out of these circumstances and make something of themselves? Absolutely. As a law of averages, though? No way.

And then, of course, there are a multitude of other freedoms that escape the working class but are the birthright of the wealthy...there are freedoms that are curtailed by political machinations and behind-closed-door-deals with multinationals...there are freedoms that are lost whenever any form of civilization of society is reified in our minds. We've all collectively agreed to play a game and (largely) abide by the rules. Is that freedom?

So maybe I'm trying to go too broad with the idea of freedom. Since I'm having trouble "feeling the freedom" on a national or international scale can I localize freedom? What does local freedom look like? Am I referring to local rules and regs as impediments to freedom or to the freedom I have within my personal sphere of influence or relationships? (I don't know!)

Maybe freedom is a state of mind. Maybe freedom escapes dogma and a rigid set of rules. Maybe freedom is a worldview.

I'm free to love, laugh, garden, kick my heels up, follow the rules I agree with and gently break those I don't (with an understanding of the potential consequences involved...). I'm free to get the sort of education I can afford. I'm free to give the finger to the corporate machine. I'm free to disagree with a political machine (hallelujah, now that's a freedom! I loved the bit about the American flag sticker on Tara's blog).

In that spirit, I'll close with this quote that I saw on the Urban Homestead blog - it's great.

"Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being."

Mohandas Gandhi

To celebrate our freedom, we're doing the most Okie thing we can think of - going to the lake to grill out. Food, family, and fun - that's freedom.

Recette

This was sooooo good that I had to share. Please note that I don't really use recipes so this is rough and tumble and will need your good judgment and flexibility. My cardinal rule is "taste and adjust!"

Butternut Squash over Wild Rice with Habanero Cream Sauce
(*Note: I use "cream" loosely.)

1 Butternut squash, peeled and sliced in rings
olive oil for brushing
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 habanero, seeded, de-veined, and finely minced (use latex gloves or put one hand inside a bag to otherwise protect yourself. Our hab was not incredibly hot or I would have used 1/4 if it was)
6 pcs turkey bacon, chopped
1 tbsp butter
1 can cream of celery soup (or a Bechamel if you have more time than me)
1/4 c organic milk
1/4 c shredded cheese
3 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped
3 c prepared wild rice blend

Brush each side of your butternut squash rings with olive oil. Dust with salt and pepper. Bake for 40 minutes at 365 degrees (I don't know why I turned it to that, but that's what it landed on), flipping once.

Have rice simmering during this time as a wild rice blend can take up to an hour.

Saute onions, bacon, and pepper in butter until the onions are translucent. Add the soup (or your lovely sauce), the milk, and the parsley. Let simmer five minutes or so and remove from heat to thicken. Stir in cheese and allow to melt.

Dish up the rice, top with the squash (cut into smaller chunks), top with sauce. Enjoy!

I had originally envisioned an actual cream sauce with shaved Parmesan or Taleggio. Didn't have any on hand and I'm usually too health conscious to consider using large amounts of cream and butter. Although sometimes you just have to...

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Also, thank you so much to Anajz at The Sustainable Backyard for my fun-to-read award. Anajz, you're so kind! I truly thank you.

I state my case in a graphical way

Wednesday harvest, June 25











Tuesday harvest, July 1









The backyard explodacon...all of the squash your trained eye can squint on these pages is part of a new one world order of squash. It springs huge and monstrous from your compost pile. It takes over the backyard. It produces tons of tasty butternut squash. If you question it, it makes you get a switch. If you cut it, it will deport you. One. World. Order.

RIP broccoli

Garden Notes

Well, things are really exploding out there. The volunteer squash plant that came up in April is e-freakin'-normous. It has run all over the back garden with vines going out in several different directions. I've pulled off two butternut squash so far and it's got several more ready or almost ready. The okra is producing nicely, as well, and I think the cucumbers are getting ready to kick into high gear. Yesterday I pulled my first Amish paste tomato (huge!) and several smaller Golden Queens. Also a bunch of cherries, large and the Mexican Midget variety, and the first (and likely only!) Eight Ball zucchini. Pulled up all the radish pods to dry for seed which cleared out that area nicely - seeding radishes are ridiculous! I will definitely use some sort of staking or caging method if I do that again.

Yesterday I also made a half-assed attempt to turn the compost pile. It seems that when I added the charcoal it really did the trick... all of the leafy and green mass has melted down leaving a pile of smallish sticks I had difficulty "turning." It went from 3 1/2 feet to less than 1 in 3 weeks? Wow. Science is scary!

I also top-dressed the cukes, remaining zuke, burgundy okra, which is still looking spindly compared to its green brethren, and my lovely winter squashes which are looking great. The Jumbo pink banana looks the best, very full and opening blossoms now (planted May 31). The Chicago Warted Hubbard and Black Futsu are both still putting on leaf growth and size but look nice.

For some reason the potatoes haven't given up the ghost yet! They still look strong and healthy despite the high temps. I was under the impression that potatoes are usually harvested when the foliage dies back, typically June in Oklahoma (right?). I grew potatoes twice previously, just a tiny little crop, and it worked on that timeline. Well, these still look great! So until the foliage dies back, they'll be in the corner of my garden, sitting in a giant black tub. I added more soil and compost yesterday to encourage more of those tubers!

I also ordered garlic from Territorial Seeds. I got the Bavarian Purple garlic and the Ontario Purple Trillium garlic, both hardneck varieties. Softneck supposedly stores longer but the Bavarian stores 9 months to a year, so I'm not worried.

Pictures to follow soon!