The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Late apple harvest

I’ve always looked on the bright side.

I mean, so what if we’re all going to perish in the downward spiral of climate change, at least we’ll be eating some yummy apples and pie along the way.

So, I just harvested my last apples, yep, I did. They were still hanging on the tree in January so I picked them off. I thought they were going to be pithy and dry and tasting of cardboard.

I have large hands, so that is one big puppy.

But they weren’t, they were crispy and juicy and as big as grapefruit. 

I planted the tree 2 ½ years ago at my mom’s house. I bought it bare root—one of those 5-in-1 grafted multivariety trees.

Here’s the first apple pie I made from the last harvest of these incredible apples. I’ll be making the next one tomorrow.

That apple pie is gone now of course, it lasted about 12 1/2 minutes.

This is my recipe for Apple Pie filling:

Peeled and sliced apples, enough to mound up in a pie plate.

(I’m not good at measurement stuff)

½ cup brown sugar

3 tbsp flour

1 tsp. cinnamon (I don’t like cinnamon in apple pies very much)

½ tsp cardamom (I like the combo of these two spices)

Toss the ingredients together.

Throw into a Trader Joe’s piecrust and bake for 425 for 8 min.

Reduce to 325 for at least 1 hour.

Make sure the pie is bubbly when you take it out of oven.

 

Let cool out of reach of pet dogs.

Do you want the rest of that?

They’re Back.

Two years ago I was passing our outdoor porch stairway when I noticed that the storage area underneath’s doors were open.

No, the doors weren’t just slightly ajar; they had been flung wide open from the inside by a bunch of intruders, mushroom intruders!

The fungus invaders disappeared a few weeks later but a couple weeks ago it was deja vu all over again. 

There I was again, minding my own business and walking past our stairs—and there they were again, just sitting there…mocking me.

This time there are more of them.

At first it was interesting and entertaining, but this time they are freaking me out a little. I have thoughts that they are trying to get into my house and that their presence under the outside stairs is just meant to distract me. 

I’m afraid that late at night some time soon I’ll wake up, go into the bathroom, lift the toilet seat and…there they’ll be…

...Ahhhh!

Green Fountain

My friend Jennifer planted her fountain and made this beautiful succulent sculpture.

It is magnificent. Think about it. Here’s a way to save on electricity and water. It’s a green fountain in more ways than one.

I saw something like this a couple of years ago at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. It was my favorite thing there.

Since then I was lucky enough to find my own fountain (for a small sum) to turn into living art.

My fountain scavanged off Craigslist next to my urn

I have tried to use it as a fountain but it leaks and splashes and the pumped get plugged up. Really the only ones that benefit from that fountain are the mosquitoes.

And we all know that they suck. Sorry, I couldn’t stop myself. 

So, this spring, guess what? 

Yep, I’ll be following in Jennifer’s footsteps and filling in the mosquito village with dirt and plants and maybe even an alligator head or two.

 

It all started with the flu.

What used to be my lawn

The day my husband left town, I came down with the flu that I thought I had dodged weeks earlier when my kids had it. But oh no, it lurked in my system until when I needed to be healthy the most.

While the sickness was ravaging my body and my mind, my gardener stopped by to ask me if I wanted him to fertilize my lawn.

I thought at the time that it was kind of a silly question. Of course I want you to fertilize my lawn. It looks bad. It looks like hundreds of dogs have been cavorting on it.

Because they have. 

Now, when my gardener told me he was going to fertilize my lawn I was thinking he would mow it and walk back and forth on my lawn with one of those plastic seed spreader things with the windy handle on the side and some of that plant food pellet stuff in it.

Well then he said he also wanted to reseed my lawn and of course you know what I thought: That ol’ seed-spreader contraption was going to be pulling double-duty with the seeds and the plant food. 

Sure, I’m down with that Antonio, sprinkle away, but right now I need a couple swigs of Nyquil, a Benadryl, and I need to wash it all down with a shot of brandy.

Then he stopped me and told me he really wanted to do it right this year. He wanted to cut my lawn really short, then aerate it, then seed and fertilize it. 

Wow, I thought, that sounds good. “Yeah Antonio, you go and give my lawn the works” and I’ll go feed my head.

“Ma’am, did you want me to sprinkle some dirt on the seeds so the birds don’t eat them?” This was the pivotal moment. All my addled brain could muster was an image of Antonio sprinkling handfuls of dirt from a bag over the seeds he had sprinkled earlier on my lawn. 

So I said “Sure, that sounds fine.” I turned and headed to my house and the long set of stairs to my Nyquil, my Benadryl, and my brandy. 

And fell asleep.

I awoke with a start and noticed the long shadows across the yard. I went to the window to look at my lawn…WTF…My lawn had been replaced with what looked like the LaBrea Tar Pits. 

The view from my window of what used to be my lawn.

I stumbled down my stairs and out my door to my landscaper’s truck, which was backed up onto my lawn dumping its last load of STEER MANURE.

Last I checked, steer manure does not equal dirt. 

Luckily I was there in enough time to stop Antonio from putting Steer manure on the lower lawn. 

My neighbors are now not speaking to us because the odor of steer poop is holding them hostage inside their homes. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

It will be interesting to see what happens when my house fills up with dogs and it rains.

Poppy Fair Farm

Nurseries are like crack to me.  Throw in some bluegrass music,

cute goats, 

wonderful vending booths with native plants,

great art,

hand made soaps,

specialty plants, home made beauty products and jewelry, beautiful original paintings, and cool crafts then you have Poppy Fair Farm.

 

And Happiness.

My friend Erin, who owns Native Revival Nursery in Aptos, put on her first annual Poppy Fair Farm last Saturday. I went over to be a part of the festivities, and they did not disappoint. There was something for everyone—and their five senses.

The bluegrass music—banjo, mandolin, guitar, and bass fiddle—was particularly good. 

When Erin was asking for information from the lead in the bluegrass band, Jimmy Chickenpants, for the poster, this is what he said: 

"Some people make the mistake of spelling Chickenpants as 2 words. That's just plain wrong"

 

Perfect.

Canker is an ugly word

Fallen apples on the ground, rotting and mocking me

At first it’s really exciting and fun making all those apple pies from your very own apple tree, then, pumpkins come along and bump apples out of the way in the pie department and oops, some of those little apples fall to the ground. 

I run by them on my way back and forth dropping my kids at school, picking up and dropping off dogs, shopping, running, gardening, biking, blah, blah, blah. 

I finally get a moment to myself. I make a delicious cup of coffee and walk to my front porch, take a deep breath of the clean autumn air and look around, awwhhh, it would be perfect if it wasn’t for those damn apples sitting there on the ground in front of me. 

They would still be sitting there too if I hadn’t read about Brown Rot and the evil “canker.” 

A word that anyone in his or her right mind would want to avoid. A canker means necrosis, ulcerous thrush, and inflammatory parasitic infection, open lesion an oozing sore. 

How do you avoid the word canker?

Please, for the love of malignant infection, clean up your rotting apples.

 

This is the End...of the Tomato Season

I mentioned this song, “The End” in my last post.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby

Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold

The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we'll do the rest

The blue bus is callin' us
The blue bus is callin' us
Driver, where you taken' us

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...

Then he paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside

~ Jim Morrison

This is not the end of the song but I decided to stop there because it gets a skosh violent.

People end their tomato season in many different ways. I like to end my tomato season by singing “The End” by Jim Morrison and the Doors, harvesting all my viable tomatoes and making a big vat of sauce.

I try to freeze the sauce but I usually end up using it all up before I can.

Now, Jim Morrison originally wrote “The End” about breaking up with his girlfriend, but as he performed the song over and over again he started to add to it and this is what he eventually said about it’s meaning:

“I really don't know. I think it's sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be."

I like to think it’s a song about the end of my tomato season.

 

Men In Make-Up, Mountain Lions And Marijuana

A few days ago I received two phone calls from my neighbors then ran into a third neighbor who mentioned the same thing: A mile up the road from my house were two Game Warden vehicles and out of the vehicles came 8 or more men dressed in camo from head to toe.

These men were even wearing camouflage face paint and were carrying very large assault rifles. 

They unloaded from the trucks and disappeared into the bushes and down a steep trail where I have never seen a human go before. 

I’d seen a coyote and two rattlesnakes go down that trail, but never a human. 

All three neighbors asked the same thing: What do you think these camouflaged, gun-toting guys are doing running down a trail where people usually don’t go? 

Well, I thought to myself, you have come to the right person because I have my figure on the pulse of this mountain. I am “in the know.” 

To each and everyone my reply was the same. I told them that I heard there had been a pot farm bust the week before at a different location on the mountain and that this was probably a continuation of the same operation.

All three of my neighbors reply was the same. “Are you sure they’re not going to shoot the lions? They were in Game Warden trucks?” 

“Nay-nay” said I.

They wouldn’t go to all the trouble to shoot a couple of lions that hadn’t hurt anyone.

My neighbors breathed sighs of relief and went about their day. Except one. I’m not going to mention her name because she is a friend and I wouldn’t want to make her look bad.

She called a few minutes later and said that she’d been told that the game warden and his posse were there to shoot the lions. 

What! 

My mind was spinning. I was angry. How could they? 

The lions hadn’t hurt anyone.

I needed to do something and I needed to do it fast. I had to stop eight burly guys with semi-automatic weapons from shooting my beloved lions.

So I looked down at the fluffy white poodle I was dog sitting and sprang into action. I threw little Chloe along with Moondoggie in my car and drove up the mountain.

Chloe on my lap

The Game warden trucks were parked along the road at the hairpin turn, a turn I call The Bay Tunnel. I was shaking with anger when I parked my Volvo station wagon behind one of the extended cab, Eddie Bauer green 4wd trucks and jumped out of my car in to the dirt shoulder.

I started around the trucks to the narrow path. The path I had never seen any human go down. But I was going down it wearing my Cole Hahn strappy sandals and my yoga pants.

“Excuse me, Excuse me, Hey, is there is anyone one there? Don’t shoot me.”

“Is anyone around, hello?” I yelled to the camo game warden and his crew. 

I had relocated two rattlesnakes to this very path and the last time was hiking in yoga pants near rattlesnakes well, all I can say is—Sixty-Six Vials Of Antivenin.

I started to get stickers in the bottom of my yoga pants and I looked down to see a fine layer of dust over my Boca Raton Pedicure and my Cole Hahns. 

I had visions in my head or stripping down to my undies and swinging through the trees holding a spear, a la Avatar.

I could hear the Door’s song, “The End,” playing in my head as I saw myself slowly ascending from the bottom of a pond in front of the Game Warden and his team of killers dressed in my own, more fashionable camo make-up, with a knife between my teeth.

Then… 

A wild berry vine looped over my foot and scratched my ankle so I turned back.

Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup—With Too Much Flavor

My son waiting for his mac and cheese

Here’s THE LIST of food my 12-year-old will eat:

• Mac and cheese (the kind from a box)

• Hamburger with ketchup ONLY (he won’t eat turkey burger)

• Cheese pizza (must be homemade)

• Pork potstickers (ONLY from one particular Japanese restaurant)

 

That is his entire food repetoire. His list hasn’t changed for about nine years. He uses all sorts of excuses to describe why all the other food in the world just doesn’t work for him. Like:

 

“It’s too salty.”

“It’s too sweet.”

“It’s tastes weird.”

“It’s too hard.”

“It’s mushy.”

“That’s gross.”

“It makes my nose itch.”

“It makes my lips tingle.”

“It makes me fart.”

“It makes me burp.”

“It hurts my tongue.”

 

Whatever.

 

I gave up a long time ago.

Well, that’s not true, it just doesn’t bother me the way it used to.

 

So I made this killer tomato soup the other day, what with the end of tomato season and all and with tomatoes coming out my hoohaa.

 

I served my son a bowl and this was his critique:

“Mom, this soup is really good, and I would eat it, but it just has too much flavor.”

 

Just shoot me.

 

Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup—With Too Much Flavor

3 T olive oil

1-2  small/medium white onions

1-carrots peeled chopped

2-3 cloves garlic - minced

Handful basil - julienned

3 cups homemade tomato sauce

1 cup roasted small tomatoes (I used pear tomatoes)

course salt

2 cups chicken stock

½ – ¾ cup half and half

Sauté onions and carrots until tender

Add minced garlic and sauté for 1 minute (don’t let it brown or burn)

Add the tomato sauce, the roasted tomatoes, the basil and the chicken stock.

Cook over medium/low heat stirring frequently until carrots are

very tender.

When everything is cooked through, use an immersion blender to make the soup smooth.

Then add the half and half, warm it back up add the salt to taste Serve it with a sprig of basil floating on top. 

Here is the part where I take a picture of the soup and make it look delicious. But I forgot to take the picture and we ate the soup so here's a different photo:

 

BTW Gerard Butler is filming a movie in Santa Cruz and I'm looking for him so if you know someone who knows him, tell him I make great tomato soup.

My kids (well at least one of them) like to eat my soup with these cheesy biscuits that I make but you could serve it with any kind of cheesy bread.

Happy Ending For Lunch and Dinner

My friend Ruth asked what finally happened to the roosters, so here’s their story:

Here is the reasons why I couldn’t keep the chickens.

When we first took the roosters in, people asked, “Why can’t you keep them?”

I even had someone tell me to keep them because ‘they’re fun.’ I couldn’t smell alcohol on her breath but then I remembered you can’t smell hallucinogens.

Roosters? Fun? Sure, why not, if you like big birds waking you up at dawn, slashing at you with their spurs, and trying to peck your eyes out, they are a barrel of laughs.

Even if I wanted to keep the merrymaking roosters—I can’t—see?

  My dog stood like that for fifteen minutes straight just waiting for their cage to disappear.

So, as much as I wanted to keep those amusing roosters, a nice man named Richard adopted them. He picked them up two days ago and took them home to be with his family of hens to make pretty babies.

I want to believe that Richard didn’t eat them. The reason I think he didn’t eat them is that when I asked him if I could take a picture for a story I was writing, instead of telling me that he was in the witness protection program, and holding a folded newspaper in front of his face, he agreed and posed happily.

  Note my dog still hoping for lunch and dinner

Before the roosters left, I gave them names. I named the one on the right, Lunch, and the one on the left, Dinner.

Bye-bye, Lunch and Dinner.