Irrelevant and Odd Thoughts

Adventures In Gardening, Part II

2005-08-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

My mother and grandparents always had a garden. As a child, gardens are interesting and fun. Playing in the dirt while planting seeds or seedlings; picking (and eating!) fresh strawberries, raspberries, or stringbeans; smelling that distinctive tomato plant smell combined with your own sweat after working to tie them up to stakes with old rags. This year, I have created my first vegetable garden as an adult. I have learned many things.

My biggest lesson to date involves tomatoes.

When picking the tomato varieties for my garden, I pick varieties that produced striped, purple, and white fruit. These types were labeled as being indeterminate. Not knowing what that meant, I did additional research and found out that there are two different types of tomatoes, determinate, and indeterminate. The simplest way to explain the difference between the two types is that determinate tomatoes stop growing once they product flowers, indeterminate tomatoes don’t. Even with this knowledge, I didn’t quite believe the 3’ to 5’ spacing requirements listed in the planting instructions. As I had read that raised bed gardening could support greater plant density, I planted them only 2’ to 3’ apart. Hah. By early July, the plants had tripled their size in a week. Reading the vegetative portents, I anticipated the worst.

Instead of relatively compact four-foot high plants that are characteristic of determinate tomatoes, I now have these six-foot and more sprawling monstrosities that have a tentacular reach over the rest of my garden. I have to prune and re-tie and re-stake regularly. I dread heavy rains as they cause fruit-laden vines to slump across the aisles into my peppers and squash. I peer anxiously through the twining stems, hunting for ripening fruit amidst the jungle of leaves. I note with fascinated interest the vines rooting themselves in the bark-mulch that separates my raised beds.

Next year, I will make sure that each plant has its own acreage to grow. For now, I am off to wield my machete. Wish me the best.

Adventures in Gardening

2005-07-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

One day, while checking on the health and well-being of my vegetables, I discovered an odd pale salmon-colored growth in my garden. The irregularly shaped blob had a texture similar to uncooked pancake batter, and covered a twelve inch area that spanned the side of a garden bed and the bark-mulch covered ground. Poking it with a stick, I saw it ooze blood red liquid. Further digging into the growth revealed powdery bright yellow and dark brown colored inner layers. Caught between a mixture of curiosity and disgust, I quickly trowelled it up and tossed it out.

The next day, I noticed several bright yellow patches on the bark mulch paths that ran between my garden beds. In the spirit of adventure, I decided to leave them alone and let nature (if it indeed was nature and not some refugee from a Dean Koontz book) take its course.

Within 24 hours, they had turned into the salmon-colored growth, complete with pools of the blood colored liquid collected in the dimples of its surface. Truly curious now, I did some research and discovered that this growth is called Fulgio septica, or more appropriately, Dog Vomit Slime Mold. Non-toxic to animals or humans, this slime mold indeed does look like a pile of dog vomit. It feeds on the carbon found in decaying wood, aka bark mulch, can be mildly mobile, and tends to surface in hot, humid weather. Further research revealed that slime molds were the inspiration for the 1958 science fiction movie, The Blob

So, in addition to the bumper crop of tomatoes, squash, beans, broccoli, and lettuce I am getting and anticipating for my first garden, I can now add Dog Vomit Slime Mold to the list.

Other links:
Slime Molds

Flies

2005-07-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

The other hot and hazy summer evening, my husband came home with a black plastic trash bag held high in his hand. Our two Leonberger dogs leaped up and started intently sniffing him, and the bag.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A present for me,” he replied. Considering he just came back from karate, I was a bit befuddled as to what type of present he could have. “From Mr. Smith,” he further clarified as he pushed the dogs away from his prize.

I grew uneasy. Mr. Smith is a very nice older gentleman we know through karate, who happens to own his own taxidermy shop.

Pushing aside the dogs, my husband opened the bag. He pulled out a black furred pelt. One end of that pelt had a wrinkled, clawed paw that clearly identified it as bear. He pulled out another. This was a whole rabbit skin, including feet and a sewn up face. A musty faintly camphor like smell spilled out of the bag and drove our dogs into greater snuffling intensity.

He pulled out another reddish furred skin (fox), several other unidentifiable pieces, and another partially sewn tan short furred pelt. This last was a deer, face and all. Little threads could be seen where the nose, eyes, and ears were. The dogs were evidencing paroxysms of joy, poking their noses into each remnant. My husband put his hand into the pouch formed by the sewn face and proceeded to make a deer puppet. He then went to show our daughters, who, not unexpectedly, screamed in disgust.

“Apparently, Mr. Smith just found out that I tie my own flies”, he called over his shoulder to me, as our male dog bounded at his side, hoping to get more of that wonderful smell.

Now I understood why my house now had these pieces and part of various dead animals.

My husband is an avid fly-fisherman, one who gladly will wake up at 4:00am to ensure he is waist deep in a river at the right place at the right time to catch the rising trout. Part of his fly-fishing obsession includes tying his own flies. As a result, he has a workstation littered with supplies, including hooks, threads, and bits of various animal skins and bird feathers that are used to build mimics of insects that trout feed on. I am told that natural materials such as feathers or fur make the best flies as the inherent nature of the feather or fur makes it behave better in the water. Sure. So when Mr. Smith the taxidermist learned that my husband tied his own flies, he decided to pass on a number of his ‘extras’ so to speak.

My husband is happy. The dogs are still thrilled. I am not so sure