Odds and Ends

Every summer garden needs some corn in it, right? Man, fresh corn is so good! Throw in some BBQ chicken and a potato salad and you have the quintessential summer meal. So when I ordered seeds this year, I decided to take a gamble and get some corn planted.

Normally I would say that corn needs more space than what we have, but I also know that corn likes being planted in squares for purposes of pollination. So even though my space was limited, I had hoped that my corn-planting experiment would work.

And voilà! I have some ears growing! Hooray! (Seriously, it really doesn't take much to make me happy!)

 Everything else seems to be pretty happy, too. The peppers are going to be ready for picking, soon. I haven't grown this variety, before, but I'm pretty sure they need to turn red before I pick them.

 Predictably, the tomatoes are going nuts. I'm going to have to try my hand at making some mozzarella for a nice caprese salad! There are a bunch of these guys looking like they'll be ready all at once!

The cucumbers are a day or two from harvest, and we're going to have some nice zucchini. I ordered one of those food slicer/shredders to try to make zucchini noodles. (I mentioned the plan to my dad, who quipped, "Sounds awful!" Little does he know!)

Of course, I've been chugging along on my Hallowe'en ceramics, too. 

I've started to inlay the color on my sugar skull jack-o'-lanterns, which will go into the Raku process after they get their first firing. Whenever that happens. 

Tomorrow, I'm supposed to receive my new colors, and I've been delaying inlaying more until I get them, although I'm laying down the second coat on the colors I already have. Meanwhile, I've been making some more pumpkin people for Raku. (You can see the process of making a Raku jack-o'-lantern from start to finish here. I need to make a new video soon, since this was from when I was still with the ex and I don't work in that space any more.)

And last, but certainlay not least, Robert Santos of Necrotic Creations passed away from complications of a massive stroke. He is survived by his partner, Stacy Fitz, the children of his heart, and his parents. He was 52.

Like many people in this country, he had no medical insurance. If you want to help with the medical bills and his final arrangements, please go here and drop a few bones. Even if it's just $20 or even $5, everything helps! (The ambulance, alone, was over $10k!)

UPDATE, JULY 18, 2020:

Robert's internment:
July 27th
10am
Gates of Heaven Cemetery
22555 Cristo Rey Dr
Los Altos, CA 94024
United States

There is a 60 person limit, so anyone who wants to attend can.

Masks are required

There will be a place for flowers

Meet at Gates of Heaven at 9:45

I was lucky enough to know Robert and to spend time with him and Stacy. He was a funny, uplifting, good human being who had a smile for everyone he met. The Hallowe'en community will miss him deeply. Rest well, my friend.

Planting the Garden - Better Late Than Never!

It's been a long time since I've done any gardening. It's one of the things I've missed most since I left Folsom. I've had so much stuff on my plate the last several years, I just didn't have the time to dedicate, let alone the head space.

Now, with Covid-19 potentially causing some of my and my dad's favorite veggies to be a little more scarce, I thought it might be a good time to get my hands in the dirt, again.
 
After consulting with dad about how he wanted it to look, I ordered a kit from Lowe's. It was incredibly easy to put together! The cedar boards just slid right into the pre-cut grooves in the corner pieces and all that was left to do was to fill it with dirt.

Which I ran out of. Dang it! 

I had to wait a few days until I had time to make another Lowe's run and grab a couple more bags of garden dirt. While I was there, I threw in a Sweet Pepper plant to encourage all the rest of the seeds to sprout. "See? Look at how pretty you can become! One day soon, you'll be this big!"

The next thing was to attempt to dog-proof the new planting. Anyone who's a dog owner knows just how wonderfully smelly fresh dirt and fertilizer is to a dog, almost as wonderful as rolling in a pile of stinky horse poop! Grace, my Hell Hound, is no different, and she seems to have the puppy's uncanny knack for getting into precisely the thing she absolutely, under no circumstances, should get into. This would be far too much temptation for her; a messy excavation project would be her first step!

This was a job for dad.

I have to say, my dad is pretty darn gracious about getting roped into my extra projects. It's a pleasant change to have someone who's enthusiastic about getting things done and enjoys the challenge of problem-solving!

He had some short poultry wire lying around, which we measured out and wrapped around some spare wooden posts he cut for the purpose. 

The end product wasn't too shabby!

Of course, Grace decided to just lean her head and neck on the wire to see what kind of dirt she could eat. (Insert eye-roll here.) But I think it will keep her from jumping in until the initial interesting smells die down. That usually only takes a couple of weeks. We're looking forward to all the nifty goodies we'll be getting out of our project, even when I'll have to re-plant some of them due to space!

Meanwhile, in another area of the yard are a few pots I planted with tomatoes, zucchini, and basil. 

I am really looking forward to fresh tomatoes! The store-bought ones are just never as tasty, and the flesh is just too mealy, for lack of a better word.

It occurred to me how lucky I am to still have my dad to enjoy these little afternoon projects with. I get my dry sense of humor from him, and the ability to banter back and forth with him while we were getting this done made the work go easily and with laughter. I really treasure this time with him!

So, what kind of things have you planted?

I Planted That Garden!

About a month ago, I planted a cool weather garden, hoping to get some results before the nights started to get too cold. I tore out the dying tomato plants, the dead lemon cucumbers, the eggplants which wouldn't be able to ripen any more than they had, and I bought a bunch of organic soil amendment to add to the dwindling supply of compost from my compost bin. I also threw in a bunch of chicken manure and bat guano and turned everything in with my turning fork really well before I started planting.

I spent a couple of hours wandering our nursery, sort of basking in the potential. It's this thing I have with nurseries and art supply stores. All the potential! I'm greedy for it, truth be told. And I sort of was on a planting tear (having bought a bunch of plants and pots for the inside of the house, already, focusing on my new Hoya obsession), so I had to reign myself in and remind myself how much space I had to work with for the time being.

So here's the list: several different kinds of lettuce, celery (we make lots of soup), kale, sugar snap peas, cauliflower and broccoli, golden beets, sweet onions, globe artichoke and leeks. We had some marigolds left, and since they attract beneficial nematodes, I decided to leave them in the beds for a bit longer. If they go to seed, I'll have some for next year!

 I also renewed our fresh herbs. Oregano, Italian parsley, chives, tarragon, sage. I added a yarrow plant for the hummingbirds and the bees.

So here we are, a month later, and things have been growing pretty well. I don't think I'll get great results from the peas, though they may surprise me... 

 The lettuce, on the other hand seems quite happy!

Since it got down to freezing this past weekend, I bought some row covers to put over everything at night so I didn't lose my hard work. I picked up some pet-friendly slug and snail killer, too, since we've had some rain and they can decimate a vegetable garden overnight. The row covers are the fabric-looking stuff in front of the beds.

I'm thinking of trying my hand at espalier this spring, and adding a few more boxes to my garden beds. It'll certainly pretty up my fence!

In case you missed it, here's my kitchen garden Pinterest board! Lots of fun ideas for gardening.

The Kitchen Garden

Find this pic here.

One of the other goals I have for the upcoming year is to  get back to gardening more. Honestly, part of me has made this decision because I really don't want to contribute to the upcoming economy more than I absolutely have to. (Don't go there.) 

I've also missed gardening. I haven't grown pumpkins in a few years, and Mr. ShellHawk has taken over growing the tomatoes and other summer veggies. 

This autumn, I cleaned out our raised beds and planted them with cool weather crops. We have several kinds of lettuce, kale, broccoli, leeks, sweet onions, snap peas, beets and cauliflower. The lettuce is almost ready to eat! Yay!

In typical fashion, I dove down the rabbit hole of research for expanding our garden for the spring and summer, and created The Kitchen Garden Pinterest board. If you're interested in gardening next season, it's got bunches of cool books on growing in small spaces, seed collection and storage and food preservation, tools, design ideas, etc. for your perusal. If you click on the books and the tools, it's going to take you to where you can purchase them if you wish to.

My brain has been working overtime on ideas for the garden, I have to say! I do wish I could raise some bees, too, but I know my dogs, and man, is that asking for trouble! I might just grab a bee house, though... And a bat house... And...