Flower Boxes

For years, we’ve been fighting a neighborhood thief who, each spring, steals some of my flowers. Whoever it is digs them up at the roots and just takes them away. That crime has always baffled me completely because:

1. Flowers like that are $1.50 for a six-pack
2. You will likely kill them doing that (they left too much root behind, and the shock alone is terrible)
3. WHO STEALS FLOWERS?!?!?!

Seriously…. It makes no sense.

So now I’m completely baffled. Someone stole our flower boxes. Yep, the whole thing. Two of them.

We’ve had these wooden flower boxes for about five years now. Each spring we plant pansies in them. For summer, we do whatever we fancy that year, such as petunias, snap dragons, marigolds, and so forth. In the top, we have a solar light in each for a nice little touch.

Honestly, they’ve been a defining feature of our house for five years, but here’s the kicker… the wood in the boxes is rotted through, the lights haven’t worked in three years, and the soil is old and sterile. I was actually going to throw them away at the end of the season and replace them with something new.

If they had asked, I would havegiven them away. Seriously. But no, they stole them.

Sigh…. We do love our little home in our little neighborhood, but Courtney said it best yesterday when she pointed out that it isn’t so much the fact that they were stolen as it is the fact that you try to make the neighborhood beautiful for the benefit of all and someone comes and steals it for the benefit of the one.

Yes, we will replace them with something nice and heavy. It’ll probably be a poured cement box that I will mortar in place to make it “steal proof.” And whoever stole them, enjoy. I worked a long time on those boxes, and they brought me happiness. As you sit by them and enjoy the flowers, I hope you taste the ash of your misdeed. Some day, when that has burned in your soul long enough, don’t bother coming to me for forgiveness. I’ve already forgiven and forgotten.

Now where did I put those pressure-sensitive landmines….

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Killing Grape Hyacinths (Muscari)

Just a message of hope for all you fellow Grape Hyacinth Haters out there (and ohhhh how I hate them….).

I’ve been fighting them for four years now, carefully pulling each bulb one by one. My front yard is now on year two of being totally clear. The backyard is on year three. I still have a narrow strip back by the hives that has a few, but I’ve been doing serious battle on those and expect to be completely free next year.

It can be done!

Happily, the driveway between my lawn and my neighbor’s lawn, which is infested, has served well enough to block further spreading my way.

I still have not found a poison that effectively controls them unless the bulbs are very shallow. If they are shallow, a standard weed killer tends to work well enough. Whenever I pull a particularly nasty shovelful of earth, I’ll sometimes soak the hole with week killer to get any bulbs that were left behind before filling the hole with clean soil. It seems to work quite well.

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Dave’s Gardening Corner: Update on Killing Grape Hyacinths

It’s been almost three years since I last posted on my war with the grape hyacinths (aka Muscari). Time for an update.

The good news is that my front yard has now been almost grape hyacinth free for a full year. I have painstakingly gone through and pulled each and every bulb by hand. Last year, I found maybe ten bulbs total, which I immediately removed and killed. My back yard had a total of two bulbs, which met a similar fate.

I have a long strip along the parking area in my back yard that is infested, however, and last Saturday I began that war. My guess is that I pulled close to a thousand bulbs, most in very tight bunches that came out of the  ground in fistfuls. I will have some more work to do back there, but I have full expectation of winning that particular battle in the coming weeks with the occasional grape hyacinth surviving until next year.

That strip connects to a small field behind my house that is literally overrun with the stupid things. I’m half-tempted to install a plastic barrier about 12 inches down that will stop them from spreading my way. It won’t take care of the seeds themselves, but I can battle those one-on-one. I could also be convinced to spray a heavy dose of ground kill on the areas closest to my property….

In the front yard, the source of the problem (two houses down) is a total loss. Sadly, the house between us gave up as well. He decided to go the weed killer route, and I can now attest from personal experience that it doesn’t work. His lawn is spotted with sprouts. As much as I can, I make small efforts to help him by pulling bulbs, but there’s only so much I can do without digging holes throughout his lawn.

The only good news is that there is a driveway between my lawn and his. Hopefully it is enough to keep them at bay.

Remember, if you choose to plant grape hyacinths, I will do my best to resist raining fire and brimstone down on your lawn, but I can’t promise you anything.

You’ve been warned.

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Dave’s Gardening Corner: Moss Rose

I always try to do something different every year just to expand my horizons so to speak. This year, Courtney and I settled on Moss Rose, an adorable ground cover with thick, waxy leaves and large red, purple, and yellow blossoms. We chose this flower specifically for the climate it prefers and the weed control.

Moss rose does very well in hot and dry areas as well as in poor soil, so they make ideal flowers for rock gardens, dry corners, and next to hot walls, driveways, or sidewalks. In our case, we planted them over our now dead tulips and daffodils. They don’t require much water either, which is a good thing.

I’ll let you know how they go.

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Canning Tomatoes and Tomato Juice

We are finally done with canning for the season. We ended up canning 18 jars of juice total, though we have probably another 150 to 200 tomatoes sitting on the vine right now. We’ll be using the rest to make home-made salsa as well as donating large quantities of tomatoes to family, friends, and neighbors. We’re already the neighborhood self-pick farm for tomatoes it seems, and that’s fine. I rather enjoy sharing the bounty of our harvest.

Speaking of bounty, our tomatoes continue to be quite prolific. Courtney found a huge branch yesterday that finally broke under its own weight. We’re hoping the tomatoes on that vine get enough sustenance to continue to grow, but if not, there are plenty others.

A friend asked for our recipe for canning tomato juice, so here it is:

Home-canned Tomato Juice

You need some basic equipment, as follows:

• Several large pots for boiling tomatoes
• One really large pot for boiling the jars
• Enough jars to handle your tomatoes (I found that it was about 2 to 3 pounds of tomatoes per quart jar)
• Lids and rings for your jars
• A canning colander and something to mash the tomatoes (we have a big wooden dowel that came with the colander)
• Pitchers to hold the juice
• A large bowl to catch the juice from the colander
• Lots of hands to do a host of dishes

Prep and boil the tomatoes

Wash the tomatoes and remove the stems. Cut them into quarters and throw them into the large pots. Add just enough water to keep them from being scorched (a cup should do it), and boil them until they are soft and mushy (about 10 to 15 minutes). You can tell when they are done because the juice starts boiling high in the pan (you’ll know what I mean).

Juice the tomatoes

Pour the boiled tomatoes into the colander and smash them through. The colander should have small enough holes that it catches anything of any size from the seeds on up. If you like your tomato juice a little thicker, smash until you have little left but the skins in the colander. Repeat this process until you’ve juiced all the tomatoes, pouring the juice into a large pitcher for temporary storage.

Sterilize the jars, caps, and lids

In the meantime, sterilize enough quart jars to handle your tomatoes (again, 2 to 3 pounds of tomatoes per quart). You can sterilize them best using a dish washer, but if you don’t have one, take a cookie sheet or cake pan, add an inch of water or so, and place the jars upside down on the pan. Boil the water. The steam will enter the bottles and sterilize them. You can also boil the jars in the largest pot, but that takes time and can be difficult to manage.

At the same time you are sterilizing the jars, sterilize the caps and lids in a pan of boiling water. Once the jars and lids are sterilized, it is very important that they stay that way, so no touchy except on the outside of the jars.

Prep and fill the jars

Before pouring tomato juice in the jars, add 1 TBSP of lemon juice to each jar and 1 TSP of salt. This recipe gives the juice a slightly tart taste that I really enjoy. My dad mentioned that he’s slipped a jalapeno in as well, but, well… that’s my dad for you.

Fill the jars with juice up to the top of the neck but below the threads for the lids. If you don’t have enough to fill all the jars, even the levels out and add a little water to get the right level. Carefully wipe down the lips of the jars with a damp cloth or paper towel. You need to remove any material there because that will affect the seal. Using tongs, pick up a cap and place it on the jar. Grab a lid and tighten it down hand-tight.

Boil the jars

Place the jars in the biggest pot so that they do not hit each other (they tend to vibrate when they are boiling). My parents use a rack that holds the jars in a specific spot slightly off the bottom of the biggest pot. Fill the pot with hot water so that the jars are completely covered and set it to boil. Once it starts boiling, boil for 40 minutes.

When they are done, carefully pull the jars out of the water and place them on a thick towel. We’ve burned our table despite placing our jars on a towel and hot pads, so make sure to take steps to protect your table/counter. Also, it’s important that the area stay draft free. A draft will cool the outside of the glass too quickly and will shatter the bottles. And believe me, there is nothing like scalding hot tomato juice cascading off the counters when there are kids around.

You need to let the jars sit for at least 12 hours, but you should quickly start hearing the satisfying pops of the jars being sealed. After they’ve cooled, check the caps. If the caps are tight, the seal is good and you can store the jars. If not, the seal was broken and you should be able to re-can the juice by starting over from scratch. If, after several days, a seal is popped, the jars were contaminated and the juice is bad. Throw it out.

And there you have it. We found that it took us about 2 hours to can 6 jars (not counting the final boiling time). Certainly a lot of work, but nothing tops home-canned tomato juice. My favorite recipe is to make macaroni and add the juice with a heavy sprinkling of cheddar cheese. I’ve been known to sneak a touch of chili powder in as well, and my parents always added hamburger when we were kids. Tasty.

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Invasion of the Killer Tomato Plants and Canning Tomatoes

I’m not sure what I did, but we have tomato plants to rival any other tomato plant anywhere. Before their mass collapsed the sturdy cages I bought for them, two of them were approaching six feet tall and over 6 feet in circumference. When the cages first started to collapse, I attempted to brace them up by tying them off to the brick columns on the front of my house, but even that has failed. Now, we just have this mass o’ tomatoes hanging off the front of my house.

It’s really kind of weedy looking to tell the truth, but the smell is incredible.

But the best thing is that it is now officially the start of harvest, and we’ll be canning our first tomatoes this weekend. I prefer tomato juice, so we’ll go that route. My closest estimate is that we have around 300 to 400 tomatoes actually on the vine at this point, so I’m hoping for at least 40 quart jars of tomatoes. To tell the truth, I have no idea how to do it, which brings me to the second half of my post.

I did an extensive search on the Internet to try and find instructions on making tomato juice. The only stuff I ever found that was even close was a site that wanted me to purchase “a system” including “equipment, instructions, and so forth.” Uh… No thanks. If it comes down to having to go that route, I have something far, far better than the Internet.

I have mom.

My mother has canned tomato juice as long as I can remember, and this weekend we’ll make a pilgrimage down to grandma’s house to be fully trained, instructed, and indoctrinated. It sounds so delicious, and I can’t think of anything better to do this weekend than stand in a hot, steamy kitchen canning tomatoes with my mother and family. Really.

Besides, moms are always better than Google.

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Dave’s Gardening Corner: Too much praise lately

I must be doing something right with my flowers….

In the past month, I’ve had around half a dozen daffodils, a handful of tulips, and now, just last night, two of my best pansies stolen from my garden.

I don’t understand where the lack of respect for other people’s property comes from, but I’m getting tired of it. I spend my money and time growing those flowers, and I treasure them. But more than that, having these things stolen really steals my own comfort in my home and the security of it all.

It’s not funny. It’s not cute. And I personally hope there’s a very special place in hell for people who do this.

See… Now I’m angry.

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Dave’s Gardening Corner: Repairing a concrete wall

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted in this particular series, and to be honest, I wouldn’t be posting if I didn’t find myself needing to repair a concrete-faced gravity wall.

We built the wall about two years ago to prevent the tenants in the parking lot next door from parking on our lawn. Apparently, now we need to train them not to park in our wall as well. Someone, who didn’t come talk to us about the accident (GRRRR!!!), hit the wall and pushed about a three foot section out of place. To be honest, they are lucky they didn’t bring the wall down on their car, although I would have had a moment of perverse satisfaction if they had. And this comes with the discovery over the last two days that someone has been stealing my beautiful daffodil blooms.

Sigh….

I’m just not sure what happened to honesty anymore. And respect for other people’s property.

Anyway, to repair a wall like this or any brickwork for that matter, the first thing is to remove the offending bricks. Often times, the bricks can be reused if they are not shattered (ours are not), but you’ll need to clean the old mortar off the bricks or, in our case, remove the vinyl concrete facing around the edges so that you have space in which to work.

Step two is to repair the surrounding area by either adding additional mortar or shoring up edges. Replace the bricks in the wall and re-mortar them in place. In our case, we’ll rebuild the gravity wall and then reface using the vinyl concrete.

It’s really not a difficult task but maybe a little time consuming if you’ve never worked with brick before. Personally, if you are talking about a foundational or structural brick, I would never attempt to do this on my own. There are other things involved with repairing that kind of brickwork that really needs to be handled by a professional.

As for us, we’ll be adding this repair job to our Saturday list this coming weekend, and I’ll be placing a short letter on all the doors of the apartment complex next door asking whoever it was to come forward and at least offer to help with the repair. I just don’t understand how someone can cause that kind of damage and just walk away.

Take some responsibility for yourselves. Honestly.

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Dave’s Gardening Corner: Highest Praise

One of my blogging buddies (Authorias, aka Messagehawk) once said something to the effect that you know you’ve written something well when it becomes worthy of stealing. I suppose that probably applies to plants too. Well, apparently I’ve done something right.

I’ve always had the worst luck with marigolds, but recently one of my hopefuls really took off. It had four or five really large blooms and was quite a beautiful plant. It’s the only marigold I’ve ever grown well. In that sense, it was very, very special to me. I’ve tried to grow marigolds for years now without success until that one.

This morning, it was gone.

To whoever stole my marigold, know that you took something I valued. If it was really more important for you to have it than I imagine I would have given it to you anyway. I assume you potted it and put it inside, and I wonder if you realize that you’ve killed the plant. Not only do marigolds stink, but looking at the shallowness of the hole you dug, you left all the roots behind. In the next two days, the flowers will wilt and die, and if you don’t cut it back severely, the plant itself will die.

I try not to take satisfaction out of the fact that you will not enjoy this plant, but it is hard. It’s quite ironic that the only way you’ll ever enjoy it is to cut it back and grow it yourself. Don’t worry, I’m sure you can do it. It only took me two years of trying, and you’ll enjoy it a lot more when you’ve done the work yourself. Trust me.

Oh, and the next time I catch you in my garden…. I’m a gentle and forgiving man, but if I find your hands rummaging through my soil again, there will be issues. I don’t particularly care for your form of praise.

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Dave’s Gardening Corner: First Fruits

I forgot to mention this precious story from a week or so ago.

We pulled our first fruits from our garden; a couple peppers. We thought that we had planted two jalapeños for Courtney, but we quickly noticed that one of them was distinctly not a jalapeño, and we had only minimal ideas as to what it was. Naturally, we decided to figure it out by doing the obvious thing–We took a bite.

We have pretty good evidence that it was a Serrano.

On the Scoville heat index for peppers, your average jalapeño comes in at about 5,000 heat units. The Serrano comes in at around 23,000. Courtney, a big fan of hot foods, sat on our front porch, hands hung limply at her sides, mouth wide open, sucking oxygen. I even took a little bite. Man.

First fruits….

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