Riches in the Ditches

Beauty is truly found in unsuspecting places.  All you gotta do is have your eyes open to see it and appreciate it. I think I've already told this story, but every year I see it and it reminds me.  About 24 years ago I was farming rice on our family farm.  I distinctly remember driving my truck down a gravel road between Carrier Road and Cotton Gin Road.  I was on my way to check the irrigation well we called the "big well."  It pumped cool, clear water from 180 feet below the flat, hot surface above.  

The well, powered by a big engine with straight pipes, was loud.  It roared.  The horsepower of that engine was impressive, lifting columns of water from the underground aquifer to the rice field where the fields were kept with a good flood of 6 inches of water for months.  Rice likes its feet wet.  When you got out of the truck, the noise of the engine would hurt your ears.  If you went at night time to check the oil in the engine or make sure that the dripper was still dripping hydraulic oil to lubricate the bearings, the manifold would glow cherry red. 

On this particular day, it was around noon.  It was a sultry summer day.  The air heavy with humidity, the mosquitoes buzzing, hungry for a feast of blood from some unsuspecting beast or man.  The sun beat down in punishing fashion.  As I was about to turn in, I noticed it in the ditch.  It was a clump of beautiful flowers.  Now, I'm not a flower guy, not a bit.  But it was hard not to admire this flower.

The Louisiana Iris.  It's the state wildflower of Louisiana.  The state flower of Louisiana is the magnolia flower.  It's flower is pure white, with a fresh, clean fragrance that you can't stop sniffing to get just one more scent in your nostrils.  The downside is that if you cut it off the tree to bring it inside, it turns brown very quickly, as if to communicate that it's better to leave it on the tree and admire its beauty in the outdoors.  The Louisiana iris is a vibrant purplish blue color, the color of royalty.  It has hints of deep gold that accent its beauty.  

How could something so beautiful be in a ditch and not in a manicured garden?  Because, like rice, the Louisiana iris likes its feet wet and what needs beauty more than a roadside ditch?  A couple decades ago, every rice farmer worth his salt had a Pony #2 shovel with an ash handle in the bed of his pickup truck sharpened to a razor edge to cut through levees and the tough leathery bodies of the cottonmouth moccasin, our arch enemy in the rice fields.

I pulled my shovel out of the back of the truck and walked to the ditch, pushing the ubiquitous empty beer can floating in the muddy water out of the way.  I dug deep into the soft mud and scooped out a big scoop of mud, making sure I had all the roots of the iris.  I had to rescue it and bring it to our new home 30 miles north.  I did leave some behind, though, as that roadside ditch needed beautification as well.

I planted it in a low area where a ditch on our property carries rainwater.  It always stays sort of wet and I figured it would be a good home for the Louisiana Iris, bringing beauty to our home.  And it has.  Each year, I look on it and smile and remember finding it.  The iris has thrived, multiplying and filling the ditch.  It blooms each April, never disappointing.  The wife and I always look for its blooms and announce to each other when the first bloom appears.

We even used a shovel to move some of it near the sidewalk on our back patio.  It announced its happiness to be in that location by spreading quickly to fill that bed.  Now we can enjoy it in two locations - the back patio and the ditch that runs through the grove.

We enjoy their blooms while they last.  Soon their beauty fades, however.

But we're left with the anticipation of the blooms next April, signaling spring and bringing back remembrances of finding riches in the ditches.

The Broccoli is Almost Done

Every other day, we've been enjoying broccoli florets picked from the broccoli that is still out in the garden, soldiering on.  We add it to fried rice and soups.  Last night we roasted it in the oven with minced garlic.  After the main head is picked, the broccoli just keeps on producing.  I would estimate that if you weighed the main heads we picked and then weighed the sum total of all the florets we've picked, the florets would weigh more - maybe double.  

The Good Lord created plants to grow, flower and produce seed, and our broccoli is doing just that.  The broccoli I'll show you photos of today is called Waltham Broccoli.  It is an heirloom, non-hybrid created in 1954.  Here you can see one of the florets I was speaking of.  We normally try to harvest these before they go to flower.

If you wait one more day, that tight floret will spread out like the one in the photo below and will get ready to flower.  We had weather in the 70's today.  That will really get the broccoli growing quickly and have all these florets opened.

Here is what the broccoli looks like in one more day.  Most of the flowers in the floret have turned to pretty yellow flowers.  These flowers heavily attract the honeybees that live in our column.  They'll be all over these flowers in no time at all.

Then a metamorphosis occurs.  Those flowers produce pods that look kind of like green beans.

Those pods, when mature, can be dried and the seed inside will be saved for planting next years' crop of broccoli.  Once the broccoli pods have turned brown, I'll harvest the broccoli seed.  When I harvest the seed, I'll store it in a dry, dark place.  Then I'll have broccoli seeds for sowing this fall.

Still Harvesting Eggplant

Sometimes things work one year and absolutely flop the next.  No matter how you try to think about it, there are too many variables to isolate on what made it work or what made it fail.  This can apply to many things, but tonight I'm talking about eggplant.  Each year on January 1st I start all my tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds indoors in seed pots.  (Hard to believe I'll be doing this again in less than a month!)  Once germinated I move beneath grow lights until the last date of frost has passed and then I'll transplant into the garden.

Eggplant have a particularly long growing season.  You want to get them going early.  Last year, same as every other year I planted.  The eggplant germinated, languished, and gave up the ghost.  This year, using the same seed and doing everything else in similar fashion, they absolutely thrived.  Three eggplant plants have yielded more eggplant than I can count.  We've eaten caponata, oven fried eggplant, eggplant parmesan many times.  We've given some away.  They keep producing.  It is a good problem to have! 

Eggplant have an interesting history.  They are native to China and India.  It was brought by the Spanish into Europe.  Explorers brought the eggplant to the New World, but it did not catch on in American immediately.  As part of the nightshade family (along with potatoes and tomatoes), people thought they were poisonous.  One brave soul finally tried it and didn't die and, well, here we are today, cultivating them in our gardens and eating them in our kitchens.

It is December 1st and the eggplant are still blooming, still producing.  We'll undoubtedly harvest quite a few more before we have our first frost.  I think the flowers are very pretty on this plant.  It is a pinkish flower that the honeybees like to visit.

I took this last photo of another bloom on one of the eggplants and as I looked at it closer, I want to share something with you.  If you look directly beneath the center of the bloom, you can spot the silhouette of a dreaded garden pest I didn't see when taking the photo.  A Stink Bug!

Had I seen that booger, I would have squashed him on the spot.  He (or one of his offspring) will find a place to over-winter and will be attacking our tomato plants next spring.

Not as Good as I Thought it Was

I'm not a horticulturalist.  While I do enjoy growing things, it's mainly because of the thrill I get watching a 'dead' seed transform into a live plant, especially one that yields great food to eat and enjoy.  But I can't tell you the genus, family, etc.  Some people, like my son Russ, can tell you everything you want to know about different plants.

Take, for instance, the photo below that I took in my garden this weekend.  This plant comes up every year around St. Patrick's Day in my garden.

Aren't the lavender-colored flowers pretty?  Look at the big 'heart-shaped' leaves.  I always thought that these were in the clover family.  Clover sets nitrogen in the soil.  I've always let them grow in the garden for as long as I could so that they could 'fertilize' my soil for the spring crops like beans, squash, corn, and cucumbers.

The trouble with that is that I was wrong.  Dead wrong.  These are NOT clovers.  They are oxalis or wood sorrel.  Lots of people must get confused by the leaves, because it is also called false shamrock.  Many people grow these from bulbs and use them as ornamental houseplants.

While very pretty in the garden, they are invasive and spread all over.  When you try to dig them up, you discover many, little, copper-colored bulbs.  I over-looked the invasive nature of the plant as I thought it was setting nitrogen.  I thought wrong!  Not only is it not setting nitrogen, but it is using up my nitrogen!

I took another photo of the pretty (what I originally thought was) clover and then began to aggressively hoe it all up, tossing flowers, leaves, stems and bulbs over the fence to our goats and chickens who were all too happy to gobble them up.

I did read that the leaves and stem are edible by humans too, but that was after I had rid my garden of them.  They contain oxalis acid, so those with kidney stones or gout are warned to not overdo it, but in moderation it is fine.  It is said to have a tart, rhubarb-like flavor.  Next year no doubt, it will come up again.  Before tossing it all to the animals, I'll try a little bit.  "If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em!" I found this recipe that seems simple and interesting and I'll try it:

Below is an Oxalix Cooler recipe from Sunny Savage

Oxalis Cooler

1 quart water

1/2 cup Oxalis leaf/stem/flowers/seedpods

1 Tablespoon agave nectar or honey

dash of salt

Mix all ingredients in a blender. If possible, let sit overnight in refrigerator and enjoy!

Credit: EAT THE WEEDS

Have You Seen the Lemon Queen?

I broke with an age-old tradition that I've maintained for a long, long time.  This year I planted flowers in the garden.  GASP!  I don't dislike flowers.  I rather like them.  It is just that if I am going to grow something, I want to spent the time and energy growing things that we can eat.  Vegetables have beautiful flowers - the flowers of sweet peas and squash come to mind.

In going through my seed inventory this winter, I ran across a packet of Lemon Queen Sunflower Seeds that was included as a Free Item with my Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds order.  The seed was a couple of years old and so I was concerned the germination might not be good.  I figured I would plant it anyway and sowed it so that it bordered the Glass Gem Corn and Butternut Squash.  The Lemon Queen sunflowers grew and grew and grew.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that some of the plants are 10 feet tall!

Lemon Queen Sunflowers 2018

The flowers keep coming and as you get closer to to them, you can see bees buzzing all around them.  The flowers are branching, meaning that there is not just one main flower on top.  The light yellow color of the lemon queen is a bit different from other sunflowers we've planted.

The light, but bright yellow of the sunflower contrasted against the red barn really stands out.

I must say that I have been a former flower skeptic, but I will likely plant these Lemon Queen Sunflowers again!  I even pulled a few and put them in a vase on the kitchen windowsill for Tricia to enjoy.

The next morning as the morning sun was filtering in the window, the flowers were still holding up well.  It is hard to be sluggish or unhappy looking at that bright yellow flower.

Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  - Luke 12:27

Lemon Queen Sunflowers.  Yep, I'd recommend them - even in a vegetable garden...  I will attempt to save some seeds from the flowers.  I'll let you know if the seed saving was successful.