Our Kind of Normal

The plant you're seeing is a chile pequine. It grows wild around here, although this is one I planted in a xeriscape garden about ten yards from my house. I love it because it's pretty, it's perenial, the little bitty chiles are tasty, though hot, and it needs absolutely no care or water. Last night I noticed three different cottontail rabbits loving it too, munching away in a nervous bunny frenzy. A few hours later I saw a deer doing the same. This morning one of my dogs started barking madly and I saw a bunny fleeing for its life.

Now I wouldn't normally be surprised to see rabbits munching of a pepper plant. They do have a taste for strange things. When I first moved out here, I tried to plant an unfenced herb and pepper garden, but would find the plants nibbled away by the bunny population.

But what rabbits and deer don't usually do is loiter about where dogs and humans live.

I guess it's the drought.

When the first German settlers came here it took them awhile to discover what the plants and animals, the native people, and the early Mexican settlers already knew about our weather patterns.

In the first letters they sent home, they compared the sweet little hills and valleys of this area to Germany -- lush, green, plenty of water, but with mild winters and teeming wildlife.

When they tried to build a grain mill, they had a mill stone brought in from Germany and found a likely creek. The next year a flood washed the whole thing away. They rebuilt on a different creek but it went dry the following year. It took them close to ten years to find a river that stayed reasonably constant, that was big enough, that had the kind of banks and followed the kind of course that could absorb our cycles of drought and flood. The settlers were trying to find normal but we don't have that kind of normal here -- just cycles of extremes that we learn to adjust to.

Sort of. During Rural Electrification, which LBJ was prominent in bringing to this area, the Colorado river was damned to create a series of lakes, in part to mediate the effects of extreme weather patterns. I live on one of those lakes now, Lake Travis. It's the largest of these lakes and its size allows it to absorb fierce flooding. During floods, the other lakes drain into it, and the level rise twenty or more feet in a few hours. During droughts, water is released to feed other lakes, municipalities, and the rice farmers below us around Houston. Then, the lake falls to the extent that the deep, clear cove I live on goes muddy or even dry.

Living on a lake like this keeps me aware that our climate is cyclical. I knew this growing up, near farmers, and among people whose wells could go dry. I sort of forgot this from living twenty years in a city, where weather is just background, not a main event. Cites like Austin are trying to remind people about weather cycles, with water conservation programs such as rebates on rainwater collection systems. Most suburban and exurban areas seem unconcerned with weather patterns, and merrily pour water on huge St Augustine lawns. Yet climate scientists tell us that extreme weather patterns are only going to get worse.

I don't have a happy ending for this story, but I sure hope our species can avoid an unhappy ending.

By the way, the last remaining of these old German mills is still working and under the care of a gardening club not too far from me. A friend of mine lends his engineering expertise to keeping it running and every year they grind a batch of corn as a fundraiser.

A Drought and Deer Proof Vegetable? Maybe.

Where I live, the small, green, hilly bit of land on the edge of the Edwards Plateau, right in the middle of the state, is an extremely pleasant place in so many ways. We have a long, long growing season that stretches almost the entire year. We have mild winters and a gorgeous spring and fall. (I won't discuss the months of July and August because I'm trying to be complimentary.) We have lakes and rivers and creeks.

That's a lot of bounty and all it takes to be able to enjoy it is a tolerance for a few difficult things. Chief among those difficult things right now are drought and deer. We're into year two of a pretty tough drought. It's supposed to end next year when El Niño resumes its regular pattern and allows some moisture to head over our way. In the meanwhile, the deer suffer incredibly. They are driven by thirst and hunger into places they'd rather not go -- like my front yard, where they chew even thorny rosebushes and agave back a few inches each visit. They are not naturally inclined to hang out in places where dogs live -- even fat, spoiled, geriatric dogs like mine -- but they do it out of desperation.

So I was pretty surprised to see this volunteer eggplant growing outside of our deer fence. Yes, outside of the fence, right next to the spot where deer like to hang out and nibble on the cucumber vines I planted inside the fence. (Look closely and you can see cucumber plant nubs on the inside of the fence.) This tough little plant is growing in the middle of foot high and foot deep native grass thatch, and has never been watered. It just wants to grow there. And so far, it appears that the deer do not want to eat it. Stay tuned.

Do Sentimental Gardeners Finish Last?

Garden Inventory
Six catywumpus raised beds, about 20x4
A field of raised berms,
Some fruit trees
A stretch of grape vines
A stretch of cucumber hills,
A stretch of pole beans

All within a quarter acre open field, surrounded by a deer fence.


Before I moved in, this field was already occupied by a dense system of tough native grasses, fierce pig weed, several kinds of stinging nettle, cactus, needle-thorned mesquite, and other
things that hurt very much when encountered by frail human flesh. So I should keep the whole thing mowed down, at the very least.

Here's reason number one reason I don't always do that:

Wildflowers. I just can't resist them, so I let the grasses grow far too high, until I step on a mesquite thorn that goes straight through my gardening boots, and my eyes water as I plan on mowing first thing in the morning.

The Tomatoes Your Garden Chooses

This year I grew tomatoes from seed. Not just any seed, but some very fine and exotic heirloom varieties. I lavished them with attention, time, perfect soil, heat, and light. They were, I believe the very best tomato starts ever grown anytime, anywhere, in all of tomato history. They had stout bodies, emerald green leaves, juicy, strong roots. They were the Platonic idea of noble tomatoe-ness. They shone with pure tomato essence.

After I planted them out, they adjusted like warriors, growing even stronger. Their future looked spectaular. But a freak late season hail storm took out half the plants. Still, half were saved, so I went to a ridiculously overpriced boutique-type nursery in central Austin and bought the very best starts money could buy -- exotic varieties, well cared for, slightly snooty. I planted them next to my warrior tomatoes and they seemed pretty happy to be here, and didn't really look down on their country neighbors too much.

Then another freakishly late freeze + enormous hail storm came and took out every single tomato plant. Every single one. Frozen and broken to a sad little nub, row cover hardly visible beneath pounds of icy marbles.

I was feeling more than a little broke and more than a little broken by this time -- so much money and time spent and so little control. That's just the way it is I guess. Whatever a gardener may have -- the beauty of the garden, the pleasure of delicious food, the satisfaction of co-creating with nature -- she does not ever have control. We gardeners can try to work with nature, rather than in opposition. We can observe natural patterns, and try to flow with them in as productive and painless a manner as possible. But we never have the last word. Or the last laugh.

So here's nature's big joke on me. I ended up trudging to the nearest crummy, poorly cared-for nursery in north Austin. This is one sorry nursery, with half dead, rarely watered plants, wierd, soggy, moldy outdoor carpet on the ground, and employees who never met a plant they gave a whoop about. Without much interest I picked out what I could find that was still more or less alive. They were the most common and ordinary hybrids for this area -- Celebrity, Early Girl, Better Boy, Sweet 100. Not exciting but dependable. I put them in the ground, watered, added fish emulsion, composted turkey manure, all the usual suspects, but frankly, I wasn't getting too attached to these tomatoes.

Or so I thought. The truth is, there's no way to tend and care for something like a garden without falling in love, at least not for me. And now that enough tomatoes are ripening for a salad, snacks, an occaisonal ensalada caprese, I can't help but be proud of these plain old, hard-knock tomato plants, heavy with fruit.

Recipe for a Garden Surpise

I've been boo-hoo-ing all summer because I can't seem to locate seeds for my favorite squash. When I was growing up we called it calabacita, which means "little squash." It's also called tatume, in grocery stores and on seed packs.

Let me sing its praises:

1) It's delicious -- sweet, tender, and meaty. And it won't go bitter in hot weather like zucchini can.

2) It's extremely drought tolerant. Last summer an unplananed event kept us away from home for 3 weeks. When we came back everything was dead except the peppers and calabacita. They were a bit shriveled, but still had fruit, and as soon as I gave them a drink of water they sprang right back, like nothing had ever happened.

3) It's extremely pest and disease resistant. In our area, the squash vine borer is endemic. Almost everyone gets hit by this creature sooner or later and once you've got it, forget about growing yellow squash. I had it in my garden in Austin and would get maybe two squash before the borer appeared. It attacks the vine at its base (by laying eggs that become huge slug-looking things) and kills the whole thing seemingly overnight. I keep hearing rumors of cures but I've never known anyone to be successful. And calabacita? The squash vine borer doesn't seem to like it.

So like I said, lots of moping around here when I couldn't fine any calabacita seed this year. Then, this volunteer appeared in the spot where I had last years compost pile. I ignored it, dragged hoses across it while I was watering other plants, stepped on it occaisonally rather than walk around it, but it persisted in living. Now I see this fruit which looks exactly like a calabacita. I don't know that it actually is my favorite squash; the vine looks different than the one I'm familiar with. But I live in hope.

Meanwhile, if you have access to calabacita seed, especially if you live in a hot, dry climate, you won't be sorry f you plant it. If you have access to the fruit itself, you won't be sorry if you eat it now.

So here's my favorite way to fix it. It's an old San Antonio, home-style, Mexican dish -- easy, quick, fresh, and comforting:

1) Take several bone-in pork chops and cut them into stir-fry size pieces. Leave the bone attached to one of the pieces.
2) Cut calabacita into inch-thick half rounds.
3) Remove corn from cob.
4)Cook pork in a large heavy skillet (a wok is great), at a very high temp (think stir fry temps).
5) When pork is cooked all the way through, add calabacita. Cook until tender. Don't stir too much. You want the outside of the squash to carmelize.
6) When the squash is cooked, add corn. Just cook it long enough to heat it. The corn should remain crisp.
7) Remove from pan, add a little water to the pan to deglaze juices, pour juices over pork, squash, and corn.

The idea is very much like a stir-fry -- food is cooked quickly at high temps and the veggies get a dark, carmelized glaze. The corn adds a sweetness and the squash should be slightly crisp and carmelized on the outside, creamy and soft on the inside. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Some people add comino but I like the pure flavors of the foods themselves.

Easy Roasted Veggies

Now that lettuces are slowing down and getting bitter, salads are no longer the main event at our house. Instead it's vegetables, cooked a thousand ways. Easiest of all is drizzling with a little olive oil, some sea salt, and chopped rosemary. Bake at around 350 until tender.

Here's the catch, though. The oven heats up the house -- precisely what we don't want to do when it's high nineties outside and humid as the tropics.

Fortunately, I have an electric roaster/steamer, bought many years ago when I was under some delusion that I'd be able to make tamales all on my own, like my mom did from time to time. One attempt at lone tamale making was all it took for me to recall that Christmas tamale making always required an army of aunts and cousins as well as my mom and grandmother. How my mom managed to whip up a batch on her own I don't know.

So I'm glad to have a use for the electric roaster, which I put out on the deck while the veggies are roasting. It's already as about as hot as the surface of the sun out there anyway.

The Quatrosquash

I don't know what to call this mutant yellow squash. Weird? Disturbing? Yummy?

Watermelons Make Me Weep

Watermelon is one of those sentimental fruits for me. My dad used to bring them home as Sunday treats. Mom cut them up just like my grandfather taught her -- a thick layer of newspaper on the kitchen table to absorb the juices, a huge knife, half-moon slices, heavy, heart-red, and sweet as summer.

Rumor has it that the best place to store them is under the bed and I have a vague memory that my San Antonio grandparents did exactly that. But I don't know, maybe I'm making that up. I do know Grandfather said thunder is the sound of the devil rolling watermelon under his bed.

I planted mine a little early this year, without realizing it, but so far, seem to have gotten away with it. You never know when nature will decide to be forgiving of a gardener's ignorance.

Composting Bucket for a Bad Permaculturist

Permaculture people are familiar with the idea of zones used to conceptually divide a human habitat. The zone closest to where you live is 1, and it's where you should keep things like the compost heap for kitchen scraps. For a million reasons, I haven't figured out how to keep a compost pile in Zone 1. Mine is closer to Zone 3, where my garden is, about 200 yards from my house.

I can see why a compost heap should be in Zone 1 -- it would be so much easier to haul my compost bucket out there several times a day. But alas, I do not, so the bucket often looks like this, especially this time of year, when folks in my area are harvesting lots of something every single day.

This is a huge old soup pot that never really worked that well for soup. It's so thin that I believe it possible to burn water in the cavernous interior.

But it works just fine for the heaps of kitchen scraps I collect this time of year.

Clean and Fresh Mosquito Repellant

Mosquito season is upon us! Not high mosquito season, no. That will come later, and we'll need a proper arsenal of citronella oil, long sleeves, and darting inside quickly at dawn and dusk.. For this light part of the season, it's been enough to put an enormous citronella plant on the back deck, and when the devil-insects start swarming, rub a leaf between hands, on faces, necks, ankles, and over hair.

By the way, I should say this plant used to be enormous. It's been plucked back, leaf by leaf, every evening, right at dusk.

Line Drying Clothes

It ought to be harder and more time consuming to line dry clothes compared to machine drying. If I told my friends it was actually easier, they wouldn't believe me. They'd think I was trying to be brave in the face of difficulties. Or trying to lure them into my insane peak oil fantasies.

But seriously, I think it's easier, most of the time. And I've always considered laundry to be the most tedious of household work. Here's my previous routine:

1. Put a load of laundry in the washer.
2. Switch the load to the dryer, add another load to the washer, go do something else, oops, got distracted and now the clothes in the dryer are wrinkled.
3. Add another load to the washer. Pile wrinkled clothes on the bed, planning to figure out what to do with them later.
4. Come back in a few hours later and discover dogs have decided to nest in clean, wrinkled laundry.
5. Start over at step 1.

The problem is there are so many things to do in a single day that I can't seem to stay close enough to the washer and dryer to make the process efficient. At least one out of two loads of laundry ends up sitting in the bottom of the dryer, wrinkled as a Shar Pei.

But with line drying, here's how it goes.
1. Put a load of laundry in the washer.
2. Hang out laundry.
3. Sometime during the day, remember to pull fresh, unwrinkled laundry from the line, fold right laundry into baskets.

Of course, the other benefits to line drying are pretty obvious. It saves energy, doesn't heat up the house, clothes smell wonderful and are naturally disinfected by sunshine. Additionally, the dryer is pretty hard on fabric. All that lint you take out of the lint trap? That's your clothes, disintegrating.

We don't have an ideal set up for a clothes line. The house is situated on a steep hill, with lots of trees. If I put up a clothes line anywhere around the house, I'd have to tramp down about 100 hillside stairs every single time I wanted to use it. Or, I could hang it near the garden, which is about 200 yards from the house. Instead, Widget Man installed a retractable line on our deck, which get lots of sun and is conveniently located adjacent to our actual house. It looks kind of crazy, I guess, when I've got undies and socks drying on the back deck. But we've gotten used to looking crazy.

Grapes on the Back Deck -- A Central Texas Tradition

When I was growing up in central Texas, all the old German houses and businesses had some kind of grape arbor. The fair grounds had a beer garden, of course, with a huge cedar arbor, big enough for dozens of picnic tables underneath. We had an actual German oompah band in our town, which used to play in the beer garden. Our neighbor, a genuine old German farmer, with the demeanor of a friendly elf, used to play the tuba in the band. The arbor was a shady, cool place to hang out in the summer and the bright green leaves created a beautiful, glowing light.
In the winter the leaves dropped and the gnarled vines took on a sculptural quality.

We don't have a beer garden but we do have a west-facing deck that gets incredibly hot in the summer. A few years ago we planted some grape vines on the hillside beneath the deck and added some fencing for them to climb. The grapes have finally climbed the twelve feet or so from the ground below and are reaching the deck. Besides the delight of having grapes grow right on our deck, we hope to follow the example of those early Texas settlers and take advantage of the leafy green shade in the summer, once the vines complete their journey up the cedar posts of our deck.

In the winter, when the leaves drop, we'll be happy for the extra warmth and sunshine of our west-facing deck. The gnarly vines will add a little character to an otherwise ordinary-looking deck and remind me of a sweet little old German farmer who played the tuba in an oompah band.

Technicolor Artichokes

I let some of my artichokes go to flower, not on purpose, but because I've never grown them before and didn't see it coming. These poor photos don't do the flowers justice. You can't really see how they shimmer and glow in the sun, like some floral mirage. They're huge too.

If I had a sunny spot in the beds in front of my house, I'd plant them there.

If I lived in a suburb with an anti-veggie garden property owners association, I'd pull all the bedding plants, all the box wood and red-tipped photinia, all the dull, uniform shrubbiness, right out of those beds, and fill them with artichoke plants. I'd fill them with huge, spikey, architectural artichokes, that need virtually nothing but an occaisonal sip of water, and once a year put on a showstopping, technicolor display.

How to Create a Deer Banquet, or: A Fundamentally Unsound Idea

I have some advice, just in case this ever comes up: If you live in deer country, and spend a great deal of time and money installing an eight foot deer fence around an acre of garden space, do not think to yourself, "Hey, wouldn't all that fencing make a fantastic trellis for cucumbers?"

And before you break your back digging up the foot-deep, native grasses, enrich the soil with composted turkey manure and build eleventy million cucumber hills, try to recall why you built the fence in the first place.

And during the several hours it takes to run new irrigation tubing, to hook up said tubing to the main water manifold, to pull it all out again and re-rout it for a more efficient path, ask yourself at least once, "Now why did I build that fence?"

Because if you do not remember at least once during the several days of digging, double-digging, spreading manure, running tubing, and planting seed, why you built a deer fence in the first place, you will feel very, very foolish when all those cucumbers become a deer banquet -- when you go out to your garden every day to see the grass trampled on the outside of the fence, to see the leaves on the cucumber plants gnawed back to sad little stumps, and sometimes, to see a couple of extra-bold deer chawing away like they're at a Luby's on Sunday after church.

I'm just saying.