Archive for July, 2008

Minty Cucumber-Orange Water

This is prime cucumber season here in my neck of the woods, and my own garden is producing beautifully. When it comes to cucumbers, my personal belief is that the simpler they are served, the better. Is there anything more refreshing than a cucumber, sliced and consumed with nothing but perhaps a bit of salt? A green salad is nothing without the cucumber, and gazpacho wouldn’t be nearly as fabulous without that clean, crisp cucumber flavor in the background.

But today we’re here to talk about how to use cucumbers in one of my favorite summertime beverages, Minty Cucumber-Orange Water. It takes two ingredients that are going full steam right now (mint and cukes) and marries them with sweet citrus-y goodness for a truly refreshing drink. Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients:

• 1 large cucumber
• 1 seedless orange
• 15 to 20 mint leaves (I used spearmint, but most mints would probably work. Pineapple mint is also very good in this recipe.)
• Water

Simply peel the cucumber and split it lengthwise. Using a spoon, remove the seeds from the center of the cucumber halves. You don’t have to do this, but I find that when I don’t remove the seeds, there’s just too much debris floating around in the water. After removing the seeds, thinly slice the cukes on the diagonal.

Next, thinly slice an orange.

Add the cucumber and orange slices to a pitcher, as well as your mint leaves. I like to leave the mint whole. It is easier to strain out later.



Fill the pitcher with water, and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. This gives the ingredients time to fully infuse the water with flavor. Before you serve, simply pour the water through a strainer to remove the cukes, oranges, and mint. Serve with a fresh orange slice and a sprig of mint, and you have a very refreshing drink. It is perfect for reviving yourself after gardening, or for serving with a light dinner.


This post is my contribution to Thursday Food Fests, which is sponsored by A Way to Garden and Dinner Tonight. This week’s theme was Zukes and Cukes. Check both sites for more fabulous ways to savor the season’s bounty!

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Evolution of the Side Yard

I think every gardener has at least one spot in their garden that drives them nuts. The kind of spot that makes you stand, for minutes (and sometimes longer) at a time, staring, trying to figure out what to do with it. The kind of spot that goes through more reincarnations than Shirley Maclaine (or Madonna). For me, that is my side yard.

It’s a nice little spot. Not even all that little, compared to some side yards I’ve seen. My side yard is roughly 10 feet wide by 20 feet long. It lies between my house, the chain link fence, and the neighbor’s driveway.

Our first year in the house, my husband dug out a strip of grass along the fence, because I wanted a cutting garden. I went with annuals: zinnias, cosmos, cleome and marigolds. It was pretty, but not quite what I wanted. Scrap the cutting garden plan.

Our second year, we decided to make it a butterfly garden for the kids. We dug up more grass, amended the soil, and planted the seeds from one of those seed mixes in a can. It was pretty, but was a little too weedy looking for me. There was no rhythm, no method to the madness. Scrap the butterfly garden. (We have since planted a butterfly garden that works, near the picket fence that surrounds the veggie garden.)

Our third year, I decided it would be a nice perennial border. Again, the soil was amended, more sod was dug out, and perennials went in (mostly divisions from other perennials around our yard). I planted daylilies, purple coneflowers, scabiosa, Siberian irises, a rose bush. It was pretty. I was almost happy with it. Almost, except there was no point to it. You couldn’t really see all of the beauty there from the main part of our back yard, and not at all from the front yard, thanks to a few well-placed shrubs that we planted to give the yard some privacy from the street. Even from inside the house, it was pointless: the kid’s bedroom and one living room window look out over that area. Scrap the perennial border.

This year, year four, I dug out all of the perennials and placed them in other areas of the garden. The original 3 foot by 20 foot bed along the fence now hosts tomatoes, cucumbers, and bush beans. I planted ‘Grandpa Ott’ morning glories to climb the chain link fence. Now I’m on to something. The garden is charming, without trying to be. It’s useful, which is important in a yard as small as mine. Thanks to the new side yard garden, I am growing five more tomato plants than I would usually have room to grow. And many, many more cucumbers.

So, year five, next year, will have something in store that we’ve never had with the side yard: more of the same. Except that next year, we will be digging out all of the grass, making full use of the 200 square feet we have over there. We will be more than doubling our total vegetable gardening space, and I can’t wait to finally have room to grow all of those crops that I’ve been putting off for lack of space: watermelons and winter squashes come to mind.

And, it gives me plenty of planning to do over the long, cold winter. Plenty of seeds to start. Plenty to look forward to.

Gardening teaches us that perfection is a pipe dream, that all of the best laid plans mean nothing when they meet the light of day. It teaches us to improvise, to change on the fly, to accept that we are not the ultimate authority in any way, shape, or form. And that’s what makes it fun. Not to mention addictive. Who doesn’t love a challenge?

Do you have a spot in your garden that has never quite worked? Tell us about it!

P.S.—I’ll post photos eventually. I have, yet again, neglected to charge the batteries for my camera.

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The Great Baby Robin Rescue of 2008

I love the fact that no two days in the garden are exactly alike. How many Sundays have the husband and I spent puttering in the garden, weeding, pruning, and making plans for what to do next? But this past Sunday will live on in family legend as the Great Baby Robin Rescue of 2008.

It was a typical enough day. I was waging war on the bindweed (ever-present, doing its best to entangle itself in every one of my favorite plants…) and Roger was pruning water sprouts out of the apple tree. The bigger girls were playing something involving being princesses, and the baby was sleeping. In his pruning, Roger noticed a tidy nest built in one of the outer branches of the apple tree. I’ve noticed robins tweeting at me every time I’ve stepped foot near that tree, so I should have figured that there was a nest there. So, he pointed it out Emily and Sarah, and they exclaimed about how cool it was, and we continued on with what we were doing.

A while later, Sarah was in her little playhouse, leaning out the back window talking to someone. Roger asked what she was doing, and she said “talking to the baby bird.” He assumed she meant the birds in the nest. Then, he leaned down to prune an errant branch from a nearby red twig dogwood, and there, in the mulch below the dogwood, was a baby robin. It was precious–plenty of soft gray feathers, black eyes and that yellow beak. We all stood around for a few minutes, the girls amazed at seeing a baby bird so close, the husband and I contemplating the logistics of getting the bird back into the nest. Our apple tree isn’t huge, but the branch was well above our heads. The husband was nervous about hurting the bird if he picked it up, and I was, honestly, a little afraid of the same thing. We figured that if he could gently pull the branch down a bit, I should be able to reach up and place the bird back in the nest.

We got the girls to move back a little, and I stepped close to the baby bird. I fully expected it to try to hop away.

“Hey, little guy,” I said, with more than a little nervousness in my voice, “take it easy there.” And I crouched down so I could pick it up.

We all have those moments when the world stands still, when we are so focused on what we are doing that the apocalypse itself could begin, and we’d be lost in our own little world. This was one of those moments. I crouched, watching the little fella. Instead of trying to get away from me as fast as it could, the bird hopped toward me, beak open “feed me, feed me!” it seemed to be saying. It reminded me that we all start life fearless. We learn, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes not, to fear new experiences as we get older. But young children, and, apparently, baby birds, do not know fear. Everything is a new experience, a chance for exploration and adventure. How sad that so many of us lose this sense of wonder as we get older.

But, back to the story. I gently picked the bird up, and Roger pulled the branch down. I could see two other babies in the nest. It was crowded. We wondered later if our little guy got muscled out, or if he was merely the first one to try flying. I placed him in the nest as well as I could. One tiny leg still dangled outside the nest, and I held my hand there, ready to play “catch the birdie” if it took another topple. But, that little leg pulled itself back into the nest, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

We all sat back, and watched as the mother immediately flew to the nest, then zipped away and right back again with a tasty worm from our side yard garden.

We’ve been checking the nest daily to be sure “our” baby birds are still okay. Undoubtedly, they’ll be leaving the nest soon. It will be a little sad to see them leave, but there will also be the sense of pride in seeing our little birdie fly off.


Isn’t it cute?

The girls are still talking about it constantly, and Sarah never fails to remind us, with plenty of pride in her voice, that “I spotted the baby robin!” They will remember this for a long time, and I feel that this is the universe’s way of thanking me for making my yard a safe haven for wildlife, for eschewing chemicals even though it means weeds and bugs, and for keeping the bird baths filled. In exchange, all I can do is humbly thank the universe for my garden, and the constant wonder and joy that it brings to my life.

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Today in the Garden: My Favorite Daylily



For right now, at least, I can claim this as my favorite. The soft color, lightly frilled petals, and the fact that it reblooms makes this daylily an absolute joy to have in my garden.

I bought this daylily in a bag of 15 mixed varieties of daylily roots our first summer in this house. The first couple of years, all it did was send up strappy green daylily foliage. Then, finally, it bloomed in its third year. And it has been a reliable bloomer for me ever since, giving me one nice big flush of bloom in mid to late July, and then a couple less robust blooms later in the season.

Oh, and I keep calling it “this daylily” because I lost the label with its name on it long before it even bloomed. If anyone can give me an ID on this, you would have my eternal gratitude. The only one I’ve run across online that is close is a daylily called ‘Frequent Comment,’ but it’s not exactly right.

I’m looking at expanding my daylily collection (I have three new ones that I will be posting about soon) so if you have a favorite (or a few favorites), please tell me about it!

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Setting Up a Worm Bin: Dumb Stuff I Did That You Should Avoid

So I am now the proud owner of a worm bin, or vermicompost bin if we must be formal about it. The UPS man brought my plastic bin from Flowerfield Industries on Tuesday, and gave me one of “those” looks when he handed it over. Perhaps it was the cartoon worm on the label, or the giant sticker that read “Live Worms Inside.” Either way, I feel a little sorry for this particular UPS guy. He also delivered 80 pounds of organic fertilizer to my house a couple of weeks ago. I remember him because I almost told him off about what crappy condition the boxes were in until I realized he’d schlupped almost 100 pounds of fertilizer up my porch steps so I wouldn’t have to. He probably wants his route changed now.

Anywho, I have a worm bin. To be exact, I have the Worm-A-Way 2002, which comes with 1000 little red worms, just waiting to eat my garbage. For those garden book geeks amongst us, the company that makes the Worm-A-Way was founded by Mary Applehof, who wrote that quintessential tome about vermicomposting, Worms Eat My Garbage. It’s a great book, by the way. If you aren’t interested in vermicomposting after you’ve read it, there’s something wrong with you. Really.

But we didn’t come here to talk about Mary Applehof, we came here to talk about me and the less-than-intelligent things I did when setting up my worm bin.

Dumb Idea #1: After tearing mountains of newspapers into strips for worm bedding, mix water into the bedding with your bare hands. Don’t wear gloves like the instructions recommend. This will result in the ugliest manicure you’ve ever seen. My nails are still slightly gray from the newspaper ink. Only a couple of coats of bright red nail polish will cover this mess.

Dumb Idea #2: Don’t go outside and add water in your yard. No, no, do it in your bathtub so that you then have to spend several minutes scrubbing freaking newspaper ink out of the tub. You’ll notice later that you’ve managed to get ink on the shower curtain, bathroom door, and, somehow, the medicine cabinet.


Worm bin, awaiting the worms.

Dumb Idea #3: After you’ve got your bedding mixed and you’re ready to add your worms, try to make a point to your young and somewhat squeamish daughter that worms are not icky. Do this by reaching into the box o’ worms with your bare hands, ready to pull out some cute little worms to show her. Get a severe case of the willies when your bare hands touch the mass of cold, writhing worms and let out an involuntary “uuuugggh.” Congratulations, you’ve made your daughter permanently afraid of worms. She’ll tell her shrink about this someday.


Box o’ Worms

Dumb Idea #4: Load up your worm bin on the dining room table. It’s hot out, and the bin is staying inside anyway. The daughter that you’ve managed to make into a Scoleciphobiac now refuses to eat at the table because the worms were on there. So much for getting everyone around the table for those nice, relaxing family dinners…

Dumb Idea #5: Do a post about the dumb stuff you did in setting up a worm bin so that all of your blog visitors and gardenblogging friends can see how ditsy you can truly be. Remind them, gently, that your enthusiasm sometimes gets in the way of practicality, and that you didn’t mean to do any harm. Really. The daughter will be fine, as long no one ever asks her to go fishing.


The wormies check out their new digs.

Now that I’ve confessed (almost) all of my worm bin sins, I’m looking forward to seeing how this all works out. I’ve fed my wormies some coffee grounds, egg shells, and potato peels already. I’ll keep you updated on my adventures, and misadventures, in vermicomposting.

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