He comes to kill, steal and destroy…and he is green ~ for at least part of his life cycle.
The hornworm.I have told you about him. He can chew through a whole tomato plant in 24 hours flat, engorged and gross, 3-4″ of huffing and puffing, swollen and green slimy-ness from the leaves he has munched through, poop piles littering his path below him as he climbs ever upward, destroying the tomato.
Eeeeeeewwww-gross!
No leaves on the plant = no tomatoes. We HATE the tomato hornworm.
But a lot of gullible people think the moth that deposits the larvae into garden soil around your plants – which becomes the hornworm caterpillar is so cute.
It is all caused by the sphinx moth/hawk moth
But – people think it is a hummingbird. Because it is large, almost the size of a hummingbird. It has interesting coloration and design, not at all bland-blah like the gray-powdery june moth that sweeps through here from Nebraska in sometimes plague-like proportions. This moth flies sort of upright like the bird and has this feathery looking tuft of something or another and is really quite huge and monstrous. This moth is the enemy of the tomato and other garden goodies. the ENEMY!
In my efforts to truly be organic and not use bug killers in my garden, this year I have taken to carrying a fly-swatter with me to put the smack-down on moths which seek to lay eggs in my sweat-composted soil. ‘Tis better, I do think, to save my crops and eat the food I have determined to grow than to let the bugs have it and a little swat and down is better than spraying chemicals or poison sprinkling granules. I admit I may look a little crazy out there, swinging a plastic aparatus at a flighty moth – but I give it a go and some days have success.
But dang the “hummingbird moths.” A kick scan through Facebook and Instagram and 82% of everyone I know is posting a picture of it and celebrating it, thinking it is a hummingbird! People think they are cute!
The other day, while I was armed and ready for battle as 4 of them were sucking juice from my Hibiscus, I caught some eyes peering out the kitchen window from a house across the way. I was swinging away. I sheepishly smiled and waved wondering if she thought I was totally crazy?
A little later Dave happened upon a conversation about all the beautiful little “hummingbirds” in the neighborhood, resistant to the suggestion that they were moths. When he told me, we realized – someone in my neighborhood now thinks I beat the crap out of hummingbirds with a fly-swatter. The word is spreading.
Great. Just great.
sphinx moth = hawk moth = hummingbird moth = heavy-bodied, strong flying insects = from full-grown hornworm larvae = gross = evil = the devil in my garden = yes I kill them if I can.
Please, say it with Italian flare ~ use your hands for passion.
Pomodoro {pomo d’oro} apple of gold. It’s a noun. It means tomato. *big smile :)
Pomodori. Tomato, but plural.
Pomodorino. Cherry tomato.
Pomodorata. Tomato throwing. I can’t decide if I MUST go to Spain to experience this one day? Or if I should never because to see so many tomatoes not eaten (and me being pelted by them) would be heart-breaking…which is it?
Bruschetta a la Pomodoro! Perhaps even more delicious the next day.
When I was a little girl, I hated cooked carrots. They were the orange, bane-filled mush of my nightmares. I loved the roast beef and potatoes they usually came with (I have never met a potato I didn’t love), but when my plate got down to the globs of orange, the gagging began. My parents wouldcoax…or yell at me to eat them. I’d gag them down, eyes tearing up, gulping big swallows of milk afterwards to try to erase the memory. I’d lose my breath, I’d hem, I’d haw. I’d gag some more.
One night, when I was about 8, the humongous pile of carrots on plate was just sitting there getting cold and I asked to be excused, unable to bear the thought of eating them. But my dad decreed that I would eat. every. bite. :) We all have one of these stories, don’t we?
I sat and looked at them. They looked back at me. I begged them to taste good and somehow just go down. I’d take a bite and they’d suddenly swell to this huge mouthful of putridness and the yuk would begin and I’d cry, calling out to God to deliver me, help me, pleeeeeeease. Dinner had started at 5 pm on the dot, like always. At 9:55 pm, alone in the cold, dark kitchen, with my cold dark plate of carrots – my mom finally released me to go to bed for school. I hung my head in shame. I wasn’t being rebellious not eating them, I just really thought they were that horrible.
The Redemption of the Carrot
Fast forward to a snow day when I was 11. There was nothing to do and so I pulled out the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook for Kids, late 1950s edition. I was determined to cook something for fun. But we didn’t have all the ingredients for any of the recipes – nothing, except one…carrots. Cooked carrots. Because we had the carrots, we had the honey and we had the butter.
Intrigued, I stared at the picture in the cookbook for a long time. The carrots had been cut into very long, skinny strips, “shoestrings,” and the butter was melting over them all shiny and bright. I stared and my mouth started to water. I pondered…I figured I’d give it a go.
My mom came in and asked what I was doing.
“Cooking carrots.”
“You don’t like carrots,” she reminded me.
“I’ll like these, ” I told her, by faith.
So I cut them into shoestrings. And I simmered them with a teaspoon of raw honey. Then I plated them in a pretty pile, all the strips going the same direction and put a big pat of butter on them just like the picture, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and ~ GLORIOUS! I loved them. I understood them, finally. I got what they were there to give me: nourishment and deliciousness. They weren’t overcooked and later I learned they were so sweet they didn’t need the honey. But I fell head-over-heels for my carrots on the spot and my mom was thoroughly nonplussed.
What does this have to do with Jamie Oliver?
Well-it’s his zeal. He believes it needs to start in the home, that the home is where we should begin to pass on cooking again – for the health and welfare of generations to come. Because the last several generations have increasingly gone to processed, convenience foods and eating out – a lot! And it is literally killing us, killing our children. And he says when you learn to cook it yourself, you love it.
It was true for me. With carrots, people!
Exponential power to change the future for the next generation is in our hands~ By good-old-fashioned home-cooking!
“Passing it on is a philosophy for me it’s quite romantic, but it’s about: If one person teaches three people how to cook something and they teach three of their mates, that only has to repeat itself 25 times and that’s the whole population of America.
Romantic? Yes, but most importantly it’s about trying to get you to realize that every one of your individual efforts makes a difference.” -Jamie Oliver
So, this is a call-out to the grandmas and grandpas out there and to the mommies and daddies for that matter: drag out the family recipe books, take the kids to the store to buy fresh ingredients, and show them how to cook.
I’m guilty. I didn’t teach my kids to cook like I should have, but was lucky they are smart enough to have pursued it and are good at it. But it’s not too late and it’s a chance to pass on heritage and family stories, too.
And hey – I like this organization {The Family Dinner Project}, “A start-up grassroots movement of food, fun and conversation about things that matter.”
But we all have to take back our food. I’m on a kick because of gardening-and eating what you grow…Eat fresh, eat local (when possible – I mean, I have to get my oranges from Florida, people), and grow your own, as much as possible-try it!
My husband was raised on casseroles. Any meat you could scramble and stir in some cans of Campbell’s Soup and top with Tater Tots, that was supper. My family was meat and potatoes. We had a meat (breaded and fried pork chops or breaded and fried chicken or fried hamburgers) with potatoes (you guessed it-usually fried) and a veggie…out of a can.
Our parents had been sold post-war convenience and were doing the best they could to put healthy meals on the table-quickly . And by sheer convenience they were less healthy, but the one thing they got right was cooking at home day in and day out, feeding their families meals seasoned with love, and eating around the table nightly, and if you were really blessed: good talk.
Dave and I provided our kids with frozen veggies and thought we were doing pretty well, better. But we failed with TOO MUCH eating out! No bueno!
“We’ve got to put back what’s been lost.” -Jamie Oliver, Ted Talks, Chew on This!
It’s romantic and do-able. Cooking more at home for life.
Tonight: Some one is bringing the salad, some one else the soup and yet another, the dessert. My part: Italian-bread BLTs (whole grain for those who feel less guilty eating it that way, thought if you’re eating a bunch of bacon, I say: go all in), heavy on the B and the T. And Bruschetta a la Pomodoro and Chiabatta w/Walnut~Basil Pesto. All easy. All garden-fresh.
One four-pack of clearance 20″ x 20″ napkins becomes two throw pillows.
Nice napkins, sturdy cotton, with a smooth finish, but bark-cloth-like quality + 2 standard pillow forms (purchased on clearance a few years back for $2.48 each = 2 pillows in a pattern I can live with for awhile for less than 5-dollars-per-pillow. :)
I needed something charcoal on my family room couches to sort of re-distribute some of my Urbane-Bronze wall color ’round about. I like the fabrics in the Threshold line at Target, especially on clearance! Ta-da!
We just don’t get much rain in Colorado. So when we do, we celebrate. But I am not sure if I have ever seen this much in just such a short few days.
There is flooding all over the city. Everything is soaked beyond soaked. And it just keeps coming. Businesses and school are closing all over the Front Range. Three of my kids and their families live in Frederick where they’ve lost power and sadly, Rocky and Jovan’s home flooded quickly and they had to leave in the night by “rescue” (brother-in-law with a big truck). His guitars and all his equipment – gone.
I used to tell my kids about “rain days” off of school when I lived in Louisiana and that sounded mythical to them. I’d tell them it was so bad, people would die in their own yards and they couldn’t comprehend it.
Now they can see, I think. It’s like we know, we understand the power of “natural” things like lightening-ignited, raging forest fires or rains so hard dams break and whole cities are destroyed, but we are almost usually just a little ways away, just safe enough…
“Burn scars in the foothills will be particularly susceptible to flash flooding.”
This morning, there is more. More rain. I am safe, dry, good. Water-logged in the garden, yes, but very grateful, so grateful. Heavy-hearted for my kiddos, but soon, we’ll roll up our sleeves…
There will be much loss of material possessions for so many people, when all is said and done. Our true treasure is laid up in heaven, where moth and rust cannot destroy, but still…help us, Father.
Remnants of grandbebes…some one didn’t put the sidewalk chalk away. :)
*Sunday School song I sang thousands of times growing up. Did you, too?
But finally yesterday afternoon, a cool breeze started blowing and an amazing real-life, puddle-making rain fell in gushes. It was wonderful! Here I sit again, listening to thunder roll while lightning flashes and the rain is pouring-pouring-pouring, almost too much for my little gardens to contain, but again n the morning, how they’ll shine.
Ten years ago this week we celebrated the joyous marriage ceremony of Dave & Tara (Rhoades) Powers with a morning snow-spit, followed by a beautiful, sunny day that rose to brilliance shining through the late afternoon stained glass windows at the church, ending in a brisk, chilly evening with an outdoor marriage feast. You had to dance if you wanted to stay warm. :)
Colorado can be that way. I have lost my tomatoes to a freeze on the last day of summer, and I have harvested the last of my tomatoes the week of Thanksgiving. In the Mile Hi City, you just never know!
So, in good faith and lots of hope, I have planted some brand new zucchini and squash seedlings, even though they are quite tender. It really isn’t likely that I’ll get anything from them, but on the outside chance that these deep, soaking rains get followed by some gorgeous sunshine, even these tender plants may thrive.
True, zucchini and straightneck squash are tenders, meant for summer only in this northern zone. So besides the summer crops which will still be producing for a while now, God willing and I tend well (things like cucumbers, green beans, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, herbs, various peppers and tomatillos), fall is great time to grow so many other things that will actually thrive in the cooler evening temps.
In fact – here is a short list of why gardening in autumn is so wonderful that even if you didn’t garden this past summer, you can and should go ahead and make a 4 x 4 box (Square-Foot Gardening) and garden this fall!
The growing season will be short, so the time investment isn’t a concern and you probably won’t be on an extended vacation because the kids are back in school. There went those excuses.
If you’re planning to learn to garden in the spring, you’ll get a successful head start now and a few small success will charge you up for spring 2014!
Seeds will germinate pretty quickly right now because there is some warmth in that soil.
The crops will mature more slowly because of the shortening days, which will make it less overwhelming.
My son-in-law Tristan swears my home-grown kale is waaaaaaaay better than any store-bought, even organic. As are almost all homegrown things, really. They don’t always look so perfect and pretty, but they aren’t full of chemicals and pesticides.
My current philosophy: start small, but start!
Here are a few of the things you plant in your fall garden that will keep on feeding your family for a few months:
Kale! Easy to grow and 2 plants this last couple of months just kept producing more and more leaves all summer. I’d give a bag away to one of the kids, 2 days later another bag to a different kid, plus all I needed! I have 4 new kale plants started (2 weeks ago) to keep us going and since it can even withstand a snowstorm or two, I plan on (hope-hope-hope) to have my own kale surrounding my roasted turkey come November. 1 kale plant per 12 x 12″ square. Plant seeds immediately or check the garden centers for seedlings that are established.
Radishes. Plant now. They germinate in a couple of days because of the warmth of the soil, but prefer this cool nights. Word to the wise, only plant 16 radishes per square foot. How many do you actually really eat weekly? Want more? Plant another foot of them next week, and the next. You can plant them safely each week until close to final frost. I’ll keep going until late September for sure.
Lettuces, spinach, mesclun mix, carrots. These germinate quickly in a Dixie-cup for later sowing outside. Fresh salads!
Beets, broccoli, Swiss Chard, cabbages – all great choices, too, if you have seedlings. Our garden centers don’t carry much by this time of year and I didn’t start new ones in July when I should have.
I plan to keep sowing seeds for at least another week. When these rainy afternoons pass and that sun gets blazing hot again, my garden will be bountiful and fruitful even as the leaves start changing colors!
a.k.a A Good Excuse to have Lots of Homegrown Tomato Dishes on display.
Yes, other people are bringing food, as well. But God willing and I get this right, here is what I am working on: Tomatoes, of course!
A marinara sauce, a simple tomato marinara from the juiciest, most delicious tomatoes in the world, which just happen to be growing in my backyard this very moment! There will be lots of garlic and a generous chiffonade of basil from the very same garden. Just enough Kosher salt to add the perfect kitchen blessing and very nearby, if not in it, some Italian sausage and beef meatballs. It will be served with both extra thick spaghetti noodles for the kiddos et moi, and some hot, steamy spaghetti squash (also from my garden) for the Whole30s {not me} among us.
Fresh Bruschetta, which is essentially the same as the marinara, truth be told, but served cold, uncooked, all tangy and garlic-y and taste-buds-exploding YUM! I have recently discovered eating it atop garlic-grilled portabella (also known as portobello, whichever), and that is, dear readers and friends, divine, as well. Otherwise, some hot, crunchy baguette, brushed with olive oil and toasted, then rubbed with a fresh clove of garlic is a wonderful vehicle of delivery, soaking up the seasoned juice so beautifully as it does.
Red & White Salad – with some green for good measure. This is an old standby and should be made daily in the summer kitchen. My dad loves it. I discovered that if I make my own dressing from really good extra-virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar, it takes it to a whole new level. It is simply very very red chopped tomatoes, very green and juicy chopped cucumbers, and a whole Sweet Vidalia onion chopped. Toss in really good Itailan Dressing and it is actually refreshing to eat for breakfast, lunch, after a workout – whenever!
Caprese Salad. I mean, how can you improve on the traditional Insalata Caprese? It’s a simple salad, made of sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, seasoned with salt, and olive oil. Perfection, really, but Dave brought home these tiny Mozzarella Fresca Perlines (pearl-sized little balls) and they seem like they might get lost on a traditional Caprese plate, so I am going to use them with bow tie pasta, and of course I’ll drizzle with a sweet, dark balsamic. That goes without saying, yes?
This is a time of glory for my homemade tomatoes. I cannot help myself.
~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, and there will be some delicious fresh-made Basil & Walnut-Pesto to go on the pasta if some one prefers. And some Garlic-Seafood Scampi, too. For the birthday boy (Tristan).
I am also working on Tomatilla Salsa and Tomatilla Guacamole today. But that is an entirely different situation, altogether. :)
I haven’t gone out to harvest today’s garden goodies yet. But this is already in my “tomato bowl” this morning. The bowl is 18″ diameter, 6″ deep. And full – 4 types of tomatoes.
For a few months, gardening has been tending to, working, weeding, watering, feeding, watching over with hope and expectancy.
Then suddenly…
He who cultivates his land will have plenty of bread…
Proverbs 28.19a
I can hardly get used to this heavy-with-harvest time. I go out to work a little, water a bit and come in with so much reward, my arms and shirt filled with garden goodies of all kinds – enough to enjoy and share! And I am still overwhelmed by these daily benefits (loaded with them!), astonished with joy over finding new mercies among the leaves, sort of amazed and giggling at the miracle of it: Look what God has done! I apologize in advance – I cannot help myself. I throw a load on the counter and whip out the iPhone. *snap!
Dave caught me scrolling through my phone’s camera roll and smiling. Because this is the time I was waiting for {{nearly breathless, quietly~quietly hoping}}, and am yet so happily dazzled over: harvest time! I knew down deep it was coming {hoped-against-hope it would}, but I have still been captured by surprise!
And I will restore for you the years that the locust has eaten—the hopping locust, the stripping locust, and the crawling locust…
And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you. And My people shall never be put to shame.
Joel 2.25-26
It takes all my strength not to plaster all 37 images I have taken of my veggies in the last week right here on this blog. Yesterday, as I was juggling red, juicy tomatoes and heavy, dark green cucumbers with assorted peppers and just-right zucchini with straightneck squash to bring them into the house, it was perhaps the third load, as the sun was shining on me and the purple petunias were cheering me on in their perfumed and wavy way, I heard a voice (in my spirit, not literally) narrating my story from heaven ~
“The seeds were buried in hot, black soil on a spring day by faith. Waiting, not always patiently, but certainly with expectancy…waiting…Then one day, the harvest became so plentiful she could barely keep up ~ armfuls of plenty, abundance filling every nook, every cranny. The time of abundance had come. At last”
Yes, I know I am a little over-the-top about gardening, but don’t you also find it incredibly stunning that God allows us to join Him in creating a profusion of life-giving food? Don’t you think it is an honor to get to tend to these miraculous growing things and then He just gives them to us?! I am a humbled recipient of the summer yield, a wealth of delicious, seed-bearing, life-giving, nutritious, lovely sustenance for my body and soul – this from a seed I watched die in the soil. Supernatural provision, people!
I am intoxicated with gratefulness for the Creator. I am.
Do not be deceived…A man reaps what he sows…Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6.7-9 NIV
Some years, the zucchini hogs all the glory, just producing and producing and flowering and fruiting out all over the place. the cuke has had its year and green beans know how to arrive in glory.
But I garden mostly for tomatoes and this year is just a really good tomato year. When I stumbled in to the kitchen for coffee this morning and saw tomatoes in bowls and on trays on every counter and the kitchen table, too, I realized that I must have picked at least 3 dozen tomatoes yesterday – to add to a couple dozen still just sitting around.
That included tomatoes from 4 plants: an heirloom tomato, which, as they are known to be prone, contracted a disease and is dying, but still yielding its’ fruit like crazy (a lesson to be learned); a Sweet-100 cherry tomato plant which is madly fruiting golf-ball-sized tomatoes, an over-achiever to be sure; an Early Girl, which wasn’t particularly early, but which is certainly giving us armfuls of perfectly-globed 6-8 oz. tomatoes; and finally the beefsteak. I picked almost a dozen of them yesterday and at least 6 of them were almost a pound each. They hang off a slice of bread – they’re that big. And that is fun. Dave was helping me show some off (below) – but then I got more!
I always tell everyone, gushing and exuding true love, “If you can only garden one thing, make it the tomato.” And the tomato is loving me back this year, delicious on my taste buds and in my tummy! :)
Oh-my-goodness, people // tonight was the night, oh, yes it was! I made my Cheater Chile Rellenos with the delectable-sweet-**mildly-spicy**-luscious Poblanos from my garden!
They are cheater, to be sure. What part? I did not make a homemade batter, nor take the time to make my own Green Chile (which, as they say in Colorado, is its’ own food group!) for smothering purposes.
These peppers came from one plant in one square foot of my garden (and there are more to come!).
I rubbed them with a little bit of olive oil, then roasted them over a hot grill, until they blistered and blackened a little. Then into a Saran-wrapped bowl they went to continue to steam and soften.
About an hour later, using gloves (pepper disaster last weekend – different story, yikes!), I gently removed the blistered outer skin leaving the dark green, smokey, savory amazing flavor of the pepper right where it belongs (never ever run them under cold water to peel, it works to clean them, but the flavor is washing down the drain)!
Next, I split them open, removed the seeds, stuffed them with shredded Monterey Jack cheese and then wrapped them in an egg-roll wrapper (purists make an egg batter, but I like the crispness and simplicity of the egg roll wrapper – thus, I am a cheater).
Then they were deep-fried just until the wrapper achieved that slightly brown, crispy condition.
Finally – smothered in Green Chile from Santiagos, for that truly Colorado-style, pork-roast and chile flavor.
I also made cilantro-lime rice and had some gor-geous Colorado-grown sweet corn (with real butter and some red pepper). We had the homemade salsa and huge bowl of guacamole (thanks-to-the-hubs::see previous post on his hilarious generosity) with OTB chips, and some cold, incredibly sugary-sweet, chunks of watermelon from the Western Slope for dessert, but really?
My heart was full with just the Poblanos on the plate —-smothered in green chile! My very soul was satisfied!!!
Oh, I adore a Poblano – they are my sweet Green Chile choice (even over the much more well-known and tasty Hatch). Poblanos are mild, yet the most wholly flavor-packed of the chiles, and beautiful in shape and color, to boot!
Did a Mariachi Band show up as I prepared them? Was I dancing the entire time? You be the judge! Go ahead – guess!
