A Mushroom Walked into a Bar...

...but the bartender wouldn't serve him. "We don't serve mushrooms here," he said. Dejected, the mushroom walked out. He came back in the side door, strolled up to the bar whistling, and ordered a gin and tonic. "I'm sorry," the bartender said, "but we don't serve mushrooms here." Even sadder now, the mushroom walked out of the bar and came in the rear entrance. He sidled up to the bar, keeping as much of his face turned away from the bartender as possible. Before he even asked for the drink, the bartender said, "Look, it doesn't matter how many times you come in here. I'm telling you, we don't serve mushrooms here."

"Aw, c'mon," the mushroom wheedled. "I'm a fun-gi!" (read: "fun guy")

Yes, folks, it was a bad pun, but I was attempting, in my lame way, to prepare you for the horrific picture you are about to see. You know how, when people talk about death, taxes, and other unpleasant subjects, they try to make a joke about it to ease the tension? It's sort of like that.

So okay, enough of the pleasantries and joking--let's get to the fearful topic of...fungus. You'll see I've included a picture at right of a mushroom that has been growing in my yard all summer. We had a couple of 'shrooms last year (please let me reassure you at this point that we are NOT eating them, and if you have anything remotely resembling the pictured fungus growing in your yard, I wouldn't recommend adding it to any dishes), but nothing like this one.

This fungus, dubbed the Voracious Mutant Rock-and-Leaf-Eating Fungus from Outer Space and viewed with great trepidation, has evolved into an amorphous blob of spongy goo. I dared touch it, and the slick, glistening surface is actually dry and smooth. You can see hints of mushroom texture on the outer edges of this fungus blossom. Please note that the rock and leaves are STUCK--no amount of tugging would release them in one piece. I think the fungus is actually consuming them. I carefully placed a quarter in the upper right quadrant before taking the picture (which has not been photoshopped other than to simply be resized to fit the blog) so you could get a sense of the gigantuhugimammothian size.

All I can say is I am glad I am moving. I do not wish to be caught in the house unawares when this glistening, slavering beast darkens the doorstep.

Catching Up

I know. It's been a long time since I have posted. I was planning to post more regularly, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do. I'll start with the tadpoles.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am using kitty litter buckets as rain barrels in my yard. For a while, we were getting quite a bit of rain, so the buckets were about 2/3 full.

Imagine my delight when I went out one morning to use the water from one of my makeshift rainbarrels and saw...tadpoles! Yessirree, I had lots of tadpole critters swimming around in my bucket. I wasn't entirely sure how they got in there, but figured a frog had jumped in the water from the tree stump the bucket was braced against and, well, laid eggs or did whatever frogs do to have tadpoles! (I must admit my ignorance here.)

Unfortunately, I didn't have an opportunity to take a picture of the friendly little swimmers since my camera is broken. The picture at left looks a LOT like my bucket (borrowed from the Aquarium Board Web site at http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/articles/7.htm - pay them a visit to talk about aquarium stuff!).

Thrilled with my tadpole adventure, I went to work to discuss my new finding with my friend Michelle. "I am growing tadpoles!"

She could hear the excitement in my voice, and usually she is equally excited when I make a gardening discovery. This time, however, her voice was hesitant as she asked, "How do you know they are tadpoles?"

So I described the big heads and taillike bodies and the swishing way they were swimming.

"Um, I think they aren't tadpoles. They're mosquito larvae. Search Google for mosquito larvae images."

Heart sinking quickly (because I know Michelle is probably right since she usually is about all things gardening-related), I conducted said Google search and found--the picture you see above.

Mosquito. larvae. ugh.

She was disappointed, too. "I really wish they WERE tadpoles," she said.

Mosquito. babies. must. die.

So I went home, dumped out the mosquito babies' amniotic fluid, and stomped the larvae to death. And felt no remorse.

Does that make me a bad person?

First Significant Tomato Harvest

Yes, I know it has been a while since I've blogged. I blame sheer laziness as the main culprit. So I'll be posting a lot in the next few days to catch everyone up.

With all the humidity and rain we've had lately, I finally was able to get a decent harvest of cherry, sugar sunsweet, and currant tomatoes (the tiny ones). They are all sweet, juicy, and delicious (a few didn't make it into the bowl.)

And yes, you see the first okra! Within a day or two, I'll have enough to coat with egg, roll in Italian seasoned bread crumbs, and fry up for some snacky deliciousness!

In fact, I'm a little tickled by the way the okra is growing--I planted them in a row, and apparently the placement of the plants is such that each one gets just a little less sun than the next, which makes it just a little smaller, which means that it will take just a little more time to produce. In sum, I should have okra plants producing for a long time to come!

I also have more green peppers coming on. I picked one pepper--along with some lettuce--last week for salads, and I have been savoring it, salad by salad. If you haven't had a home-grown green pepper, you don't know what you are missing! It is cool and crunchy--not rubbery like the ones you buy in the grocery store. The juice dribbles down your chin as you bite into its delicious, shiny green flesh. Even though the flesh of the pepper isn't waxed (like they are in some stores), it shines in the sun, a flawless mirror of natural beauty. And it even smells like a pepper! I have more peppers on the way--you can glimpse one in the picture that is very close to being picked, hiding amid the weeds--and I intend to savor each and every bite.

Something Strange is A-Foot

We've had some stiff summer winds lately, but I'm pretty sure an object like this one--which is heavy--doesn't just blow into a garden. Plus, our yard is fenced in. And the neighbors, who seem to be mature, upright citizens who keep their lawns well manicured by paying outrageous sums to landscaping companies, don't seem the type to just toss a shoe over the fence. We also haven't had any visitors who have lost a size 9 1/2 B sandal (and wouldn't they notice that before they left if they had?).

I have seen bunnies near my garden, and they dash away at the smallest sign that I might actually look in their direction. Could they have, perhaps, dragged the shoe in? Did a prancing deer leap over my fence, dislodging a shoe that it had its hoof tangled in? Did Mother Nature come walking through the garden, leaving a shoe behind like Cinderella, hoping for a princely sky god to find her and return the shoe so they could live happily ever after? And if so, wouldn't she wear a much larger, more practical gardening shoe?

If this is your shoe, would you please come claim it?

The 10 Commandments of Gardening

Talking with David today, I was thinking about creating a "10 Commandments of Gardening" list. Here's what I have so far:

The 10 Commandments of Gardening

1. Thou shalt have no other interests before me.
2. Thou shalt not make for thyself a genetically modified organism, but shalt allow nature to take its course.
   
3. Thou shalt not curse Mother Nature, for she is fickle and will show no mercy to those who misuseth her name.
4. For six days thou shalt labour in the garden. But the seventh day is a sabbatical from weeding, planting, and harvesting. Thou shalt need the seventh day to cook, can, and otherwise preserve the food gathered.
   
5. Honor thy Father Sky and thy Mother Earth, so that thy garden days will be long and fruitful.
   
6. Thou shalt not kill beneficial bugs.
7. Thou shalt not water at high noon.
   
8. Thou shalt not steal food from thy neighbor's garden, but shall asketh kindly, offereth to trade, or purchaseth foods from local farmer's markets.
   
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness about the bounty thy garden produces.
   
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s garden, or gardening tools, or wheelbarrow, or any gardening thing that belongeth to your neighbour.

So...do you have any commandments to add?

100+ Babies Born on My Porch

Mantis babies, that is.

Every day, as I go in and out of the house, I take a look at the praying mantis egg casing that Michelle generously donated to my garden cause. I elevated the casing by attaching it to a highly technical tool (read: stick) and propped it up in this state-of-the-art incubator, shown at right (read: a plastic drinking cup amid zuke and cuke seedlings beneath a grow lamp).

Last year, the mantis egg casing Michelle had supplied me with didn't hatch at all. This year, we had storms coming in, so I was waiting until the storms had passed to put the egg casing out.

I waited too long.

As I was headed out the door to work, I performed my glance-to-the-left-to-verify-that-mantises-haven't-hatched-yet move...and did a double take. Mantises were afoot in my enclosed porch, roaming around in the incubator! (If you look closely at the picture, you'll see the egg shell remains sort of hanging out of the side of the casing.)

Wow, I thought, maybe they are just starting to hatch and I caught them in time to put them out in the garden.

Um...no.

At left are just a FEW of the 100+ mantises that hatched, crawling around my cucumber seedlings (which are long overdue for garden planting). Mantises are currently walking my walls, ceiling, and windows, entering the house through cracks. They seem quite happy swaying their buggy-eyed little heads back and forth, watching me as I try to capture a decent shot of them on David's camera (which he loaned to me since my camera shot craps). Of course, I haven't quite figured the camera out, so parts of the picture are blurry and I can't get the macro and super-macro function to work right, so this is the best shot of the colony I could get.

Unfortunately, we don't have many bugs on our porch, so I have to capture all these guys and set them free in the garden so they don't die prematurely. Using my very expensive, state-of-the-art mantis capturing device (read: a torn piece off a Target prescription bag and plastic drinking cup), I scooped mantises up, gently knocking them from the leaves, and deposited them among the bean, pea, and tomato plants in my garden.

So, now you have the story of the babies. I am no longer just a mantis midwife; I am a MANTIS MOMMA!

Aren't my babies cute?

My First Harvest: Ravishing Radishes

I should have blogged about these beauties six days ago when I harvested them, but I've been running about like that proverbial headless chicken, attending my boyfriend's (David) music gig and teaching summer classes.

These two radishes [at left, a red radish; at right, plum purple] were added to a mixture of spinach, romaine and red-leaf lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, and crumbled green onion white cheddar cheese, all obtained from the Bloomington farmer's market that weekend. All, might I add, pesticide- and herbicide-free. It was a VERY tasty salad!

I vaguely remember the radishes we grew in our garden at home when we were younger. They seemed mild--or maybe I am remembering only the store-bought versions I've eaten in the past. These puppies packed a wallop, and it is only early June! The red radish was sweet and spicy, and the plum purple radish was also sweet, with much more bite. I recommend a lot of ranch-like dressing to cool the tastebuds. I harvested 3 more a couple of days later, and it's time to harvest again.

Meanwhile, at right is a picture of David holding out my first green beans of the year, still on the plant!

What? You say you can't see anything? Nothing but a black box? That's because MY FLIPPIN' CAMERA ISN'T WORKING! I have all kinds of garden pictures to take, and for some reason, all I get is a ridiculous black screen in the view finder! I can view the pictures I took before today. I clearly have battery function. But to take no pictures--no.

So, I'm clearing out my photos, I'll change the batteries, and see if that solves the problem. If that doesn't work, I'll have to see if I can find the instructions (can any of you ever find your instruction booklets when you need them? I can't!) to see if I just need to push a simple button or something.

Please...I need my camera to work! I have beans! Beans that are not only GROWING, one of which looks EDIBLE at this point, but beans that grew and that look edible despite the ravenous Mexican bean beetles that I have been fighting!

[Heavy sigh.]