Some really strange things going on in the tomato patch. I had a lot of trouble getting seedlings going this year – think I’ve found the problem and corrected it – so I started taking care of renegades that popped up in the garden as a possible salvation in case none of my new plants made it. Over the years I’ve planted literally dozens of varieties and hundreds of plants. Invariably some tomatoes fall off the plants and those seeds go into the soil accordingly. Or if a caterpillar drills into a tomato and makes it undesirable, I pull it and pitch it into the compost pile. That plus when I end the tomato season I pull out the old plants and deposit them in the compost pile. There are usually a few rotting tomatoes clinging to the old vine so those seeds are also buried in the compost. Every few months I move the compost from the pile into the garden – no doubt moving some of those seeds as well. The net of all that is that in the spring, from about March thru now, many of these seeds germinate and pop up as “weeds”. Since they’ve probably been cross pollinated with who knows what variety, the children are of mixed heritage. You never know until they start to put out tomatoes just what you have. In a good year when all my desired seedlings have made it, I just pull out all the renegades. One of these Strangelings appears to be a cross between a cherry and a San Marzano. Can’t wait to see how that works out.

One of the scourges of the garden, and specifically with the squash/zucchini, has been aphids. At the start of the season I read that planting nasturtiums would keep the aphids away so I decided to give it a test. I put in the flower seed amongst the squash plants and sure enough, I’ve had no aphids this season. It may be just the particulars of this season but at this point I’m giving the credit to the nasturtiums. Plus they dress up the garden a bit. You probably know that cucumbers are in the same family as squash or at least they look like they could be related. They are planted in the row adjacent to the squash so may be also getting the benefit of the nasturtiums.

As you can see, the cuc’s are coming on strong. This is one plant so you can just imagine what the crop from the six I planted will be. I did stagger plant so hopefully it’ll be a long, productive season. This particular variety is hands down my most demanded crop. Everybody we know asks when the cucumbers are coming. I have a feeling the on bush count will drop dramatically while we’re in Alabama.

It’s Florida corn season and we saw an ad on the tube talking about ricotta corn fritters. The corn in our garden won’t be ready until mid June but we decided to buy a few ears on sale at the market and make a batch of fritters so when our own corn comes in, we’d have another way to use it. I googled “ricotta Corn Fritters” and the recipe popped right up along with one entitled Ricotta-Corn-Zucchini fritters. Since we still have a long position in zucchini and always on the lookout for a new way to use them, we went in that direction. Really, really good. We halved the recipe and still ended up with 6 fritters about 4-5” across. Also learned something. The recipe called for a small capsicum chopped. I had no idea what a capsicum is and planned to just skip it but as long as I was googling, I searched capsicum. Turns out it’s a variety of pepper that longs like a regular green or red bell pepper to me. Just happened to have one of the regular varieties so the only ingredient we ended up omitting were some chopped chives. Whatever! Can’t wait for our fresh corn to start happening.

It’s blueberry season in Florida. We have a great U-Pick place a few miles from where Nancy plays bridge so it’s convenient to load up during the one month season. We bought 15 pounds this first time – which was all he had picked and we’ll probably repeat that for the next couple of weeks. Last year we simply didn’t load up enough so we’re determined not to make that mistake this year. The main use is with cereal in the morning but some end up in muffins along the way. I wonder about putting a few handfuls in the next batch of zucchini bread. FYI – 15 pounds packaged into 13 quarts.

Catching up – the pineapples are still growing nicely. My guess now is that we’ll be harvesting a couple by the end of the summer. Picking green beans – gobs and gobs of green beans. I’m going to try my best to keep up with them and pick them while still tender. Bean plants will keep putting out as long as you keep them well picked but they grow so fast that it’s easy to get behind and watch them go tough. I’m growing bush beans this year instead of pole beans just to give the trellis area a season or two of something else.

My neighbor’s house rebuilding project is moving along, slowly but surely. The entire downstairs exterior has been framed, the 8”x8” support poles have been replaced and a concrete stem wall poured and finished. If you look closely at the picture you can see where windows and the front door are framed in. All of the support jacks have been removed so it’s standing on it’s own.

Another pizza masterpiece. I’m turning these into works of art. A couple days ago we bought a hand held kitchen tool called a Veggetti maker. This takes veggies such as zucchini, carrots, potatoes, beets etc and cuts them into spaghetti like spirals. I decided to give it a flight test with a small zucchini – certainly no shortage of those. Broke out a jar of Nancy’s spaghetti sauce and added a couple large chard leaves cut into strips and the small zucchini cut into spirals with the new gadget. Heated it for a few minutes – not cooking it, just heating it. Added some sausage and poured it all on a store bought multi grain pizza shell. Topped it with mozzerella and popped it onto the Holland grill. In 10 minutes it was on the table. We both had some reservations about this combination but it was a total winner. I had made one a few weeks back that incorporated thin slices of zucchini and that was good but this new way to prepare the zucchini was even better. I can see where just the spiral cut zucchini with sauce poured on it would be a great side.

We’re planning a trip to Alabama next weekend to see Simon and attend the local lily festival. Simon has a role in putting the festival together and making a presentation so we thought it was the perfect opportunity to visit. We’re leaving Friday morning and returning Monday afternoon. I’m guessing it’s an 8 hour drive each way – depending on quilt shops along the way. We’ll drive straight thru going up but take two days to come home

Rookie mistake. I didn’t put on any face/lip sun protection at the beach. I always do but this time the tides were such that my back was to the sun when surf fishing and it was cool and breezy. Traps. My lips were so burned that they swelled, blistered, split and bled big time. I’d wake up in the morning and my face was literally covered in blood. Truly miserable for the last few days but a combination of cold compresses, aloe strips, and some new lip repair product recommended by the pharmacist at Walgreens has it about beaten. I sure won’t make that mistake again.

We had a great Mother’s day with Tom, Tina and Olivia, Joey, Mark, and Mark’s mother. Tom came up to the lake to pick us up and we went to our favorite meet up spot on Rose Bay, Hidden Treasures. The food is always good, the prices reasonable and the views and atmosphere are unbeatable. The service could be better but it’s so enjoyable just sitting out on the water watching the natural events unfolding, that the waiting is just fine with me. They serve up drinks quickly and check on them often but then slow things down – I think that’s part of the business plan as opposed to bad management. I think they’d much rather have you sit there slurping down exotic drinks than eating. A fair percentage of their business comes from boaters who pull up to the dock and disgorge more customers.

I met a new neighbor up at the mail box/newspaper drop the other morning. I was retrieving the paper and looked up the road to see a major league large dog heading my way – about 20’ away. It was waist tall so it could have been a serious predicament but I could tell by the way he was bouncing along, supporting a big dog smile, and wagging his giant tail that it was probably not a threat. Still my heart was pumping overtime. He came right up to me and nudged his head under my hand asking for a pet as best he could. There was no misunderstanding his attention so we had a nice meet and greet. It had a good collar and was clearly a valuable blood hound. He walked with me a few feet and then wandered off in a different direction. I later learned that he lived a few houses down.

We’ve made zucchini bread so often that we have the recipe memorized. For future reference, each loaf uses a cup of shredded zucchini and one of the giant zucchini’s yields 4 cups. In the latest case we made 2 loaves of bread and used the other two cups of zucchini to make zucchini patty’s – sort of like potato cakes without potatoes. One of the three plants is cratering – gave it all and the other two are a few weeks behind. We had such good success that I’m thinking about trying again in October. I’ll wait and see what the weather looks like and how voracious the critters have been.

There was a fairly strong easterly wind all day Sunday and overnight so the surf was much rougher and the tide higher on Monday morning. It still looked fishable so I gave it a try, switching from mullet to shrimp for bait. Nothing. And the reason you’ve not been flooded with big fish pic’s is that the fishing remained poor until Thursday. Caught lots of fish Thursday but nothing worth taking pictures. So this week has been lots of eating out. We’ve hit all the favorite haunts – Wacky Wing Wednesday on the pier, Fish and Chips at the Golden Lion – and a few brand new ones – Hidden Treasures, Metro Diner and Beach Burgerz so we’re running out of days before we run out of places to try. On Tuesday Joey came up and we drove to St. Augustine to try a landmark shrimp place – O’Steens. People have told us about this place for years but all cautioned that it could be a wait of a couple of hours which is a large turn-off for me. Then someone said that next door to O’Steens was a British Pub and that if you signed up for O’Steens they would page you at the Pub when your table was ready. As it turned out the wait was only 15 minutes. The food was very good but I wasn’t hungry and decided on the Majorcan (spelling?) clam chowder. Really, really good. Tom came up Friday and we hit our favorite burger joint – the Turtle Cafe. This is one of those places with a menu to satisfy every taste but a place that you would absolutely drive right by without a second thought if you didn’t notice the number of cars parked along the road on both sides of A1A and the number of people just mulling around outside waiting to get in.
Lots of catch up gardening. The zucchini had grown to football size so designated for cattle feed and/or zucchini bread. Transferred sweet potato slips from the water jar on the window sill to the garden. I planted 4 slips and have about twice that many ready to go depending on how the first ones survive. Sweets are a 90-100 day crop which makes it an August harvest, one of the few things that can handle the August heat. I did lose quite a few seedlings – mostly peppers and eggplants – but since these guys do so well in the summer heat, I’ll be able to plant some seeds and still get in a decent crop. Pulled out the last of the winter peas, the last of the kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. A few baby cucumbers started while we were gone and should be pickable within a couple of weeks. There are 6 plants and hopefully they will produce until late June. They are somewhat like zucchini in that if you don’t stay right on top of them, they turn into footballs but unlike zucchini, they are easily distributed to neighbors and friends. The other thing that thrived in our absence was green beans. The plants are knee high and loaded with blossoms so we’ll be doing beans in a couple of weeks. I’ve been stagger planting beans to extend the harvest and the ones with blossoms are the first planted.
All of this harvesting is fostering some kitchen togetherness for Nancy and I. She has trouble reading some of the recipes or lifting things so I’m involved as an intern or apprentice basis. Today we made zucchini parmesan, roasted cauliflower soup, and 3 loaves of zucchini bread. I made a great catch today. We put the loaves of zucchini bread in the oven and I went out to dig around in the garden. I came in and found Nancy sound asleep on the couch and just as the beeper went off on the timer, signaling the bread was done. Save!!

One of George’s friend is a back yard chicken farmer. He also has a veggie garden about the size of mine so I was surprised the other day when he complimented me on the collards and said he was just not able to get them to grow anything like mine. He’s an old Florida guy who’s been doing this sort of thing for years and I just took it for granted that you planted collard seeds and then harvested them until you were totally tired of them so I was surprised by the comment and told him to pick all he wanted since I needed the space and only expected them to last another month at the longest. He came back and loaded up two giant bags so I was happy to get the space. He also brought a dozen eggs which was a fine transaction for us and admired the zucchini so maybe we can put together another veggie for protein swap.
When Nancy does her quilt meetings on Tuesday, I kill those couple of hours at the library so I’m catching up on years of reading. One prolific author I like is Michael Connelly who I’m reading at a one book per week rate. I discovered that I have a fellow library patron Connelly fan I’m visualizing as an English Professor. I make that speculation because this person is very critical of Connelly’s grammar and with a very fine, red pen, scratches out mistakes and writes in the correction. I’ve now read 3 or 4 books that he/she has edited and to the best of my ability, those corrections are valid. It seems a bit of an anomaly that someone who reads fast paced detective novels would be so concerned about the grammar but …………. I’d love to see who the mysterious editor is.
it’s beach week. The weather forecast looks great. It’s been windy for the last couple of weeks so I’m hoping that goes away so I can fish the surf to my heart’s content. We missed this trip last spring with some health issue so the place owes me some extra fish. The pic of the shark was caught this AM after about 1/2 hour of fishing. It’s a small black tip, about 2’ long. I’m hoping the blue fish start soon. It’s late in the season but you never know. The other pic’s are flying parachute kind of critters. There were about half a dozen of them swooping and soaring all around me. Looks like fun.

One thing for sure, I broke the code on growing squash this season. We’ve already picked more, way more, this season than ever before. It’s a Utah like crop. I’m 99% convinced it’s the ultra early start inside the hot caps. The problem has always been critters that are waiting in the wings for the first squash to appear but by starting the plants a month early, the bugs haven’t yet mustered an attack. There are even several acorn squashes but the judge is still out on those. Zucchini are producing about 45 days after planting whereas acorns take more like 90 days so there’s still plenty of time for the bugs to go on the offense. Ditto New Zealand Spinach, aka Tetragonia, which has taken on a weed like status in the garden with virtually uncontrolled growth. I need to trim it with a lawn mower. The big question with that is whether or not it will handle the summer heat and humidity. Tried a new pizza combination last night – zucchini and tetragonia. Yum????????? Incredible. Then Nancy made a zucchini parmesan tonight. Excellent. Can a few loaves of zucchini bread be far behind?

Chris made it to Walnut Creek a day ahead of his furniture and car. Smooth sailing the whole way. The moving van arrived right on schedule and the car at the same time, a day early, so by noon on Thursday he was living the good life. He’s totally satisfied with the apartment and the location which is within easy walking distance to BART and to one of his stores. You can check it out online by googling Brio Walnut Creek. His model is the 2BR, 2bath split plan. Very impressive amenities. How about daily valet trash pickup.

Big time rain today which is supposed to be repeated for the next couple of days. I was hoping for a quarter of an inch to keep the new seeds I planted moist but what we got was 3”. I’m getting bad vibes about this rainy season – since it hasn’t officially started yet. Maybe I should start looking into rice horticulture.

Big Ag news – the first two pineapples I started have little baby pineapples going. I didn’t log the event but think I planted them about 18 months ago. What I don’t know (yet) is whether the main plant remains to produce more fruit after I pick the pineapple or whether it’s a one time event. Interestingly there was a sale on pineapples at a local market last week and I bought 10 at $1 each. I didn’t save the tops to plant because the returns are minimal for so long a time in the garden. I cut the pineapples up and put them in the freezer to make smoothies for about 6 months.

I noticed wet ground on top of the drain field which is not a good sign. The lake is particularly high which I’m sure contributes. Also it’s shaded by a couple of large oak trees so it never gets direct sunlight. So my first course of action is to clear the trees and see if that permits enough sunlight to dry it out and help grass grow. George has all the appropriate gear and skill set so we took a few hours off working on Garret’s place to cut some trees and boost the stock of firewood. My real thought is that we’ll provide have to have the septic tank pumped out and maybe some work done on the drain field. They’ve been in for 15 years so I guess it’s to be expected.
Great progress this week on Garret’s house rebuild culminating in a concrete pouring day. George has a large cement mixer – a load uses an 80 pound bag of cement, 2 x 5 gallon buckets of sand and 3 x 5 gallon buckets of gravel. We ended up pouring at least 20 loads to fill a foundation 30’ x 2’ x 2’. We had help from a couple of young, strong backs but still was still an exhausting day. So the ground floor is basically done from a structural basis – all new support posts and the concrete stem wall. That should be the worst of it from a physical labor standpoint. I think putting the walls up downstairs is the next phase of the project.

Our South Carolina nieces and their families took a Disney cruise this past week. We got to spend an afternoon with them at the beach on the way down to the ship and then they stopped by at the lake for a brunch on their way home to South Carolina. So we had one niece, two great nieces, and three great, great nieces all at the same time. I managed to offload copious quantities of garden greens so we know they’ll be eating healthily for at least the next week. Most just stayed a few hours but Lindsay, Charles, Grace and Elizabeth stayed overnight so we got in some dock fishing as well.
Chris report – left Chicago Saturday AM and made it to Omaha that evening. Plans to make Denver or Cheyenne Saturday night and then to Salt Lake on Sunday. Not sure how much time he’ll spend there but think the moving truck is scheduled to arrive in Walnut Creek on Tuesday so I’m sure they’ll be there to greet it.

Nancy and I made an incredible roasted cauliflower soup today. We’re coming up with new (to us) creative ways to deal with so many veggies coming fast and furiously. Still to pick this week – beets, broccoli, spinach and snow peas. That doesn’t include the everyday stuff – lettuce, kale, collards and turnips. There are half a dozen zucchini’s about 4” long that could happen in a few days.

Nice, smooth transition underway to the summer garden. By the end of this month all the winter stuff should be gone with the exception of the kale and collards; the green beans have sprouted; ditto cucumbers, a couple of tomatoes and we’re actually picking zucchini. We had a bad squash season last year and I think we’ve already picked more in the last two weeks than the whole season last year. The weather has been coolish, extending the life of the winter crops but not so cool that it inhibits the summer plants. Plenty of rain. We had a 2” deluge yesterday and the lake is very nearly as high it was at the peak in September. We’re still officially in the dry season so with a normal spring and summer, we could foreseeably overtop the dock floor.

It sounds like Chris will be onboard in San Francisco mid April. They got a nice apartment in Walnut Creek, about a 15 minute walk to the BART system. That seems like a distance to me but compared to New Jersey and Chicago, this is a piece of cake. Especially in the winter.

Peacock sighting? Our next door neighbor, Barbara, said she saw a peacock just walking alongside our road the other day and then Nancy said she saw one walking on the jungle clearing between us and the lake. I went right over and saw nothing so it’s not a confirmed sighting and for sure I haven’t heard any so I’m on the fence. But there was a confirmed deer sighting crossing the field next to our place and then onto the pathway. It was a doe and fawn. I had noticed the doe early in the morning when I went out to get the paper. That encounter was at about 25’ – close enough to get my attention when I heard something that size moving in the bushes right next to where I was walking. The second sighting was with several other people at our Easter dinner so no doubt about that one. Sure hope they don’t find the garden. Last year I saw a couple of dear nosing around the garden but, for whatever reason, they never ate anything. If they do, I’ll invite Simon here for a private property hunting trip.

How’s this for a nice bass! I was going to take a nap but decided to go down to the dock and relax there – read a book while drowning a bait. So much for relaxing!

Big news – Chris accepted a transfer to San Francisco, the Sephora corporate headquarters. His new district does double the volume of Chicago and covers stores in downtown San Fran and east out past Oakland plus 4 stores in Hawaii. He’s been doing the Dallas district in addition to Chicago on a special assignment for a month or so and it’s possible that all three districts will overlap for a short time. The transfer is not a big surprise since the last couple of times he visited the corporate office, the subject of a possible transfer was raised by the bosses a couple levels up the food chain. He was there a few weeks ago to check out housing and found new digs in Walnut Creek so by the middle of next month he’ll be living there.
More big news – the bass are biting fairly well. I’m catching them now off the dock and out of a boat, plugging along the shore. The speckled perch season never really amounted to much so I’ve moved on to something I understand better.

A couple of pics from the recent visit by our grand nephew Kassem. The nice bass was an interesting catch. He was catching small bluegill with a little kid’s outfit. The small bluegill are then used for bass bait. As he lifted one out of the water, a big bass lunged at the fish from under the dock. He missed it and I told him to just drop it back into the water quick, quick. He did and the bass that missed it the first time nailed it instantly. The little bait rig had a very tiny, number 6 hook so the likelihood that it would hook or hold a big bass was zero. Or so I thought. Somehow it did indeed hold the fish and we managed to land it. Congrat’s Kassem – he cleaned my clock that day. The other pic is Kassem’s hammock. He wanted to sleep out in nature so he strung it between poles on the dock and slept out. We figured about midnight he would have enough of that – listening to the night critters roaming around in the jungle – so we left the lights on and the doors unlocked. He actually slept the first night until almost 10AM and went back for another night. He and Simon are going to connect and do some real back to nature kind of camping. Who’d a thunk.

The job I hate the most while Nancy recovers is shopping – especially grocery shopping. She and I just move at a different pace and have different styles so it’s really painful for both of us. But Nancy came up with an idea that seemed to work perfectly. She called out a list of what she needed in exactly the sequence they’re found in the store. I wrote down the list and sure enough, everything was in order and the whole process was fast and painless. No searching and hunting. I’m really impressed with how she can remember exactly where everything is located and can do the sorting mentally.

President Trump???? another “who’d a thunk it”.

Temporary cast removed from Nancy’s arm and no permanent one required – so all good news. She’s supposed to keep using the sling most of the time but occasionally stretching out the arm and introducing some motion. Max lift is one pound.

The Holland Grill and I made a spectacular dinner tonight. Grilled chicken thighs and grilled veggies. Here’s the veggie recipe: pick a head of Packman broccoli at 4PM; a head of Snow Crown cauliflower at 4:05PM and rush them to the kitchen. Using half head of each, cut them into perfect florets and sprinkle with sea salt, pepper, garlic powder. Then mix with a few splashes of olive oil to completely coat. Pop on the grill for 15 minutes. The chicken thighs had been put on the grill 30 minutes earlier so the total time was 45 minutes including picking, cleaning and grilling. After putting the veggies on the grill, run back to the garden and pick a few leaves of Bloomsdale spinach, a few leaves of Summertime lettuce, two Winterbor Kale leaves and half a dozen scallions – half white and half red. Wash thoroughly, put in a large salad bowl and sprinkle some Garlic Expressions salad dressing and a few squirts of lemon juice.

Have a nice little (3’x8’) potato patch going on in the garden. Accidental. A month or so back Nancy was preparing some potatoes for dinner and noticed that one had sprouted. I took it and cut off the eye and planted it. Then a couple weeks later I noticed that when turning the compost pile, there was something growing in it. Looking closely, I saw that it was actually potato peelings sprouting so I carefully probed around in the pile and found a half dozen or so that were starting to sprout. I put them all into one spot and, voila, they all seem to have rooted so this is a total bonus crop – currently at 9 plants. It’s kind of late in the season but the thing about potatoes is that you can basically harvest them whenever you want after a couple of months – the tubers just get larger with time so baby or fingerling potatoes are just young potatoes whereas the big ones are “full grown”.

Also in the garden, pulled out a full row, 3’x 15’, of Broccoli. We (and lots of other folk) have been eating off this row for a couple of months and it’s fairly well played out. I still have a few plants scattered around in miscellaneous garden locations that have not popped yet so the broccoli season is still alive. Good timing since I need to get corn in, now. I planted 3 rows, 3’x15’ . I know, I swore I would not plant corn this summer but I learned a few things and will try one more time. I also pulled the last of the carrots, a dozen or so, and replanted the spot with bush beans about an hour later – so no lost time. So with the squash plants growing like crazy, the transition from winter to summer crops is well on it’s way.

Had a great visit this past week with our great nephew Kassem. He drove down from South Carolina and spent a few days here at the lake. We got in some fishing, some boating, and he got to spend time with his aunts, uncles, and cousins who live within an hour of us. He’s turned into an outdoorsman and set up a hammock on the dock where he spent two nights sleeping out in the wild.