Summer Salad

Wow, it's been quite some time since we've updated! Lots has been happening around here lately. First, robin number two left the nest a day or two after his brother. With any luck, they're flying around the neighborhood, happy as can be. Things got busy and we left the nest up in the umbrella for a week or so, and when we finally talked about taking it down, there was Mama Robin, sitting back up in there again! We snuck up yesterday to get a look in the nest, and boy, has she been busy!


I can't imagine how four babies are going to fit in there, when the two she had before were cramped in like sardines. We'll have to wait and see.

Secondly, the tomatoes out back in the raised bed have exploded! They're hugely tall, outgrowing their cages already. They're not as bushy as some other plants we've seen around the neighborhood, but they all are starting to bear fruit, and we can't wait to see how they come along. This is not the greatest photo, but maybe you can see how tall they've gotten?


And finally, the Romas started to to turn red. We've been anxiously watching them, checking online to see how to tell when they're ripe. Various websites say they should have a tomato-y smell -- check. They should be shiny -- check. They should have a bit of softness to the skins -- check. To us, they looked good to go. So we picked 'em, and prepared to make our long-awaited caprese salad.


But when we cut into those tomatoes, we found that they weren't quite ripe, after all. (Hey, we don't call ourselves "feckless" for nothing!) There was some yellow inside still, and the slices were a bit, shall we say, crunchy. But the flavor, even not all the way ripened, was phenomenal, and we enjoyed our salad as much as we thought we would when we started this. Next time, we'll know to wait a bit longer before picking, and hopefully our tomatoes will look as good on the inside as they look on the outside.

Is the nest half empty, or half full?

So what did Kris see when she came home from work this afternoon but one of the baby robins, sitting on the edge of the nest and looking for all the world like he was surveying his kingdom.



Though she was being as quiet as possible and using the telephoto function on the camera to keep from getting too close, the baby got a little spooked and fluttered down to the patio. He hopped over to the side, trying to take shelter near the fence and the rosebush.

He didn't make a sound, but Mama knew where he was the whole time, and was watching from the top of the fence.

Within a few moments, the baby had hopped along the fence and found a nice spot under some bushes.
Dean came home shortly after that, and Kris took him outside to get a peek at the baby. We talked about whether or not we should try to put him back in the nest; what if a roaming cat or something came into the yard tonight and found him a tasty treat? So Dean picked the baby up (it doesn't hurt them and won't make the parent birds stop taking care of them) and started back over to the patio table to put him back in the umbrella nest; but when Kris got too close, the baby got spooked again and squawked and flapped until Dean let him go. He flew a little way away and landed in the yard, and at that point Mama stopped watching and went into full-on protective mode, dive bombing us, squawking and flying back and forth and overhead, and generally threatening us until baby had hopped to the other side of the yard and to the safety of the fence. We decided at that point that Mama was on the job and will do her best to see that nothing happens to her baby, and so we left them alone. Here's hoping the neighbor's roaming cat stays indoors tonight.

On the way back into the house, we checked out the other baby in the nest. He's quite comfortable, thank you very much, and sees no reason to do anything rash like trying to leave his home just yet.


We could very easily have just come home today to find the nest empty and the babies gone; how lucky were we to be able to witness the moment the baby left the nest, and to see Mama's protective instincts up close and personal? The baby's survival is up to luck and nature now, and we wish him the best.

Hello, June!

June is finally here, and with the warm weather and long days come big changes in the yard and garden. The baby robins are growing like crazy - it's truly astonishing to see the changes each day. The last photo we showed you was from May 27; here are a few from the last week.

May 28:

May 30:

And today, June 1:

They're just so cute! And they're keeping both mama and daddy robins busy flying about, bringing worms and other tasty treats to the nest.

The garden is coming along nicely, for the most part. The roma plant is both frustrating and exciting to watch. There are so many fruits on it now, and we can't wait for the largest ones to ripen so we can make an awesome caprese salad:


But we've had to remove so many other fruits because of blossom end rot. It's really frustrating; Kristine picked off eight damaged fruits just today. How sad it is to go outside to see how the plant is doing and see all these fruits that are just wasted! We will have to do some serious research this winter to see what we can do to avoid this if we can next season.


Happily, the tomatoes out in the raised bed are doing beautifully. They're getting taller and taller...


...and are green and healthy-looking. There are several flowers on each one, and one of the Celebrity plants is putting forth its first fruit:


The parsley and basil look great, too. Not so much for the peppers, though the one plant still has an anemic-looking baby bell pepper on it. The rest of the yard looks terrific, too; the crape myrtles are going to bloom soon, and the hydrangeas are already working on it:


We look forward to seeing what else June has in store for us!

Growing Baby Robins

Time to update you on the robins' progress. The egg photo below was taken on May 20, and the brand-new-baby photo was taken on May 22. Here is one from two days later, on May 24:


And today, May 27:


My, they grow so quickly! It really is amazing to see the feathers take shape and the bodies change so much in just a few days. We feel really lucky to be witnessing this.

The roma tomato plant is still growing like crazy. It has lots and lots of fruits of varying sizes on it, though we've had to take some of them off of the plant because they suffered from blossom end rot. We've probably lost 7 or 8 baby fruits to that so far. The largest fruits are probably 3 inches wide and 4 or 5 inches long at this point, but still green. The cilantro in the pot with the roma plant isn't looking too good; it's thin and yellowed in spots. We didn't expect the roma plant to get so big, and it's probably hogging all the sun from the cilantro. We'll know better next time to give the cilantro its own pot.

The tomato plants in the raised bed have suddenly started to grow taller; they're probably 14-16" tall at this point. The basil has some black spots on it due to the cold-ish weather we had last week, but it's coming back now. The parsley still looks good, too. The peppers, though, look pretty sickly. The green pepper plant has one little fruit on it, but the others look almost like they did the day we planted them - except not quite as healthy. We're not too optimistic on them. We'll just continue to wait and see.

Welcome to the world, baby robins!

Check it out! A few days ago we had this:

And now, we have this:

Two teeny-tiny, very new baby robins! We had seen Mama Robin doing a lot of standing on the side of her nest rather than her customary sitting, so when she flew off this afternoon, we took the opportunity to climb up and get a look. They can't be more than a day or so old, seeing as how they aren't even holding their heads up yet. We're so excited! Here's hoping that they grow up healthy and do as well as the mourning dove chicks, who have now left the nest are off flying around the neighborhood.

A rose by any other name...

...could never be as pretty as this one. Our rosebush is covered in buds, and a few hearty ones have burst into bloom already. Dean got this terrific shot this afternoon. Ah, spring!

Bird Baby Update

Thanks to those of you who are following our little gardening attempt this year! It's nice to know that people are reading and keeping up with us. :-) It's been awhile since we updated, so here's some news from the backyard.

A few days ago, we went out to the camellia tree to see if the mourning bird eggs had hatched yet, and we found mama sitting on the nest with a ball of fuzz in front of her. This picture doesn't show it too well, but that's a mourning dove chick there with her.


Today, we went out to check to see how the baby was doing, hoping to get a little bit better of a photo. We were rewarded with the sight of *multiple* baby birds in the nest with mama! Here are a couple of shots from various viewpoints. It's hard to tell exactly how many babies she's got in there with her - 2 or 3, it looks like.





It's amazing how quickly they've grown in just a few days - from fuzz to feathers! Soon they'll be all grown up and leaving the nest. We've read that mourning doves have several broods a season, so maybe we'll see more babies in that nest later this summer.

Meanwhile, Mama Robin is still sitting on her nest in the umbrella. Dean climbed up there to peek inside one day last week while mama was away, and he saw two eggs there, so we look forward to having another set of bird twins to watch soon.

As far as the veggies go, the Roma and cilantro plants are just growing like crazy. See how bushy they are now!


The raised bed veggies don't look all that different; they're taller and leggier, but not any bushier. There are a few flowers, though, so we'll have to continue to just wait and see if they produce anything.

...and on.

Today is the first day that we've seen sun and no rain for at least a week. Probably longer. It's been gloomy and cloudy and rainy and icky for what feels like forever, and today's beautiful weather (70's, sunny, slightly breezy, no substantial clouds) allowed us to finally get outside and get some much-needed yardwork done. Dean spent several hours mowing the knee-high grass, and Kris finally finished up the weeding and mulching down the left side of the backyard. It was a good day to be outside.

Our potted Roma plant is just growing like crazy, as are the two cilantro plants in the pot with it. The Roma now has three tomatoes growing on it, and many, many flowers. It's bushy and healthy and beautiful. The tomatoes out back in the raised bed are definitely starting to get taller, but they're not bushy at all. They're growing straight up, and we're happy to see the growth, but we still don't know if they're healthy or not. The upper leaves are a nice, dark green color, and there are a couple of flowers here and there. But the bottoms of the plants aren't faring as well. We expect that in our zeal to get this project going, we probably planted way too soon. The cold snap that killed our baby bunnies and the tons of rain we had at the end of April couldn't have been helpful. All we can do, of course, is just watch and wait and take notes in the garden journal to help us out next year.

In our travels around the yard today, we came into contact with two more species of wildlife that are allowing us to share their home with us. Dean found this Eastern Gartersnake sunning itself on the top of the grass clippings pile:


And in a crook of a branch in our camellia tree is a mama mourning dove, sitting silently on her nest:

Mama Robin is getting a little more comfortable with sharing her space with us; she allows us to sit at the patio table while she's up on her nest in the umbrella, as long as we're quiet. As soon as we make too much noise, she flies over to the fence to try to draw us away, and watches us to make sure we're not disturbing her egg.

We hosted a Mothers' Day brunch for all of our assorted mothers and step-mothers yesterday. It seemed as if everyone had a nice time, and we enjoyed having everyone here. Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there, both human and animal.

The circle of life goes on...

We had been wondering what happened to our family of robins this year. For the last couple of years, they've built their nest in the crook of the gutter downspout around the back of the house. But every time we'd go out and take a look, the crook was empty.


But then we got a closer look at our patio umbrella. It looks like the robins didn't move away after all - they just moved up. It *is* a buyers' market these days, you know.




Mama sits diligently on the nest, and she's pretty good about staying up there while we're outside, as long as we don't get too loud or make any sudden movements too close to the table. She flew away for a bit this morning, and we held up the camera and got this shot of the nest. The egg is so pretty!


We're still sad about losing our baby bunnies - every time we go out to water the veggies, we see the little twig cross that we put up for them - but we're happy that the circle of life continues for others this spring. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the egg hatches successfully. Happy Mother's Day, Mama Robin!

Look!!!

Two teeny-tiny tomatoes starting on the Roma plant! If we wanted to, we could prepare the world's smallest dish of fried green tomatoes, but we'll refrain.

Our babies are having babies! We're so proud. *sniff*

Flowers

Our babies are flowering! The tomatoes and jalapenos are putting forth delicate yellow and white flowers, respectively. We've read something about pinching off the tomato flowers, but we need to check on that before we do anything out there. We have Celebrity (determinate) and Better Boy (indeterminate) varieties, and we're pretty sure we're not supposed to do anything to the determinate flowers. Not sure about the indeterminate ones, though. Will have to do some research. At any rate, here are some pretty shots of our new flowers.



On another note, the Capitals are playing their first second-round playoff game against the Penguins today - here's Spooky rockin' the red:


Go Caps!!

Cost Update

We need to update our cost total again; since we added the back-up tomato plant (don't tell the other tomatoes - they might be upset!) and cilantro in the pot on the back patio, we need to factor in those costs. The pot was $14.67, the dwarf Roma plant was $6.00, and the 2 cilantro plants were $3.00 each. That makes $26.67, which brings our total thus far to $221.52.

We will be really interested at the end of the season to compare our yield with our costs, to see if we beat grocery store prices on our veggies.

Yardwork galore!

So, were we just talking about having unseasonably cool weather, like, last week? Because this week it's been unseasonably warm. Both yesterday and today, the temperature was in the upper 80s, almost 90 degrees. We suppose it was just too much to ask to have a nice, normal spring to experiment with a new garden. If we can survive this season, we guess we can survive anything.

Along with three other neighbors on our block, we bought a giant pile of mulch this past week. It was delivered on Friday, and Dean spent the day out there with the other neighbors shoveling it out of the one giant pile it was delivered in and into smaller piles in each neighbor's driveway. Dean says the original pile was as long as our Honda CR-V and about as high as a 4-door sedan. Our personal pile, now in our driveway, was about 35 wheelbarrows-full. Dean spent a good portion of the day yesterday filling mulch in our front flower beds. He also pulled a ton of weeds. Kris spent a little time (she can't tolerate the heat like he can) spraying weeds on the brick patios with vinegar (a cheap, non-toxic option that kills 'em dead in just a couple of hours, when the weather is sunny like this) and putting mulch around our garden vegetables.

Speaking of the garden, we're still just anxiously waiting and watering it (when it's not pouring down rain, that is, which is often these days). We are a little worried about the tomatoes - the bottom leaves and branches look a little worse for wear. They're yellowed and sort of wilting. We've read that the bottom leaves of tomato plants tend to die back as the plants grow, and the tops of the plants look okay, so maybe they're alright. Just in case, we bought a back-up plant at the Alexandria farmer's market yesterday - a dwarf Roma tomato plant that's already starting to flower. We put it and a couple of cilantro plants into a large planter on the back patio and watered it in well. It rained (again, sigh) last night, so it got some extra water, and they all look terrific today. We've got our fingers crossed!

We weren't the only ones enjoying the sunny weather today - check out the Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (aka Spooky) in the backyard today.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

There hasn't been much going on with the garden in the last week or so, but we did want to check in so you don't think we've abandoned our veggies. Since we planted, we've had several days of unseasonably cool weather and a ton of rain; so far, the veggies are holding up, though they're looking a little waterlogged today. After tomorrow, we should have a stretch of warm and sunny days, so hang on, veggies! The sun is coming.

After looking into some non-toxic pest control methods, we're trying black pepper. We read somewhere that the squirrels and rabbits don't like it, so we sprinkle it around the plants - when it's not raining, that is. So far it seems to be working. (And we're helping to keep McCormick in business.)

While waiting for our veggies to grow a little - we have to admit that now that the planting is done, gardening seems to be mostly comprised of waiting for something to happen - we've been doing some food-related reading. It's been eye-opening, to say the least. It would not be exaggerating to say that some of the things we've learned about the food business in this country have shocked us. It looks like starting this garden may be only the tip of the iceberg for us as far as changing how we look at food and what role we want to play in the United States food industry. We're planning to write a mini book review shortly, but in case you want to do some reading on your own, here are three books that have really turned our heads these last few weeks:

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

Cost Update

Time to do a cost update. Not counting the martini fixings, the garden cost up to a few days ago was $133.49. Including the $61.36 we spent on soil, we are now at $194.85.

The veggies seem to be doing fine. We're keeping our eye out for hungry varmints and critters, and have been researching nontoxic ways to keep them at bay, should the need arise. So far, we've learned that black pepper, castor oil, and peppermint oil are good options, so we may be employing one of those methods soon. Stay tuned!

Life Goes On

As sad as we are about the baby bunnies, life goes on. For us, that means the baby veggies we planted in the raised bed today. The weather forecast for the weekend has some more cold weather coming in the evenings on Saturday and Sunday, but we were afraid that the veggies wouldn't do well if they stayed in their temporary pots any longer. They were looking just a little bit peaked. So we bit the bullet and planted in the new bed this afternoon. Our veggies look so cute there in the new soil!


We have some tomato cages to put up when the time comes, and we're going to keep a close eye on the plants - if it looks like critters are getting in there and chowing down, we'll put up a wire fence, too.

In addition to the vegetables, we also have a small herb garden. Up close to the house there's an old brick fire pit that's cracked and not really safe for fires. Last year, we got the idea to fill it with soil and plant herbs in it. We had tried growing basil and oregano in pots on the windowsill, but they always got too dry and died, no matter how much we watered them. We thought that if we planted the basil and some other herbs in the fire pit, there would be enough soil there, along with the bricks, that the sun wouldn't heat the roots up too much. It was a great success, so we repeated the endeavor this year. We have our basil and some Italian parsley back in the new vegetable bed, and in the fire pit are last year's rosemary and chives (which came back beautifully, to our surprise) and some newly planted oregano.


Can't wait 'til we get to harvest our first tomatoes - with a bit of the basil and some mozzarella and olive oil, we'll have the best caprese salad of our lives!

Some Very Sad News

Unfortunately, our 3 baby bunnies didn't survive the unseasonable cold we had last night. Mother Rabbit didn't come back until early this morning (the sticks had been moved) but must have abandoned them when she saw they were dead, because they were uncovered and laying there exposed to the elements. We will bury them in a special little place in our new garden.

Needless to say, we are a little sad this morning. The Circle of Life is sometimes cruel.

Bunny Watch, Day 2

Now that we know there are little baby bunnies in the backyard, we cannot seem to keep ourselves from compulsively looking out of the back window to see if Mama Bunny is taking care of her nest. Having not seen her last night or this morning, we are naturally a wee bit worried. Northern Virginia is experiencing a cold snap that is supposed to last the next couple of days - it was close to 70 a couple of days ago, but the high temperature today is only supposed to be in the 40s, with the low tonight getting close to freezing.

Having read on a website somewhere that mama bunnies don't always stay with their nests - they don't want to call predators' attention to their babies - we feel a bit better that she's not around. But it's still way cold out there. We checked the nest a few minutes ago and found it bundled up tight - the babies are well buried beneath a layer of mama's fur, and the long grass is providing a screen against the wind. The nest is so well-covered that we can't even see the babies anymore, which is a sign that mama did actually come back at some point, but we're still paranoid. The website we checked suggested laying a couple of twigs in a cross on top of the nest, then checking it the next day to see if the twigs are disturbed. If so, that indicates that mama is on the job and there's no worrying necessary. So our twigs are out there and now it's just a matter of waiting and seeing.

A Hare-Raising Discovery

Funny, we had been talking when we started this endeavor about whether we'd need to put up chicken wire or something around our vegetable bed to protect our plants from rabbits and squirrels and such. We hadn't really come to a conclusion, and figured we'd consider it again when the plants were in. Well, lo and behold, what did we find in the yard this afternoon? A rabbit, just sitting there in the grass.


Dean walked up to her, but she didn't budge. We thought she might be injured, but as Dean got closer, she took off. And boy, were we shocked to see what was underneath where she'd been sitting!!


We felt awfully guilty about chasing her away, and stood looking out the window for a good hour, wondering how we would be as new parents to our foster-bunnies (should we put a warm towel over the hole on this chilly night? should we bring them in and nurse them back to bunny health? what kind of scholarships are offered for middle-class rabbits?)....when momma rabbit showed back up. She crept stealthily towards the hole, her nose twitching in the air, and settled back down to warm them for the night.

We're not sure how many little rabbit babies are in there; if you look closely, you can see the rump end of one on the right, and the little face and paw of another on the left. I suppose we should be honored that they've taken up residence with us; last year, they came into the yard just to try to eat the Japanese maple sapling, and this year, they consider us family. Aww!!

We seem to attract critters in this house; we've got robins who build a nest in the crook of the gutter on the back of the house, and more birds who have built a nest in the garage rafters behind the molding on the front of the house. The cats have even caught a mouse or two in the lodge room. And now this! It's kind of cool, actually.

At least Dean has a good excuse for not mowing the back lawn just yet. ;-)