Customer Satisfaction

One of the things I enjoy most about our farmers' market is the interaction with our customers.  It took several years to develop a clientele.  But, now we have quite a few people who seek us out.  One of these is an older woman named Jill.  She always wears a big brimmed hat as protection from the sun.  For a couple of years, we just knew her as the "lady with the big hat".  We aren't too good at remembering names, especially if we are having a really busy day.  So, it may take several times for someone to introduce themselves before their name imprints itself on our brains.  But, at some point, we came to know Jill as Jill.

As I said, Jill is an older woman who lives alone.  She has some family or acquaintances in Switzerland because a couple of years ago she asked us to babysit her African violets while she went on a 2 week trip to Switzerland.  I was pretty nervous about this because I'm not that good with houseplants.  If they survive my care, they can probably survive anywhere.  At any rate, she brought them to the market with her one Saturday and we took them home.  I set them on my kitchen counter by the window and checked them every day, worrying that I would water them too much (or not enough) or that they would be attacked by insects or disease while they were in my care!  I breathed a sigh of relief when the 2 weeks were over and I was able to return them to their rightful owner none the worse for wear.

Jill has certain favorite items that she buys.  She loves sweet peppers, especially banana peppers, and she likes parsley.   One of the reasons I've been so frustrated about my parsley not producing this summer (see July 18th entry) is because I hate to let Jill down.  So, whenever I am able to harvest a bag full, then I save it for her.

As I mentioned in the July 18th entry, we are having the hottest summer in decades.  Days and days of 100 plus degree temperatures.  The last few years it has gotten to where I have a hard time tolerating the heat.  This must have been very apparent a couple of weeks ago when Jill was at our farmers' market booth.  I usually wear t-shirts and shorts in hot weather.  Jill, noticing my attire, told me I shouldn't wear t-shirts because they were too hot.  She pointed to the cotton blouse she had on and said it was much cooler than a t-shirt.  I told her I'd have to see about getting some of them, but promptly forgot the conversation after she left and we got busy again.

You can imagine my surprise when the next week, she brought the following item to the market and gave to me.

Needless to say, I was very touched by her kindness and concern for my well-being.  And, I wore the blouse the next week.  Sure enough, it was a lot cooler than a t-shirt!

Friday Night Date with Basil

At this time of year I am up to my ears in basil.  I mainly grow Genovese (sweet) basil to sell at our farmers' market.  I harvest it on Fridays, usually in the early evening.  I harvest it by grabbing a bunch of it in my hand and cutting the bunch off with a pair of scissors.  Then, I stuff it in a plastic bag.  I continue on in this manner until I've harvested all the plants in my herb bed.  I usually end up with 2-3 bags full.

Harvesting it is only half the work though.  After that, I bring it inside and package it to sell.  Here is what my kitchen table looked like last night.

Most of it goes in sandwich bags like this.

These will keep for several days in the refrigerator if you put a folded paper towel in the bag to absorb extra moisture and then mash most of the air out of the bag and seal it.

I also like to take some of the basil with longer stems and put it in cups of water like this.

Several of our local eating establishments give free plastic glasses when you buy a drink.  These fit nicely in a dish pan and are just the right size to hold a nice bunch of basil.

Here is what my basil harvest looked like after I was finished.

If I have an extra large harvest, then I put the extra in Walmart bags (or other brand) and sell it "wholesale" to people who want a large amount with which to make pesto or to dry.

It makes for a pleasant evening's work to drink a glass of wine and listen to music while packaging up the basil.  Plus, the kitchen smells heavenly.

Death Valley Days

The title of this blog entry aptly describes my feelings about this summer.  We've had almost 30 days of high temperatures over 100 degrees with very little rain and there is no relief in sight.  This is taking a toll on our garden.  Here is some mint that I had growing in a tub.

Tom has exhausted the water in his big 1500 gallon water tank in which he catches water from the garage roof.  It was full and running over this spring.  We have a well, but we have to be somewhat careful about watering from it for fear of running it too low and picking up sediment.

Our tomato plants look pretty good, but they are not producing any fruit to speak of because, even though they bloom, the blossoms will not "set fruit" and form tomatoes above 95 degrees.

Of course my basil is doing fine.  It loves hot weather, although I think it is getting a little tired of this extreme heat too. 

Most of the other herbs in the herb garden have gone dormant and probably will not start growing again until cooler weather arrives this fall.  However, I am perplexed about my parsley.  It should be producing better.  Here is a picture of what it looks like.

Even though I water it, it just sits there.  So, I rigged up a shade cloth over it thinking that if I can keep it a little cooler, then it might be happier. 

I'll keep you posted on whether or not this works.  

Caterpillars in Parsley Heaven

I have a parsley plant that is flowering.  Parsley is a biennial which means that you plant it in the spring of one year and it survives the winter to flower the next summer.  The flowers will produce seed and the plant's life cycle starts over again. 

Here is a picture of the flowering parsley plant.  It is huge compared to the small plant that I harvested parsley from last year.

You can't see them very well in this picture, but there are hundreds of very small flowers that grow in clusters.  If each of these flowers produces a seed, then I'll have plenty of seed to start new plants from next year.

But this blog entry is not just about parsley.  If you look closer, you will see that a secret world exists inside the plant and the Black Swallowtail Butterflies love it. 

This is a the caterpillar of a Black Swallowtail Butterfly.

There were several of these caterpillars on the plant that ranged in size from small to large.  I even found a chrysalis that one of them had formed.

 You can read more about the life-cycle of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly at this site:
http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/lifecycleofblsw

The caterpillars share the parsley with a wide variety of other insects.  In fact, this plant is a hive of activity. There are tiny flies and grasshoppers like this one that frequently visit it.

There are also a variety of wasps that use the plant for food as well.  Here is one of them.



I enjoy watching the life cycles of the plants, like this parsley plant, and of the insects, like these Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars, that inhabit my garden.  I hope by sharing them with my blog friends that you can enjoy them too.

Tansy

Ive been wanting to try something "different" in my herb garden.  I get tired of all the usual culinary herbs.....basil, chives, thyme, etc.  So, last year when I ran across some Tansy plants at Atwoods, I pounced on them, brought one home and planted it. 

Tansy can be used in cooking, but it should be used sparingly, because in large amounts it can cause violent reactions and even death!  That being said, Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs says its leaves are peppery and strong and were used in the past as a substitute for pepper when that exotic spice was unavailable. 

One use for Tansy is as an insect repellant.  My mother-in-law used to hang bunches of it on her back porch to keep flies away from her trash.  She swore by it.  And, colonial cooks rubbed Tansy into their wooden tabletops to discourage bugs.   It is also supposed to repel ants and, in fact, is also known as "ant fern" since sprigs of it have been used to keep ants from raiding kitchen cabinets.

In the middle ages, it was used as a "strewing" herb.  These were strong smelling herbs that were strewn on the floors.  When they were trod upon, it released the oils in them which masked the human body odors that were prevalent in those days due to poor hygiene practices.

I am growing Tansy in my garden to attract beneficial insects.  It is HUGE and has small yellow, button-like flowers.  Here is a picture of my granddaughter standing next to it. 

The flowers are not very apparent in this picture, because it has just now started to bloom.  Here is a closeup of them.

The flowers will last a long time without wilting and will retain their bright yellow color when dried.  They also produce yellow and green dyes.

Thief in the Night

We have an outside cat that I wrote about in my post "A Cat and his Nip" on May 21, 2011.  He is well fed because we have a self-feeder for him that we keep out on our back patio.   One morning a while back, Tom went out to find the feeder completely empty and turned over.  He had suspected for some time that "something" other than Marmaduke (the cat) had been dining there.  We have seen a couple of other cats around, possibly cats belonging to neighbors or maybe feral cats.  So, we decided to setup our wildlife camera out there and see if we could capture the culprit(s) in the act.  Over the period of several nights, here is what we found.

First, was a picture of one of the neighbor/feral cats that I mentioned above.

 Next, was a picture of a opossum.

And, finally, was a raccoon.

So, as it turned out, we were feeding quite a variety of wildlife.  Tom decided it was time to put a stop to this "restaurant" business we had inadvertantly started.  So, he started bringing the feeder in at night.  All went well with this new process for a couple of days.

Then, one morning he went out to the porch that is just outside our laundry room door to find this.

Absent the easy food provided by the self-feeder, the wildlife had gone looking for other easy meals and found our dog food (in the red can) and a sack of forgotten pecans we had picked up last fall.  What a mess!  I was amazed that any of the creatures above could actually take the lid off the can of dog food.  Sometimes, I have trouble getting it off!

So, I moved the camera around to this porch and caught the culprit on film.

The next morning, Lizzy (our beagle) and I went out to clean up this mess and Lizzy had a big time smelling where the thief had been.

I've heard raccoons can be quite destructive.  So, needless to say, the old pecans have been thrown out and the dog food has been brought inside!

Old Belt - New Use

As you know if you've read much of this blog, we try to live sustainably and we recycle and repurpose many things.   As a result, we like to frequent our local Habitat ReStore store.  Tom bought used shower doors and storm windows there to use as lids on our cold frames.  And, we've found a lot of used flower pots there.  I even found a nice oil painting one time!

One of the most useful items that Tom found there was a used cooler.  It is a nice size and does a great job of keeping our produce cool while we are at the Farmers' Market on Saturdays.  Here is a picture of it.

Notice that the hinge on the left looks a little funny.  Turns out there was only one thing wrong with the cooler when Tom bought it.....the left hinge was broken.   Well, Tom didn't let that deter him from buying the otherwise perfectly good cooler.  He figured he could find a way to fix it.

He brought it home and ended up cutting one of his old leather belts into strips to use as hinges and attaching them with screws like this.

We've used this cooler for several years and this hinge works just fine!  It is too bad that we live in such a "throw away" society where if something is broken, we are all too willing to throw it way before we see if it can be fixed.  Obviously, in some circles, we would be laughed at for our frugalness in using a "broken" cooler like this.  But, I am proud of Tom's creativeness in solving this problem and enjoy showing off his handiwork!