This year, I’m keeping track of the yield from my garden, not counting herbs. It’s pretty fun to see how many things I’ve grown (and to see if it is worth it to grow them again next year). Here is the list so far:

Radishes: 47 (I will sow again in fall and break 100, I hope)
Mushrooms: 15
Green onions: 1 (this was an experiment to see if the root of a green onion bought in the store will yield another green onion. It does.)
Baby Spinach: 22 (my spinach bolted, sadly.)
Carrots: 11 (I have at least that many still out there waiting to be harvested)
Strawberries: 35 (I lost 5 others to the birds. Still, not bad considering it’s the first year)
Peas: 34
Zucchini: 3
Beets: 9 (These I will try again in the fall as well)

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Sorry I haven’t blogged. I can’t blog when there’s a heatwave. I can’t do anything during a heatwave except hide from the sun and moan about being hot.

But I have been meaning to tell you about our mushroom farm. We bought it at Maker Faire a couple of weeks ago. It looks like a molding loaf of bread in a plastic bag, but it is actually sawdust and rice bran that has been cured of bacteria and infused with water and mushroom culture.

We bought the organic Shiitake Mushroom farm for $19.98. The guy who sold it to us said that they guarantee one pound of mushrooms from the farm. I was a little doubtful, because $20 for one pound of mushrooms is pretty high. However, that is the minimum amount that they guarantee, and the farm is supposed to go through 3-5 cycles, and besides, it’s just cool to watch.

We took it home and put it on our kitchen counter. Within two days, lumps began to rise out of the farm. Within three days, something that looked like mushrooms began to emerge:

Within a week, we had huge Shiitake mushrooms coming out of the bag. We harvested 15 in all, over a pound of mushrooms, and we have 2-4 more cycles on the farm to go.

Even better, the mushrooms were fresh, tender, and clean in a way I have never had before. I guess like all other food, they are best when fresh. We had them in a mushroom ragu over pasta and then a mushroom strudel wrapped in phyllo dough.

Now the mushroom farm is supposed to rest for a couple of weeks before we get our next crop. Hurrah! If I get as many as I did in just the first cycle on the remaining cycles, I will definitely buy this thing again.

On Sunday, Kyle and I were sitting in our backyard, staring at the ivy. It is Afghanistan Ivy. Some brilliant person planted it back there 20-30 years ago, thinking it would make a reliable, drought-resistant ground cover. And boy is it ever.

See, in California, Afghanistan Ivy is an invasive species. It just loves it here. Nothing eats it. It spreads by root and by vine, both creeping under the soil and up every surface above ground. It winds around other trees like a boa constrictor and chokes them. And, when it gets very old, it grows into a tree and begins to make berries to further propagate itself.

We had two such ivy trees in our backyard, and subsequently, our yard is covered with ivy.

(In this picture, the ivy is choking the tree next to it. I don’t have a picture of the ivy trees themselves, but it gives you an idea of the back fence before.)

I have been dutifully killing it, but it’s coming back already, its shiny new green leaves waving like plastic lily pads at me. So on Sunday, Kyle asked me if I wanted to take down the ivy trees, even though it meant we would have less privacy in our backyard for awhile. I said yes. Or rather, YES. He got out the chainsaw.

I knew that taking down these two large trees meant that I would have less privacy. I didn’t realize how much it would open up the space, or how much sunlight it would let into the backyard. The ivy was dark, heavy, and full of bugs. As the trees came down, my backyard suddenly seemed huge and sunny. For the first time, I liked it back there.

As for privacy, I plan to replace the ivy trees with another tree, maybe an olive or something that flowers. But the truth is, I will probably never get rid of the ivy altogether. Even if I manage to eradicate it from my yard, the house next door has at least two trees of it.

Seeing those hated trees come down limb by sneaky limb was satisfying, let me tell you.

The birds are crazy this year. I hear them all day long. This morning I had a dream that hummingbirds were building nests in my backyard, and then I woke up and realized it was because the birds outside my window were so loud they had invaded my dream. A few minutes ago, a little bird lighted on the screen of my window with a twig in its mouth. Every time I go outside, jays are perching in the branches of my baby fruit trees. Yesterday, a black bird flew into my kitchen window, but didn’t seem seriously hurt.

The neatest part of all this is that a red finch family has built a nest in my garage. Every time I go into the backyard, the female flies away and sits in the branches of the mystery tree in an attempt to distract me from her nest.

The other day I decided to read outside. When I went into the backyard, the female flitted to the tree as usual. As I sat out there for awhile, she grew bolder and flew back to her nest and hopped around the outside of it, looking at me. Right as she was about to get back in it, she flew away again. I looked over my shoulder and realized that my cat Quill had entered the backyard. As he meowed and rubbed against me, the female bird sat in the tree and looked worried. After awhile, the male bird joined her. He was just like her, except he had a bright red neck and face. Together, they flew to the roof about two feet from the nest and looked over at Quill, who was rolling on his back on the cement and chattering at them. They looked so upset that I took pity on them and left the yard, calling Quill with me so that they could have their little bird family in peace.

The down side to all these birds is that I am trying to grow a. raspberries, b. strawberries, and c. cherries. It’s going to be a battle to get any of these for myself. Already, my bean seedlings keep mysteriously disappearing as soon as they sprout. However, there are very few pill bugs this year. It’s a trade-off.

The first fruit of my labor: a radish.

I am still planting. Can you believe it? I put in the herb garden last week. I had the stump guys come out and remove two stumps from the flower bed (chipping the driveway in the process), then planted lettuce, nasturtium, chives, sage, rosemary, cilantro, thyme, oregano, parsley and our lime tree.

In the vegetable garden, I am starting to harvest radishes. My carrots and beets are still tiny seedlings, which is alarming, but there isn’t much I can do other than frowning at them every time I go out to the garden. The peas and spinach, however, look good. I stuck some rooting potatoes in the ground, although I will be shocked if they come up. Still to plant sometime this month: a dwarf orange or tangerine bush, artichokes, strawberries, melons, tomatoes, green onions, sunflowers, squash, and lots and lots of peppers.

A trick I discovered: Next time you buy a bunch of green onions from the store, slice off the roots and plant them in the ground. They will sprout a new onion for you. It works! Amazing!

Here is a poem I am relating to:

Messenger
Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

These ants have invaded my vegetable garden. They are streaming through my carrot seedlings. I went out this morning and caught one in the hopes that if I identify them, I can more effectively get them out of my garden.

The ant has long antennas, a light brown trunk (the center part) and a darker brown/black head and metasoma. They are about one-quarter of an inch long. I live in the Bay Area of California (Petaluma). I am thinking it is some type of Wood Ant or an Argentine Ant.

I believe I had the same type of ants at my last house. Those ants came inside during the winter and ate the roots of my potted plants and some gunk around the window sill. They ignored the kitchen and I never saw them interested in sugar. During the summer, they stole pollen from my zucchini blossoms, leading to a far smaller crop of zucchini last year. I wasn’t able to tell if they were doing anything with aphids.

If you, dear Internets, can tell me what kind of ant this is, can you also tell me:

I thank you.

We are still remodeling our house over here. It’s going slowly, but it’s going. The most exciting thing that happened lately is that Kyle put in our dishwasher!! I can’t tell you how wonderful dishwashers are. They are the best invention ever. I had the dishwasher and the Roomba (robot vacuum cleaner) and my clothes washer running all at once yesterday. I felt so luxurious. Go give your dishwasher a hug.

Putting in the dishwasher was an ordeal. Kyle had to cut a hole in the cabinet, wire a new outlet to plug it in, and plumb the whole thing. It was way more involved than I realized, and he did a great job. He probably saved us hundred by installing it himself.

The dishwasher when it was first installed. I will take a final picture of it once he does the cosmetic work and gets it all spiffed up. (It is not purple–this was taken before we removed the plastic shield from the front. It is stainless steel and black.)

Kyle also put in two security cameras. We aren’t worried about being robbed, but they are cool to have.

I, on the other hand, have been concentrating on landscaping. Kyle’s Dad gave us a lawnmower for Christmas, so we gave the yard its first mow a couple of weeks ago. It made a huge difference! I also pulled up the trash and ugly ground cover from the side and front of the house, cut down all the ivy in the backyard, and put in my vegetable garden:

I was pleased with the quality of the soil in my garden. It is swimming with worms, rich and loamy, and high in nutrients. It only needed some nitrogen and organic material, and it was ready to go. (At least as far as I could tell. I’m still a novice at this.) I wanted to use bricks as a border for the garden, but didn’t have the extra cash that would take, so we used the old baseboards from the house instead. This weekend, I planted the early spring crops: peas, beans, spinach, carrots, beets, radishes, and raspberries.

We also planted three fruit trees: a grafted cherry, an apricot, and a pomegranate. They seem to be doing well so far. I plan to plant a dwarf orange tree sometime this month, and that will be the end of the fruit trees for 2008. (In the future, though, I want to put in a fig, kumquat, and possibly an olive tree.)

Blossoms on our baby apricot tree

Still to come in the immediate future: remove some unwanted stumps, plant the citrus bushes, put in an herb garden, remove all signs of ivy from my backyard, and paint the hallway. That’s just me. Kyle is going to put in an irrigation system to save us water and keep me from having to water every day. Then we will focus on tiling the half-bath.

So there’s a remodeling update for you. Eventually the house will be at a place where I can have a house-warming party, but not quite yet.

One good thing about having a house, I can plant perrenials without feeling like a sucker.

Things I am thinking of planting this year:

Kentucky green beans
Snap peas
Brandywine tomatoes
Steak Sandwich tomatoes

Early Girl tomatoes
Bell peppers
A mix of hot peppers
French radishes
Fingerling potatoes
Garlic
Green onion
Endive
Spring lettuce mix
Long thin carrots
Golden beets

Zucchini
Fennel
Artichokes
Sunflowers
Raspberries
Herbs: thyme, oregano, basil, sage, parsley, chamomile, rosemary, lavender
Nasturtium
Peonies

Also:
Two cherry trees
A kumquat
A pomegranate
Rita the fabulous lime tree (already potted)

Haven’t decided on:
Other flowers
Crocus
Another kind of squash
Your suggestion?

To Make The Garden:

Step 1: Rent a rototiller
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Eat things

P.S. Beautiful or weird?

Could someone tell me what this plant is that is in my backyard? It’s a tree about 20 ft tall. It is covered with purple berries. The birds don’t seem to eat the berries, so they may be poisonous. The leaves seem to be turning yellow, so the plant may be deciduous (then again it could just be unhealthy).

I am thinking it might be an elderberry. Does anyone know? I am trying to decide whether to replace it or not.

Berries up close

The leaves

And a shot of the tree (it’s foggy today):

UPDATE: It is probably a Mexican Elder. The berries taste like leaves and have no juice. The plant is ugly, although it does provide a lot of privacy in the backyard.

Long term plan: Remove tree. Replace with an avocado?

In between all the things I am doing right now, I managed to harvest my garden. It was a little disappointing this year–stunted tomatoes, bolting radishes, weird problems with the zucchini, etc.–but there is still more food from it than I know what to do with.