Building Materials

We bought a lot of cinder block today and, thanks to our friend Judy and her truck, managed to get it all home and moved into the driveway.

Our current project involves building a raised pad behind the garage for the new rain barrels we're going to install in about ten days.  One of the consequences of low annual rainfall is that, when it does rain, it tends to pour over the edge of the canyon and erode it away, but there's so little of our yard that we can't afford to let it erode any more than it already has.  Hence the new guttering and the rain collection barrels.

However, before the barrels can be installed, we have to build a pad to raise them to the correct height and ensure that they're level.  A couple of weeks ago we built a box out of 2 x 6s.  Cindy then dug out the rock-hard ground, installed the box and filled it with gravel.

The next step is to lay some flat blocks on top of the gravel and then build the cinder block pad on top of that.  Then we're planning to have the front and sides of the pad faced with the same stone veneer we recently had installed on the cinder block planter boxes around the garage and along the back of the house.  It's going to be a big project, but it is under way and should be completed by the end of the month, we hope.

Then we can start thinking about our next insane project.

Violet Beans, Green Beans and French Beans

Cindy planted some pole beans this year, including some heirloom Violet beans, which really are a striking violet color on the vine, but turn green when cooked.  She also planted some regular green beans.  The vines have become so heavy that they are sinking down the poles.  That makes the foliage so thick that the beans are difficult to see, even the violet ones.

As a result, some of the beans hid out in the cover until they were long and pretty tough.  She picked some of them yesterday, but thought they were too tough to use.  She tried cutting through the hull, thought the knife was too dull, tried another knife, couldn't cut it with that one and tried the kitchen scissors.  At that point she was about ready to throw them away, but she decided to try cutting them as French beans instead, slicing through the hulls lengthwise.  Fortunately, that worked and the beans became very soft and tender in the chicken, wild rice and green bean casserole she made for dinner.

That started us thinking that Europeans, with limited land available, probably traditionally grew pole beans rather than bush beans, and probably therefore encountered the same problem of tough hulls and developed the practice of cutting them in the French style.  It's a lot of work to cut them that way, but it worked beautifully.

The vines may be wilting a bit, there are still blossoms forming, so apparently there will be more green and violet beans coming this year.

Relentless March Of The Thunbergia

A couple of years ago, we cut down the monster Eugenia hedge between our house and the neighbors.  That left a bare chain-link fence that wasn't much fun to look at, so Cindy decided to plant some Thunbergia, also known as Black-eyed Susan Vine, to hide the fence.  It certainly did that, and in fact, it looks rather pretty.   However, the Thunbergia liked the location so much that now it seems hell-bent on world domination.

Cindy trimmed it back before we left for the mid-West in July, because the walkway was starting to disappear under Thunbergia vine.  We were gone just over two weeks, and when we got home, the Thunbergia was sending out shoots crawling across the sidewalk toward the house again.  She trimmed it again, and now it's back.

Maybe some day it will meet the zucchini vine, which also seems to have world conquest on its mind.

I Fought The Lawn....

We sold the lawnmower yesterday.  We had replaced the gas lawnmower with a cordless electric mower three years ago, but then we decided to get rid of the last of the grass in the back yard and it didn't make sense to keep the mower.

I had a beautiful lawn in the front yard of the house I lived in in Northern California.  I watered it, I fertilized it and I mowed it.  And mowed and mowed and mowed.  In the fall, I raked leaves from late August through December.  It was a lot of work, but the climate was appropriate for Fescue grasses, and it usually looked great.  I eventually replaced part of it next to the driveway with a dry river bed of drought-tolerant plants, including salvias,  rock roses and lavenders because it was difficult to water that area and I wanted to reduce water usage.  The back yard had very little grass when I moved in and I certainly didn't want to increase the amount of water and mowing, so it was mostly weeds and ground cover, although I did put in a brick walkway and a rock garden.

In San Diego, the climate is definitely not right for Fescue grasses; there just isn't enough rain throughout the year to sustain them.  The grass here is mostly Bermuda, which I think would survive a nuclear blast; as soon as it got a little water, it would be back.  No matter how you try to kill it, the Bermuda is still lurking there somewhere.  We hope the weed block we've put down in the back yard will finally kill it off, but that remains to be seen.

Some of our neighbors still try to have Fescue lawns in spite of water restrictions.  There's no denying that they look good and feel great underfoot, but with a climate that gets an average of ten inches of rain a year, they require lots of additional water and fertilizer.  Some people have resorted to artificial grass to keep the green look.  The artificial lawns don't require water, don't need to be mowed and look pretty good.  We heard from one of our neighbors that somebody had vandalized her artificial lawn recently by smearing latex paint all over it.  Fortunately, they found it before it was completely dry and managed to get it off.  We still don't know if it was somebody who hates plastic grass or just some drunken fool with more excess paint than brains.

We've noticed on our walks around the neighborhood that many of our neighbors are getting rid of their lawns and going with drought tolerant plants.  We've seen a lot of cacti, which are very beautiful right now--if you like cacti.  I can't say that I do, but I am glad to see yards that require less water and little or no fertilizer to make an interesting landscape.

So we're glad to see the lawnmower go to somebody who can use it; and really glad that we don't need it anymore.

First Carrots

Cindy harvested the first carrots today and we had them for lunch.  They were about three or four inches long, crunchy but tender.  They tasted and smelled just like ... carrots.  We love having veggies right out of the garden.

She's also planted more lettuces and we'll also have more beets in about two months.

Mystery Bug Identified!

Last week we found a very interesting green bug on one of the rose bushes in the front yard.  It was so well camouflaged that we almost didn't see it.  It was about an inch long, with articulated legs like a grasshopper, but very short wings and the body was much more oval than that of a grasshopper.

We kept checking on it every night.  It moved around some during the night, but never far from where it had been the previous night.  It also didn't seem to be wrecking the devastation on the rose leaves that regular grasshoppers do, so we decided it was probably harmless and might very well be a beneficial bug.

Then we forgot about it and didn't check on it for one night.  When I looked for it yesterday evening, it took me at least five minutes to find it, but again it hadn't moved far from where it was the previous time we had seen it.  When I finally did find it among the rose leaves, I was surprised to see that it had grown considerably and that the body was now about two and a half inches long and less oval.  Its very delicate, hair-like antennae, which before had seemed fairly short, now looked longer than its body.  Its wings were no longer short but were now almost the same length as its body.

So we did some more research and discovered that it's a katydid!  We hadn't heard any katydids singing, so hadn't thought of that identification, but that's what it is.  They are nocturnal, munch on some plant material and will eat the occasional aphid, so it's welcome to all of those it can eat.

When we were back in the midwest in July, we heard katydids and cicadas almost every night.  There's nothing that sounds more like summer than those insect sounds.  We were also surprised and delighted to see fireflies again.  It's been years since either of us had seen a firefly and we both jumped up and yelled "Lightning bug!!!"  So we had to sit out on the patio every night and watch for fireflies.  What a delight they are.

A Day Off

We took a day off yesterday to go up to Temecula to pick up some wine and meet a friend for lunch.

We went to Wilson Creek Winery first to pick up this month's wine club offering.  Of course we had to taste some of the wines first.  Cindy always asks the bartenders what new things we should try, so we started off with their 2009 Spring White, a nice little wine, great for summer.  Then I moved on to the 2009 Riesling and almost spit it out; it was too sweet even for me.  I generally like sweet white wines and I usually love Rieslings, but this one was over the top on sweetness.  We decided to test the 2006 and the 2007 Mouvedres against each other, but both bartenders said they preferred the 2006 and we could see why when we tried it, so we decided to skip the 07.  Cindy moved on to the 2006 Cab, while I tried the 2007 Estate Syrah.  Wow!  We had had this wine in a previous shipment, but had forgotten what a rich, smooth wine it was.  So we got a couple of bottles of the Syrah.

After lunch we stopped at Hart Winery and came away with a 2006 Driveway Red, a 2007 Three and a 2007 Sangiovese.  We love going to Hart--it's one of the last wineries that hasn't been Napafied.  You can stand in the cool, dark tasting room and talk wine to your heart's content, but mind you don't trip over the dog.