Jungle-Causing Rains

Another week has gone by. We've had a bit of over an inch of rain in that time, and it's still drizzling down as I write this. The garden is rapidly becoming a jungle. Thanks to the grass I've mulched with, I can still walk out there without becoming much taller, but my shoes still get muddy. There isn't much walking space between some of the rows, so I have to tread carefully.

There are still some raspberries that could be picked. Today would be the day I should go between the rows. Each row has expanded to a double row so it's hard to see the space that should be between them. I don't have a full rain suit to wear, and it's rather chilly out, so those berries will become a feast for the birds. I know those birds help themselves anyway. Many times while I'm bent over finding the berries that hide low on the canes, I can hear their wings as they swoop in. They do screech and flop away rapidly when I stand up and surprise them.

The pea vines are on hiatus. I let them continue to grow after the first flush of picking. There's usually a second crop later in the summer, when the nights get cooler. I expect one this year as they're beginning to bloom again. There are a few Chinese pea pods now that would be a great addition to my salad of leaf lettuce and beet greens. (I added sliced fresh carrots, chopped broccoli, chopped red onion, and a banana pepper to that. Oh, and cherry tomatoes. Fresh lemon juice alone makes a fine dressing, as does guacamole. I've added mandarin oranges and sliced almonds once in a while, sometimes raspberries, too.)

The corn has lots of ears forming now, while some are just tasseling. Early on, only about half the seed came up (maybe the ground was still too cold?), so I reseeded the blank spaces. The later seeding is half the size of the first. I'll need to be out there sprinkling the entire corn area with the large bottle of super hot cayenne pepper I bought specifically as a raccoon-deterrent. It wouldn't do much good right now with the rain still coming down. Raccoons are devilishly clever and always seem to figure out how to bypass the electric fence. A friend told me he uses cayenne pepper, so I'm going to try that. I'll also drag the live trap out, baited with cat kibbles. Unfortunately, skunks also like cat kibbles, so the trap will need to be visible from a distance. A person really doesn't want to startle a skunk up close!

I've given up on strawberries. Between the deer hopping the fence (when my battery was dead) and the bunnies, not a single plant has survived. There's not a sign of a strawberry plant left. So I'll never know if the rocks I painted to look like strawberries would have fooled the birds or not. (I took those rocks to town and hid them last week. I hope they brought a smile to the finder's face.)

The tiger lilies along the east side of my garden are a riot of blooms now. I love seeing their bright cheerful orange and black (Opheim school colors - go Vikings!) in front of the mass of green in the garden. Many, many years ago, my grandmother Louise gifted me 10 tiger lily bulbs from her flower garden in Jackson, Mo., when we were visiting my family there. I'd thought we lived too far north for them to survive our winters, but planted them anyway. (I didn't think I had a green thumb back then.) They've been thriving and multiplying ever since. They'll form small, shiny black seed pods atop each leaf up their stems. Those will fall off and start new tiger lily plants. You can propagate them by both bulb division and by seed. Of course the seeds take a lot longer to get to the blooming stage. I pull lots of those little ones each spring or they'd choke themselves out.

I have two weeks left on the current Whole Life Challenge, so I'm still trying to not consume sugar or wheat flour. There's the occasional slip-up here and there. So, anyway, I've been wanting to make some pickled beets to enjoy. Lo and behold, I'm not the only one. There are lots of recipes for sugar-free pickled beets. I did find one for canning them, but most are refrigerator pickled. I'll try the canned version later, when more of the beets are large. I'll be keeping this recipe and making them again.

Sugar-free Orange Pickled Beets

1# beets

3 cloves garlic

Handful peppercorns

1 Orange

2 C cider vinegar

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add beets and cover. Reduce heat and simmer 25-30 minutes, or until tender. Drain, let cool, and peel. Slice thin and put in a large-mouth quart jar.

Zest the orange, then juice it. Add the garlic, peppercorns, and vinegar. Pour into the jar over the beets. Add water to fill, about 1 1/2 cups. Cover, shake to combine, and store in the refrigerator. Let steep at least overnight or a few days before eating. Will keep up to three weeks.

While these aren't as sweet as the ones made with lots of refined sugar, they're sweet enough. I didn't have a quart jar, so I made mine in a deep glass bowl. I used more garlic, and I sliced the cloves to release more flavor faster. There was too much liquid with just the vinegar for only a pound of beets, so I only added 1 cup of water. I hard boiled six eggs and added them to the bowl. I'll add thinly sliced sweet onion next time, too. In fact, I'll probably add those now and just not fish the onion out until tomorrow. I should wear rubber gloves when working with beets to avoid the purple stains around my fingernails, but then, I have farmer hands anyway. (At least my toes usually look good, thank you Allison.)