![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSCN2122.jpg\" "\\"red")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSCN2120.jpg\" "\\"chard\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSCN2123.jpg\" "\\"mesclun\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nUnfortunately, they also sick of eating it so there will be much whining over this afternoon’s chef salad and tonight’s side dish of sauteed swiss chard with garlic and red pepper.\u00a0 Good thing I earned my degree in Ignoring Whining over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n
The kids did have a blast gathering cucumbers, squash, and zucchini.\u00a0 We even found this funky specimen that appears to be 2 squash that grew together.<\/p>\n
This is a living example of how I feel when the kids have been following me around all day until I scream,\u00a0 “Will you please get off my butt????!!!!!”<\/p>\n They did help me spray raw milk, sprinkle food grade DE, and clip some of the blackberry sprouts pushing up through the raised beds.\u00a0 As a matter of a fact, a fist fight broke out over the use of the\u00a0 sprayer.\u00a0 Doesn’t this look so fun to use that you would punch your brother in the stomach over it?<\/p>\n \n I figured it was time to cut my losses and released the kids from garden chores so they could climb trees, throw rocks in the pond, and search for fool’s gold in the driveway.\u00a0 When someone ended up with gravel in their eye (someone always ends up with gravel in their eye),\u00a0 I agreed they could return to the house and make forts out of pillows, blankets, and all the furniture downstairs.\u00a0 Which is a guarantee that the next time I’m enjoying a book on the couch and pull out an afghan to snuggle up, it will be covered in dog hair from being dragged on the floor and probably have some dried up Cheez-Its stuck to it or wet spots from spilled juice boxes from when it was used for snack time inside a fort.<\/p>\n Did I mention that yesterday was the last day of school for my kids?\u00a0 Yep, we are now on summer break.\u00a0 I don’t appear to be starting out very strong, do I?\u00a0 Note to self:\u00a0 make a Chore Chart and buy an extra box of Tension Tamer tea at the store.<\/p>\n With the kids off to destroy the house, I could finally concentrate on getting some work done in the garden.\u00a0 I pulled up lots of weeds encroaching on my veggies.\u00a0 Baskets and baskets full of weeds.\u00a0 There is actually a basket hidden by this overflowing pile of wild onion, crabgrass, and some thorny plant that is attempting world domination, starting with my raised beds.<\/p>\n That’s OK, though, because I have a crew readily available for eating baskets of weeds.<\/p>\n Oh, and this guy, too.<\/p>\n With the weeds cleared away, I thinned the okra that, for some unknown reason, I overseeded and planted alarmingly close to the eggplant.\u00a0 Perhaps I didn’t thin it enough,\u00a0 but I hate to be overzealous since it appears to be under attack from something eating the leaves.\u00a0 I suspect the striped beetle I see around the garden.\u00a0 Which narrows it down to the bean leaf beetle, cucumber beetle, or Colorado potato beetle.\u00a0 Perhaps even some of each.\u00a0 Don’cha just love organic gardening.<\/p>\n I spotted my nemesis, the squash bug, among the zucchini.\u00a0\u00a0 So I spent a mind numbing amount of time picking off bugs and scraping off their nasty little egg clusters.\u00a0 Note to self 1 :\u00a0 move forward with plan to allow guineas into the garden.\u00a0 Note to self 2: this would involve getting up after dark, pulling guineas off their roosts and putting them in garden and hoping nothing kills them during night.\u00a0 Note to self 3:\u00a0 sigh<\/p>\n To avoid sinking into depression, I moved on to pinching the suckers off the tomatoes and tucking them neatly into their cages.\u00a0 A nice, orderly tomato plant.<\/p>\n Except for this tomato plant.\u00a0 This one was left over from the transplants I grew myself.\u00a0 I lost the tag to identify it, it was tiny and wilted, and I didn’t have a spot in the garden for it anyway.\u00a0 But I didn’t have the heart to toss it into the compost pile.\u00a0 After all, we spent 8 weeks together, nestled by the warmth of the wood stove during the darkest days of the year.\u00a0 So I shoved it into an empty spot next to the beans and gave it the cheap inverted teepee type of tomato cages that should have held its spindly yellow growth just fine.\u00a0 Of course, like all vegetation that you don’t need or expect to grow, it is flourishing.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, I think it ate the cage.\u00a0 It certainly couldn’t be neatly tucked in.\u00a0 So I just snapped off all the branches threatening the beans and left it alone.\u00a0 I am naming it “Medusa.”<\/p>\n Speaking of transplant varieties that lost their labels, what the hell is this?<\/p>\n Obviously I thought it was a cucumber plant since I planted it with the cucumbers.\u00a0 Obviously, it is not.\u00a0\u00a0 I though it might be butternut squash but this has green and white stripes like a watermelon.\u00a0 Have I inadvertently created a vegetable with the appearance and sweetness of a watermelon but the phytonutrients, fiber, and antioxidants of squash??\u00a0 Let the children rejoice and the mothers cross Providing Proper Nutrition off their to-do list!\u00a0 If it’s not a watersquash, and you know what it is, please let\u00a0 me know.\u00a0 I can handle the disappointment in order to satisfy my curiosity.\u00a0 Really I can.<\/p>\n Because even if I haven’t created a new vegetable phenomenon, this is the first year that my Three Sisters Garden is taking off.\u00a0 Look closely and you’ll see the pole beans preparing to climb the corn stalks and the squash seeds thriving in the foreground.<\/p>\n A Three Sisters Garden replicates the way Native Americans grew corn, squash and beans together and used them as a staple in their diet.\u00a0 I’m not sure how Native Americans lived through the winter because every time that we attempt this type of garden, it doesn’t work.\u00a0 And I’m not really sure why.\u00a0 Last year I even used fish emulsion as a fertilizer to simulate the fish that the Native Americans buried in each hill of seeds.\u00a0 All I got was one row of corn and a long snaky strand of beans that ran parallel to it.\u00a0 However, it looks like the powerful Indian Spirits have smiled upon my determination and rewarded me with a burgeoning crop this year.\u00a0 I hope it keeps going strong.\u00a0 Keep your fingers crossed.\u00a0 Or beat your tom-tom.\u00a0 Whatever it takes.<\/p>\n By the time I had everything set to rights in the garden, I was covered in dirt and sweat.\u00a0 The sun was beating down mercilessly and I guessed by its position in the sky that my exhausted return to the house would be greeted with a chorus of\u00a0 “We’re starving.\u00a0 What’s for lunch?”\u00a0 And then I saw it.\u00a0\u00a0 I couldn’t believe my eyes.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n