To the Trenches, Mates, for the Annual Hosta-Slug Fest

Great shot by Jeff Hahn

Yes folks, we have revolutionary new weaponry to combat slug-attacks on hostas. It’s safe for us humans and safe for the environment. It recycles natural resources, and it’s readily available in many gardens, so there’s absolutely no cost. What more could we gardeners want?

It’s called the gumball bomb strategy. For those who are uninitiated (happily, trust me) to the reproductive habits of the sweet gum tree, it spreads its genes by bombing us with countless spikey balls that give everyone the grumbles. (Everyone, that is, except for creative recyclers who spray them with gold paint and use them in wreaths for the holidays.)

Gumballs on a sweet gum stump. Top two show wear and tear. Bottom two are worthy of gilding or weaponry

Either we roll on gumballs when we walk, or the gumballs scatter like marbles when we rake. According to something I think I have read recently, slugs, too, share our dislike of gumballs, not because they roll and scatter, but because their spikes are a bed of nails that pierce the crawlers’ bodies and cause dehydration and death.

Bob is not as enthusiastic as I about the gumball treatment for hostas, but he is a good guy. This being a banner year for all three: gumballs, hosta, and slugs, he collects gumballs for me in a pickle pail. (No, I’m not pregnant and we don’t eat pickles for breakfast. We get the pails from a local sandwich market whose owners believe in recycling and re-using.)

Immediately I begin my campaign. I could see that this is going to be a bad season for slugs.

Bob is a purist and collected only the best. I threw in the pine cones–heck, they’re spikey, too. and they add volume.

Then I stop short. How, exactly would this work? I had assumed I could just throw a few spikey balls helter skelter around the plants, and that would be that. But wouldn’t any self-respecting slug simply slither around the gumballs to get at the prize–literally, since slugs only go for those hostas a gardener prizes most.

I realize that I am beginning to think like a slug, which is probably not very different from the way I usually think. If I were a slug, would a single necklace of gumballs around a hosta be enough to deter me? Or would double, even triple rows be needed? Armed or unarmed, hostas planted near fences would be easy chewin’, since I could detour along the rails.

This is clearly getting complicated, too many decisions to make, too much planning to do. I am beginning to be impressed by how thoughtful slugs must be.

Enough of this analyzing, my slug-brain chides, get to work. After I arm five hostas using a variety of thoughtful approaches, my back aches, my knees are sore, and my brain is buzzy. I had gone through half a pail of gumballs and I still had about fifty or sixty hostas to arm.

I do lightning-fast calculations based on my version of Einstein’s theory of relativity, you know, E=MC squared, where E is my energy, M is my mass, and C is my interpretation of the speed of light. At this rate, in round numbers, I would need a million gumballs in five hundred pickle pails, and it would take me a thousand hours to collect and spread them. That may be a small exaggeration.

My high-tech supplies. The bag is several years old but the contents are still good.

Then it hit me. I’d heard only one testimonial about these weapons of slug destruction, and I couldn’t even remember the basics of the story: who, what, where or when. What kind of sluggish thinking was this? Why am I not using the perfectly adequate remedy that is sitting in my garden shed?

Spreading diatomaceous earth on soil has always worked well for me. Why am I bedazzled by the latest magic bullet? Why? Why? Why? Because I am a gardener-addict? Because I love experimenting? Because the lure of a new idea is a siren call I can’t resist? Because the stuff in the shed is old hat? Maybe another gardener knows the answer.

Diatomaceous earth is a fine powder ground from fossilized diatoms, exquisite, tiny phytoplankton, each wrapped up in a silica case. DE works the same way as the spikes on gumballs. Smooth to my fingers, the sharp silica is lethal pins and needles to a slug.

Diatoms under the microscope. These exquisite phytoplankton are the critical foundation for all life in our oceans. NOAA photo

It doesn’t take much to be effective. Applicators are available but they have moving parts that don’t seem to work for me and clog, so I settle for a mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the lid, which also clogs but only has one moving part that stays put. I do a combination of banging and shaking, usually on a dry, windless day, or I let light breezes float the DE to rest. (One is advised to wear a mask and safety glasses to avoid silica in the lungs or eyes. I think one should always say these things these days.)

Every time I operate in de-slug mode, I get the bright idea that one of those utensils for sprinkling confectioners sugar on cakes might solve the clogging problem. Since that would require me to hunt for, purchase, and store yet another gimmick, in a nano-second I forget I even had such an idea.

Besides, one application every few years in spring to get slug babies seems to knock our slug population down. The coarse leaf and twig mulch we use, which can include spiny holly leaves, may deter slugs, along with the phalanx of hungry box turtles that roam our garden. Hey, maybe this is my version of the gumball bomb strategy, with tank troops for good measure.

This path in our woods takes us through sweet gum, hickory, ironwood, hophornbeam, pine, holly, persimmon,  an old oak, and blueberry bushes

DE is not poisonous, like metaldehyde bait, and it’s not messy or smelly like beer, and you don’t have to go prowling around your garden with a salt shaker in the dead of night. It’s safe and dependable and doesn’t seem to bother earthworms. (To be scrupulously honest, I must qualify my crowing by acknowledging that, unlike our friends in the Northwest, we here in the Southeast do not have slugs that will carry off a house.)

As I come to my senses and pitch the rest of the gumballs into the compost pile, I ponder the one-sided view we gardeners have of the sweet gum tree. If you look beyond the gumballs, it really is a good guy.

Who can deny the utter beauty of this luna moth. Photo from Lifeinthenorthwoods.com

Its resin has been used for medicines, soap, glues, and chewing gum. Its wood became furniture for colonists and plywood for barrels and boxes. It is the host plant for spectacular moths, including the lovely Luna Moth, which we once found napping on our front door, antennae folded, like eye shades against the sunny morning.

And those pesky gumballs! Why, they provide dinner to all manner of small birds on a cold winter’s eve. Acrobats on gumballs–chickadees, titmice and finches–they never fail to delight this woodland watcher.

And now I must tell you the rest of the story.

The rabbits ate the hosta.

To the Prize!

Once handsome, now devoured by the pair above. Note gumballs arranged thoughtfully in litter. Two days later the leaf on the left was slugged.

In Praise of Winter Stalwarts

Old man sun crossed the equinox right on schedule early last week. The spring parade begins. Redbud, crabapple, serviceberry, lady banks rose, forsythia, spireas, flowering almond, liberated by light from winter’s deep sleep, are racing to be brightest and best.

Native azalea canescens, a froth of color, can fade quickly in warm spring weather

Over them all, big pines are casting pollen into the wind. Water swirls with windrows of yellow streamers as breezes toss the minute, dusty grains at will. Changing constellations of spent Carolina jessamine blossoms, sharp and bright yellow in a western sun, bob through patterns of pollen.

Turtles, shells shiny wet, climb out of the water to bask on their logs. Turtles do not have a reputation for great activity once settled, so as their shells dry, they take on the dusty patina of pine pollen. This seems most appropriate for turtles who are probably happier to be basking under a spring rain of pollen than mucking around in winter-cold mud. But who am I to presume to know a turtle’s mind.

One of the trees that had to go after Irene hit. Actually had a hole through the middle of its trunk at ground level

It’s so intoxicating, I want it to last forever. But much as I love the flamboyant spring bloomers, I know they are fickle. They flash and fall in the heat of a day or the blast of a storm.

Unlike the stalwarts of winter that bloom early, stay late, and defy impossible weather.

During cold rainy months, these were the plants that brightened our days and polished our tarnished yard.

For the garden was at a low point this winter. Parts of it were/are still mired in the flotsam of Hurricane Irene. Fallen trees had to be cut into manageable chunks for hauling out of sight. Sawdust piled up and heavy limbs littered paths and beds. Carefully chosen logs that once defined paths had gone off with waves that surged during the storm. Carefully laid mulch had followed the logs or stayed behind and settled where it didn’t belong.

The scattered remains of trees, still too heavy for us to haul off, wait to be downsized

Our dock had some time ago gone atilt (a-slipping and sliding in the mud?) so it was a bit tricky to maneuver without taking a tumble. Old rotted planks, rusty nails looming, had to be torn up and there they lay in piles like jackstraws until a new dock emerged after endless afternoons of figuring and sawing, figuring and hammering, figuring and perfecting, all performed by the outstanding team of Bob the Builder and Tim his Friend.

The old dock

On top of these scattered ruins, an endless shower of leaves piled up and a rank army of weeds invaded. We wondered if we would ever get things right again.

When the winter stalwarts began to bloom, the mess didn’t seem to matter so much. Our eyes left the eyesores and focused on fresh new color from plants that are comfortable in our garden. They don’t demand much except reasonably good garden soil, maybe some fertilizer, maybe not, and decent drainage. How they love

Team Bob and Tim. Things are looking up

blooming under an open, twiggy, leafless sky with that winter sun all to themselves. They ask so little, yet they remain handsome through heat and drought and humidity.

I hope you enjoy this gallery of my winter favorites. They never fail to lift our spirits during the gray days of winter as we stroll paths or look out the windows from a cozy vantage point. 

Edgeworthia

Edgeworthia: Without leaves, a funny looking pile of sticks, but fragrant, oh so fragrant from January to early March. We planted it near our front door, its stark lines softened by a backdrop of camellias, for instant sensory gratification.

Daffodils Tete a Tete

Daffodils: For us, diminutive, wandery Tete a Tete and fragrant Ice Follies and Carlton are reliable standouts in sub-freezing weather, dry summers and wet winters. I like the masses of blue-green vertical accents in the early spring garden.

Lenten Rose (Helleborus orientalis)

Lenten Rose: Such subtle shades and subtle changes to the flowers as they age. The plants went missing after Hurricane Isabel, are back now with vigor. We remove ratty leaves, cut blooms after they drop and transplant seedlings after a couple of years growing.

Magnolia ‘Jane’

Magnolia Jane: Never fails to inspire us. One of the popular little girl hybrids with tulip-like flowers that’s sold everywhere. It blooms sporadically through summer.

Magnolia ‘Leonard Messel’

Magnolia Leonard Messel: Early bloomer, a mass of pale pink and white strap flowers dainty and fragrant. I planted a ten-incher in rich soil ten years ago and now it’s more than ten feet.

Quince ‘Jet Trail’

Quince: Thorny, twiggy, tangly, but such a reliable workhorse. Jet Trail and Common Quince begin blooming punctually on January 1^st. In our neck of the woods, Common Quince defoliates in the heat and drought of summer.

Common Quince

Each of these quinces follows its own course of bloom: Common slowly reaches a crescendo and holds a high note till mid-March. Jet Trail sends out sparks, then explodes into one long fireworks display that gradually disappears in April.

Camellia japonica ‘Anticipation’

Camellia: A tough, handsome, evergreen, a southern favorite. Hard freezes kill flowers but tight buds survive to bloom another day. Drought tolerant. We fertilize in spring use horticultural oil spray for tea scale and prune when needed. See our Camellia discussion.

Loropetalum var. rubrum ‘Ruby’

Loropetalum: Imposing. Extravagant. Explodes into bloom in February. In our garden shiny deep ruby red leaves, magenta flowers under magnolia Jane’s blossoms create a wild winter display. Disease-free, deer-resistant.

Spirea ‘Ogon’

Spirea ‘ogon’: Earliest blooming spirea we know of, a fountain of tiny white blooms in February followed by glowing chartreuse leaves all season. Modest size.

Each fall Spirea ‘Ogon’ delights us yet again with its orange glow. A fast grower, ‘Ogon’ had been in our garden for only 6 months when this picture was taken. 

Winter Honeysuckle

Winter honeysuckle: A way-station for hungry bees. Blooms hidden under old ratty leaves from January through March but oh, so fragrant. Rangy, suckering, unkempt until new leaves glow in a spring sun.

Winter Daphne

Winter daphne: Our one finicky plant. Planted high and dry to keep the wilts away. And still it may succumb. Its fragrance wafts across the yard on the slightest winter breeze so we pamper it a bit.

To all of you stalwarts: I have welcomed the good cheer you’ve given us in the past and I look forward to your visits next winter.

The Weed that can Snare a Gardener

Was I taken in by this one!

This native marsh marigold is a bright spot in wet areas.  

A very good friend who shall remain nameless gave me this particular weed as a gift. She was as excited to give it as I was to receive it. Marsh marigold, I exclaimed. Yes, she said. And there’s lots more if this doesn’t take.

Warning sirens should have gone off in my brain. I’d only seen marsh marigolds growing deep in swamps. So where did my friend find this mother lode of plants? However did she gather them without sinking into muck and becoming a swamp mummy? No sirens blared. No questions asked. In my enthusiasm I made extravagant promises to give these special plants a good home.

What a show this impostor makes in late winter here in eastern North Carolina

The legality of gathering and growing native plants never entered my mind. This was too great a prize to quibble. Who would be arrested if someone tattled? Would my friend be the culprit and I the accomplice, or would we both go down together? Would the tattler get to take a plant? Much much later these questions occurred to me.

At the time, I was feeling insecure about my gardening skills, which is a delicate way of saying that most of what I planted died summarily. So I nurtured my marsh marigold. When it prospered in our heavy wet soil, and gardeners congratulated me on my great plant, and I could share bonuses with friends, I felt like a proud parent and an exceptional gardener. I was so tickled I began to transplant it throughout the garden.

I lovingly planted up this bed, waited impatiently for it to fill in.

It was hard not to love this plant. Bouquets of flashy yellow buttercup flowers above shiny round leaves that hugged the ground would cheer the flagging spirit of any weeder in early spring. A couple of months later we would have to put up with a short messy period until these little suns set and the entire plant disappeared to rest until next spring. But once the beds were clear, a second act of later bloomers, like Japanese iris, or maybe Mexican heather, or salvia, could take center stage. The possibilities were endless. Wasn’t I the clever one!

After about five years this docile plant became positively cheeky, and I began to suspect something was amiss. Yes, it took me that long. By the time I caught on, the plant had become a tribe of biblical proportions. In their exuberance, the plants clambered over each other, rolling over more polite plants and worming themselves in and around the roots of others in an epic battle for territory.

Lesser celandine loves colonizing shrubs like this still dormant hydrangea, probably because the plant has been regularly fertilized and watered.

The coup de grace came one day when a visitor commented on all the lesser celandine I had, and my, how it had invaded my garden.

Lesser celandine! Lesser celandine! I’d never heard of lesser celandine. Not marsh marigold?

No, she said, but it’s a pretty close look-alike and they’re in the same buttercup family. Marsh marigold only grows in very wet places. Lesser celandine is not native. It was brought over from Europe in the 1800s, maybe for its medicinal qualities – it’s supposed to cure everything. Did you know that Wordsworth loved it, even wrote poems about it? Today it’s an escapee from gardens.

A healthy sample. Stems may look tough but they release willingly. Photo from www.fosc.org

Well, I thought, at least my friend and I won’t go to jail. Maybe I could open a pharmacy with this lot. If I had not been reeling from shock, I might have said something insouciant like, oh, but it is such a cheerful plant I like having it everywhere. (Maybe.)

Never mind, I thought, I can handle this. I’m an experienced gardener now. Right? This weed/plant — what’s the name of it again? I can never remember its name, I must have a mental block — is too pretty to pull out. I’ll keep it in bounds. I’ll control it. You’ll see. I’ll thin it. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll thin it and put the thinnings in a special pile separate from all our other piles, so there’s no contamination.

And that was when I learned about how lesser celandine grows. Talk about hedging one’s bet. These beauties multiply by seeds, by tiny bulbils and by tubers that break away when soil is disturbed. The bulbils and tubers attach to the plant by a wand, no, a thread, of gossamer. If I pull a plant, I get a handful of leaves. It takes a spade to dig up a plant and then a sieve to sift the soil and catch the tubers. One bulbil or tuber left behind and voila! next spring.

Another cutie that took me in. Herb Robert. I actually paid money for this one. Such a cheery spreader, but easy to pull. Oregon Dept of Agriculture photo.

I wonder if Wordsworth ever tried weeding these things before he wrote his poems. I will need an army of sorcerers with full-fledged spades to rout them all out, especially since that “no contamination” idea did not work.

But there’s only me. I look out on my garden of weeds winking at me. I think, well, I can wink back and smile, or I can start digging and leave in their place a monstrous moonscape. Then I can wait for the survivors to wink at me next year.

Another ubiquitous weed I fell for, lemon balm, touted by garden writers years ago. Citrus odor from leaves is its redeeming quality. Strategically located, it might deter rabbit damage. Nice crushed in a glass of white wine.

I Google lesser celandine and I find that it mows down native spring ephemerals in woodlands and has spread throughout northeast and middle atlantic states and is now heading west, apparently on a mission of manifest destiny. Doses of glyphosate (RoundUp or Rodeo) applied before woodland flowers emerge are recommended for eradication.

 I have to think about all this.

The other day a friend who lives nearby commented on how much he enjoyed that little yellow buttercup plant I’d given him several years ago. He was somewhat disappointed it hadn’t spread much.

Aaargh! I’m with you, Charlie Brown.

Love Is in the Air

It’s the end of February, and the Spring 2012 version of Fantasia is just beginning. The next few weeks are the noisiest, happiest time of year in our garden. Buds are greening. Days are brightening. Holly berries, last in the berry parade, overripe crabapples, and pine cones and sweetgum balls still cling to trees. Crumpled leaf litter provides minute meals of seeds that only a scavenging bird can find.

This stunning photo captures the qualities of the pied-bill grebe: chicken-like beak with stripe, diminutive tail and chunky body.

Choices that remain after winter pickins’ may not be everybody’s favorites, but there is still enough around to fill bellies and then some, with a little dessert from our nonstop birdseed and suet-cake buffet.

Still weeks away is the serious work of feeding babes that seem to be all beak and squawk, then chasing the tipsy toddlers as they test their wings. Time now for dancing and playing and flirting to rhythms we can only guess at. Time enough later to pay the fiddler.

To our surprise, water birds, not woodland birds are playing out the first scenes in these springtime duets. We thought our regular January visitor, the pied-billed grebe had already departed for points north. (See The Visitor.) Not so. For the first time ever, there is a layover into February, and for the first time ever there are not one, but two grebes. A pair? Grebes are normally loners except during mating, so this seems a reasonable assumption.

Their markings are practically identical, except for the fluff below their tails: one is ultra-white, the other is the color of thick cream. So, as is usual with pied-billed grebes, there is no easy way to tell male from female.

Nests are anchored to mats of floating vegetation that in time stains the pale eggs and camouflages them. Photo by Anthony Mercieca, Root Resources

They keep a certain distance, too. No tandem swimming that could announce a partnership, a ritual we see each spring as Canada geese explore our slip before rejecting the digs. (Who gets final say, I wonder.) Swimming and diving were strictly solo affairs for these two. Maybe they were simply acquaintances (Hi. Don’t I remember you from the pond last summer?), each with a free spirit.

Grebes don’t have an elaborate courtship. A little fluffing up and some maniacal laughing duets.

Slowly sinking to avoid danger. Air is released from feathers and “lungs.” Brad and Lynn’s Field Photos. Herpindiego.com

No fluffing, no duets here. This was casual choreography suited more to a comfortable, old-shoe pair. They preened. They loafed. They tucked their beaks into their backs for quick dozes. There seemed to be no self-appointed sentry. Neither seemed concerned about predators. Grebes count on diving in an eye-blink or sinking like lead weights to escape danger.

Our grebes became such a fixture, fishing, preening, loafing, we hoped they might consider nesting here, though we knew this would not work. There is no shortage of floating vegetation in our quiet canals to use for nesting, but our summertime salinity levels are too high for freshwater birds.

Young grebes have distinctive stripes and stay close to their parents. Photo by Jim Flynn, Root Resources

In a few days they were gone, and, in our loneliness (Yes, we missed seeing that duo’s arrival around lunch time each day.), we imagined their joy at returning to favorite ponds, imagined their loony calling, imagined piggy-back rides they’d give their youngsters.

A pair of hooded mergansers temporarily distracted us. It had been eight years since their last visit. That winter of 1994 had been a cold one. The slip had iced over and much of the canal was frozen, too. Those mergansers, three females, three males, swam and dove in the open pools that remained.

Differences between male and female are clear in this fine acrylic painting on board by George Lockwood

There’s no question about gender with hooded mergansers. The white crest on the male is flashy and he displays it proudly when he is courting. The female’s crest is brownish, yet when a western sun reflects off the feathers, they glow like burnished copper. Does the male consider this when he pursues a mate?

They are only stopping here to rest and refuel before they fly north to nest. Somehow the word has gotten out about the terrific fishing in our slip. Log jams left by Hurricane Isabel and other storms have become home to schools of small fish, and some not so small. The great blue heron knows this, as do our local fishermen, who never give up hope, and, of course, our grebes.

Success! Photo by Paul Janosi, Digital Nature and Wildlife Photography

We watch these transients as they fish for dinner. Their success rate is impressive. Once caught, it’s probably a rare fish that gets away. If the fish has not been impaled on the hooked nail at the tip of the beak, he will become prisoner to serrations along the edge. As soon as the merganser surfaces, the wriggling fish is deftly maneuvered into position to slide down the gullet with a gulp.

Is her beautiful crest a come-on to the male? Photo taken at the Bronx Zoo by Laura Meyers

When the mergansers left for their important business up north, we thought the story was over until one sharp-sunned windy day a single pied-billed grebe showed up in the canal. A determined north wind was pushing water hard to the south, impatient to empty the canal. The little grebe bucked wind and water for most of the day, rarely budging from his self-appointed outpost.

Why in the world didn’t he look for shelter in the lee? Where was his partner? As we watched the bobbing and bouncing, we began to understand. He was having time of his life. We could almost hear our little grebe laughing with delight.

A day or so later both grebes were back loafing. Is there no end to this off-again on-again courtship? you ask. Patience. . . We’ve had a few warm days, winds are coming from the south, and turtles are sunning themselves for the first time in months. Maybe the same signals that bring the turtles out of their muddy winter havens prompt the grebes to take off, for they are truly gone now.

The Common loon spends his summers nestng in northern waters. Photo by Michael Cummings

In the distance we hear, briefly, the haunting call of a loon, barely audible, tentative. Practicing, perhaps? Checking out a possible mate before heading north? The quiet subsong brings back memories of camping and canoeing in Maine and Minnesota.

We understand so little. Every spring celebration brings more clues and more puzzles. We can only watch and guess and imagine what is unknowable. Perhaps that is as it should be. It prevents us from prying and it helps to keep us humble.

The Visitor

I know it’s January. No, not just because I’m atoning for holiday indulgences.

Lots of clues. Cold weather, maybe. The sun, yes, the sun. It’s so low in the sky its rays at noon reach far into my paneled sitting room, flooding it with cool gold. Spectacular sunsets, too, splashing sky and sound with my favorite Crayola colors. Dark starry nights with Betelgeuse winking at me. Such bright shadows from a full moon I can take kitchen scraps to the compost pile late at night without fear of bumping, tripping or slipping, though muffled rustles or thumps on the way still startle me.

The casual stripe on his bill give pied-bills their name, but they only wear it in summer. Photo by Gerrit Vyn, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

I take all these signs for granted until one day I spy The Visitor, and I say, yes, this is January, and I smile with delight because I know he, or she, has not forgotten us. He, or she, has been spending a week or so with us every January for, oh, maybe a decade.

This meal will be a big one for the pied-bill. Note the white rump. Internet photo.

I’m so self-centered. Of course, these visits are not to us in particular. He, or she, happens to like our boat slip. It’s a nice, protected spot for loafing before going on, and its jumble of submerged logs makes for good fishing. In spite of myself, I imagine that she, or he, is tipping its hat (or should I say tail tufts) to us before going on to other adventures. Perhaps there would be stories each January if we could hear them. But our visitor is silent.

All in the family. Male feeding young as they sit on the female's back. Photo by Gregory Peterson, National Geographic 2011 Contest

Our visitor, as you have surmised by now, is a water bird. At first glance you might mistake him for a duck, but he is not. He is a pied-billed grebe, born of ancient lineage, distant relative of the flamingo. The difference is the flamingo is the archetype runway model, flashy, long slender legs stepping with precision, long neck gracefully arched. Our pied-bill is small and chunky, dun-colored, with stubby legs set so far back on his body he can hardly walk. (Don’t ask. It’s a molecular form and function thing.) Sometimes he sits so low in the water he looks like he should lose a few pounds. But he does have a cute white rump. All in all, a comfortable-looking bird I can relate to.

Flashy chicks emerge after 27 days in eggs laid in a floating nest. Photo by Joe Kegley.

And that’s how I recognize our visitor: low in the water, not flashy, small and lonely and silent, always too far away to pick out details. If I reach for my spyglass, I fear I will miss a dive, so I don’t turn away. Besides, I was taught that it is impolite to spy on visitors.

I hold my breath each time he dives; he’s down under for such a long time. I try to guess where he will surface, but he surprises me too often to make predictions. Does he know his bearings underwater, or does he surprise himself, too?

While they are young the chicks get a ride on Mom's back. Photo by Jan Scoff

Probably not. Diving is his life. His lobed toes make wonderful propellors when he swims for his dinner of fish, frogs or crayfish. Crayfish! Our very own crayfish? Surely he wouldn’t be so impolite as to pop one of our neighbors. Would he?

I would like to see him sink out of sight like a lead weight some time. It’s his way of escaping predators, but nothing seems to alarm him in our waters. Grebes manage this maneuver by quick-release of air trapped in thick feathers. Once under, they can swim into hiding to wait out danger. Maybe that’s why they are nick-named Water Witch and Hell Diver.

If our pied-bill is solo and silent in winter, he or she is busy and noisy in summer. Photo by Ed Bustya.

I will probably have to wait until next year. Our little grebe will be off in a week or so. Moving on toward breeding grounds? Or simply loafing elsewhere? So many questions. How old is our little grebe? Could he be a decade old? Am I seeing the same grebe each year? And is our grebe a “he,” or a “she?”

This I do know. I will be disappointed if I do not see our little grebe next January.　

　

Candy’s Quince-tessential Jam

There are three things I like about Candy. First, she’s an absolute whiz at trading food for food. For three weeks last summer she brought tons of her figs to every farmer’s market for miles around. Would you like some figs? she would ask. How much do they cost? No money. I would like to barter. I brought my own recycle bag and I’ll just keep putting veggies in it, and YOU tell me when we’re even.

Candy in the Kitchen

Now, Candy’s figs are special. They come from a tree that looks like it should be growing next to Charlie’s Brown’s Pumpkin Patch on Halloween, and they are bigger and sweeter and juicier than anyone has ever seen. So Candy came home with bags of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, beans, eggplant, peppers, watermelon, and anything else that looked good to her.

Last year, she said, was the best summer for free food. Candy did lots of canning, freezing, and dehydrating.

Tools and ingredients. Scale not needed for this jam

Which brings me to the second thing I like about Candy. She’s an absolute whiz at putting up preserves. Not just the usual strawberry and grape jams, but fun stuff like beautyberry jelly and watermelon pickles and quince jam.

And the third thing I like about Candy is that we get to feast on her creations. Like the time she brought us her super duper figs and the heavenly goat cheese she’d made while babysitting her daughter Christine’s goats. Come to think about it, maybe that feasting is really the first thing I like about Candy. (More about Christine’s organic farm below.*)

Candy’s always up for a challenge. This year we had a bumper crop of quince fruit in our garden. When she told me, yes, she wanted them all, even the gnarly ping pong balls, I put on my brave face and dodged the thorns and twigs to gather all the mini-cannonballs and gnarly ping pong balls that hung from the bushes or sat on the ground. Didn’t matter where they were. They were all hard as rocks.

Cut in half, quince look like apples, fair enough, since they are relatives , both belong in the rose family

This is the second year Candy has made quince jam. Neither of us is quite sure when quince are ripe because they’re always hard and tart, except once a ping pong ball got wrinkled after sitting a while. But it was still a rock.

Last year our crop was meager, so Candy had to add some wild pears, or maybe apples, to the quince fruit to get just one batch. We never did figure out quite which they were. They came from a tree by the side of the road that drops unidentifiable but tasty fruit every fall.

But that one batch was delicious, golden yellow with small pieces of quince with a hint of apple, or maybe pear. One afternoon a group of us had a good time tasting quince jam with crackers and tea. Cream cheese would have been nice, too.

Candy uses a Sure Jell recipe she found on the Internet.

The recipe calls for 4 cups of prepared fruit, 2 cups of water, ¼ cup of fresh lemon juice, 1 box of Sure Jell pectin, ½ teaspoon butter or margarine, and 51/2 cups of sugar.

She peels and pits the fruit, then finely chops it with a small chopper she’s had for years. She combines the ingredients except for the sugar and brings the mixture to a rolling boil. Stirring constantly, she adds the sugar, brings it back to a boil for a minute, skims any foam and ladles the jam into an assortment of canning jars.

The color of the jam is a clear, pale yellow when white sugar is used. Organic sugar gives the jam a warm honey color. 

Organic sugar gives quince jam a honey color

This year Candy made 3 batches. She eked 10 cups of chopped fruit out of the mini-cannonballs and gnarly ping pong balls, enough to make 2 batches, with two cups left over for another half batch. Two large organic pears added the two cups she needed to complete the third batch.

Tasty as it is, all this jam doesn’t get eaten overnight, so some of it goes into the freezer. Freezing the jam helps preserve its color. Kept at room

Candy's quince jam on display

temperature it darkens over time.

Making quince jam is not for the faint of heart, Candy says. Peeling and chopping the hard fruit take time, but it’s a labor of love and good eating from the garden.

*Christine is a Master Herbalist and CFO (Chief Farming Officer) of Sprawling Oaks Farm, an organic farm in Arcadia, Florida. She raises goats, makes soap and cheese and is active in promoting organic farming. Look up her farm on the Internet or read her blog: http://veggiechronicles.wordpress.com

‘Tis the Season. . .

. . .for quince to fall.

We never know when the quince are ripe, or if they ever do get ripe. We barely notice them when they first show up as shiny green one-inch balls tight along a leafy branch. After they grow into yellow mini-cannonballs, we begin to count.

'The Quince' brightens a spring day

We wouldn’t make the grade in statistics, either. Our counts are casual and forgotten a moment later. When the counts seem to tally a minus, usually in early October, we look to the ground. And there they are. You’d think they’d be rotten, but they are hard as rocks, hence the designation yellow cannonball, though they come up a bit short on size.

That’s when I call my friend Candy and say, the quince are falling. Do you want to make your quince jam? This year is a bumper crop, but last year she had to add some wild pears or apples (they came from a roadside tree we never quite identified) to the quince fruit for volume. Her jam is clear with small bits and pieces of quince. It has a hint of apple to it, or is that pear? and it is delicious.

This year's crop. Raw fruits are sour. Red dots are glands. Imperfections don't affect the jelly

We’ve been growing quince for almost twenty-five years and we like them because they were one of the few plants that did not complain about the soil when we began gardening in clay. They shrug off long stretches of dry weather by dropping their leaves and pretending to be dead. More to the point, they do not die. Somebody who visited in August once asked why I didn’t pull out the dead bush with the tangle of twigs.

Wait until you see it in spring, I replied. Unless the winter is exceptionally cold, it blooms punctually on New Year’s Day here, sparse at first, then spectacularly from February to April. Timing is perfect, because that’s when the daffodils and forsythia are blooming. Quite a triumvirate. Since daffs don’t like moisture in summer, and the quince can tolerate dry spells, they are most compatible.

'Jet Trail' aptly named, is a showpiece

If the particular dead-looking quince in question were not planted at the junction of our driveway and a path to the house, people wouldn’t notice the sticks. Nor would they be threatened by a close encounter with spines.

Ouch! One of the first mistakes in the garden. Don’t plant a quince along a path. It’ll eventually reach out with daggers. No matter. We’ll never remove ours because it gives us such a lift in early spring. So we pay our dues with conscientious pruning once or twice a year to keep it from impaling us as we walk along the path or graffiti-ing our cars as we back out of the driveway.

We solved the matter of the dead sticks in August by allowing an errant Japanese honeysuckle vine to twine around them. Very nice. Don’t ask how we unwind the vine from the spines in fall. So far there have been no emergency trips to the hospital .

One of the prettiest, 'Toyo-nishiki,' gave us good fruit this year. Missouri Botanical Garden photo

If our quince came with a plant label, we have long since lost it, so we just refer to it as ‘The Quince.’ I propagated it, so now it has a sister on the opposite side of the driveway. No, this one won’t attack any person or vehicle. It’s guarded closely by Indian hawthorn and Japanese holly, but what a time we have scrambling around the jungle dodging spines when we pick up fallen fruit.

We grow other quinces that came with labels we didn’t lose. ‘Jet Trail,’ with glossy green leaves and shining white blooms, is one of these. Three feet high and wide, says the label. We all know labels never lie, so I planted it a few feet from the corner of the house. It stayed within bounds until it felt comfortable. Now it regularly tries to invade the upper story. It’s a tangle of twigs, of course, like all quinces, but one of our favorites. It never pretends to die, and it always seems to be smiling with blooms.

Our bright red ‘Texas scarlet’ quince, pictured at the right, are spreaders that will grow to only three feet (maybe). They are newcomers to the garden, surviving summers of drought and a tipsy friendship with ashy sunflowers that need a prop to stay vertical. One of these days the quinces will grow big enough to straighten them out.

The best fruits this year came from ‘Toyo-Nishiki,’ a quince whose lovely chameleon-like flowers deepen from white to soft pink to rose. We think that its good fruit set might be the result of hard pruning, transplanting, and the final insult, having a tree fall on it. This last is not recommended gardening practice, but it didn’t seem to do any harm. Maybe good soil helped, too.

For the record, these quinces are cultivars of Chaenomeles speciosa, or Common Floweringquince, originally from China, then cultivated by the Japanese and brought to the United States in the late 18^th century. They are hardy from zones 4 to 9, thrive in sun or part shade. They adapt to most any soil but seem to give best fruit when treated nicely, maybe a little compost and water during dry spells.

Getting back to Candy and her fine quince jam, well, that’s a story for another post.