Moonlight

The full moon came up tonight through the branches of the oak tree down the street, with just a swirl of white clouds brightly lit by the lunar glow. The night is cool, though the day was warm, and using the laptop on the WiFi under our own Moontree is a real delight.

We have spent many long days cleaning up for summer; chopping down the overgrown vines and weeds behind the garage, mowing, trimming, and pruning everything; losing a couple of plants we've been meaning to ditch for some time.

The winter salad garden has started to grow, finally, but something is eating the shoots off to the dirt pretty darn quickly, so I have little hope. Weirdly, some of the heirloom squash we planted and at least a few of the watermelon seeds have germinated -- although none of them came up at all over the spring and summer after we planted them last year! Go figure.

Broccoli is doing well, and I have had more than a few meals of organic home grown broccoli, especially yummy on the organic linguine noodles from Trader Joe's sprinkled with the sheep's milk TJ brand "powdered cheese" in a green can.

This being my first crop of broccoli, I have learned that the heads come out a little smaller under less than ideal conditions (like my random watering) and how to tell when a stem is ready to cut, and why it is poor eating when cut too late. Next batch will do better. I will also discover an organic antidote for the lovely cabbage worms/moths.

Oh, the kids love the little white "butterfly" that visits us. Any time they see one they pretend that it is the same one and say hello to "Cabbage." Yes, they named a moth Cabbage. (I think Spencer may have started that one; Kathryn likes to name the worms in the worm bin. )

But when I find as many little cabbage worms doing battle for my broccoli as there was broccoli on the last batch, a solution must be found!

[Update: Soaking the heads in salt water dropped three broccoli green 'pillars off of my dinner; alas the steam of cooking killed two more I missed! At least steamed caterpillar is gray so it is hard to miss in the pot. Makes me wonder though what I did miss on the broccoli I had raw on my salad yesterday!]

The winter garlic and onions never made it, although that could be due to my habit of pulling green garlic to use the chopped stems and subtle fresh baby garlic in salads and the like. (Grin). Similar fate for the shallots.

The red potatoes have been going great guns. One plant began to die off, and so I pulled it, and have five "shooter" marble sized new potatoes fresh from the ground. Meant to have them for dinner yesterday, will tonight.

Mandarin Orange crop is in full; the family love to grab a "cold one" off the tree in the morning on the way to school and work. Weirdly, they are also good and kind of fun to eat picked hot in the full afternoon sun.

Recently, I found that I could print a label on brown paper bags, and so have been giving away little collections of "Moontree Organic Mandarin Oranges" and lemons too. Kinda fun.

Now I wrote "Organic" on the bag because they are; we follow the organic farming guidelines. Or rather we use fewer even "natural" chemical inputs than the guidelines allow, and under USDA rules, we could actually sell these with this label. (We "make" less than $5,000 from sales of organic produce, so may use the label if we comply. One can only use the "USDA Certified Organic" if one has been certified.)

Wonder how the City of Pasadena would feel about the kids setting up an Organic Fruit Stand each February?