Land Lobster?

My garden is doing splendidly this summer, despite a lack of sun. I have harvested enough Romaine lettuce for two huge, tasty bowls of salad for our family of three, I have given some away to two neighbors, and I still have some left to harvest. I have already planted more!

The squash plants are taking off!

The squash, pole beans, bush beans, and nasturtiums are doing great, too. I still have a few radishes left. All the amendments we added when we built the beds seem to be paying off. The weather has been hot and getting drier, but the soil still seems moist and the plants don't seem very stressed.

A recent mystery was a hole near one of my asparagus beds. I was afraid it was the entrance to a rabbit burrow. Something had been nibbling on my young pepper plants recently.

Don tried plugging up the hole to the burrow, but something kept digging up a new entrance every night. He finally got tired of it and dug the area up, but there was no sign of rabbits or a rabbit den.

Don's Hole

The mystery was solved this morning, when he saw what looked like a small lobster in the bottom of the hole. He killed it and put what was left of its corpse in a pail.

Yikes! Looks like a small lobster, but what is it?

After a little research, we determined that it was a crayfish. I always thought they lived in water, but there are some species that live on land, too, including the swampy areas of nearby North Carolina. This one apparently failed its geography lesson, or land crayfish are more widespread than people think. It's hard to find information about them, even online. If anyone knows of any good sources, please leave us a message below.

*** Update on 6/14/12: I have received a few emails about the crayfish from crayfish- and crawdad-lovers all over the country. Apparently, these "land lobsters" are common in other parts of the U.S., and I am told they are good cooking and eating if you are patient about picking out the meat.

I am a vegetarian, so I'll pass on that.

They are generally harmless except for the annoying holes from their tunnels around the lawn and garden. They actually tunnel down to the water table. They come out only at night and are opportunistic feeders and eat decaying vegetation and occasionally worms and bugs. In some areas they are called prairie crayfish. According to one website the latter are red and live in the grasslands of Missouri, so I doubt ours was that species. Texas prairie crawdads apparently include some rare species. If I learn any more about the species that live in Virginia, I'll post an update. I have also just learned that chickens love them and will gobble them up if given the chance. Since I want my own chickens, this is useful information. One reader says they will eat plants in nearby gardens, but I am not sure they can climb. The plants damaged in my nearby garden were in a raised bed, so I won't be quick to blame the crayfish. (The same reader later assured me that they can climb).

In the meantime I have requested of Don that if he finds any more of these interesting and colorful critters, he leave them be.

He Promised Me the Sun...

My sweet husband, Don Burke, and I had a critical conversation last winter. It was about our future garden, specifically where to locate our raised beds. He told me that the sun would track across our shady, woodsy back yard in such a way that the spot we (= mostly he) had picked out for the vegetable beds would get enough sun. Vegetables, especially the fruiting types such as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, need a minimum of six hours of sun a day.

I told him I had my doubts. Once the trees leaf out, I said, there won't be enough sun.

Famous last words:

Don looked around at the surrounding trees and said, "I can make more sun. Tree limbs I can cut down." With that promise, I agreed to the spot.

Guess what? My summer garden is in partial shade, and there is not enough sun for the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Leafy greens like beans, lettuce, and basil can get by with less sun that folks realize, but the aforementioned summer favorites must have more.

I reminded Don of his promise frequently, about every other day. I honestly tried not to harp on it so much, but a promise is a promise, and there's only one growing season. I would have planned the garden differently if I had known to plan for less sun.

The Tree. Cut Limb On Left.

There's a big tree near our back porch. It had a few dead limbs that needed cutting, anyway. Don figured he'd keep his promise and save the cost of a tree service by cutting the old tree's massive limbs back himself to let in more sun. He did a good job, except the massive limb was longer than he thought, and  he dropped it on the neighbor's property as well as ours despite the precautions he'd taken.

Luckily, nobody was hurt. Don managed to miss the neighbor's house, his pool, and most of his hot tub, too. He just damaged the two fences that divide our backyards and the hot tub cover. Don plans to fix our fence and pay to for the neighbor's repairs. He says, even with those expenses, the job was still cheaper than hiring a tree service.

The Damage From Our Side of the Fence

I bit my tongue. Sometimes a man just needs to be right.

The neighbor was pretty understanding when he recovered from his shock a little bit. He seemed tickled to learn that Don had promised his new bride the sun and he delivered.

The thing that concerns me is, Don is not finished with that tree. But the repairs are slowing him down along with the debris removal, and he is talking about hiring a tree service for a future bigger job. I am still holding my tongue but rejoicing and encouraging him. There's nothing like young love, even in one's later years.

Debris

**Update on 8/18/13: We had some other trees on the property that needed a professional's attention, so we hired one to cut back this particular tree in a way that will give us much more sun on our gardens. Today was the first sunny day since the tree was worked on, and I'm thrilled with the afternoon sun in my yard. Maybe my tomatoes will finally ripen up.

Popular Culture

People are funny. I have started a blog that is a travel-log of my adventures in Italy two summers ago. In my opinion, it is highly educational and interesting. Here is a typical picture from my adventures:

Greek Temple at Paestum

The same picture has been posted on Flickr for two years. In all that time, it has had two views. What seems important and fascinating to me must seem less so to the world. I imagine these reminiscences to be like the dreaded travel slide-shows from the days of youthful sitcoms on television: something to be avoided or slept through.

On the other hand, I once dyed my hair Pepsi blue as an incentive for students to vote in a contest for my previous school to get grant funding for technology for the school. We missed winning the contest, although not by much. On the other hand, some of my pictures on Flickr have received over 1,000 views. Go figure!

Blue-Haired Ballroom Dancer

A Latin Teacher's Adventures in Italy, 2010

Those of you who have been enjoying posts on this blog might want to check out another blog I am writing. I am a Latin teacher who had the opportunity to participate in grant-funded summer study in Italy in the summer of 2010. Mentally and physically exhausting, it was adventure of a lifetime.

I actually got two grants to study in two different programs for a total of six weeks in Europe. My blog was originally posted on another site to fulfill some of the requirements of the second grant. The website that hosted the original blog seems to have shut down, so my effort there has been lost. I kept good notes and still have my digital pictures, however, so I plan to recreate the blog here.

First Tomato This Year

Our Winter Tomato Bears Fruit

 We harvested our first tomato from "Little Tomato That Could" this year. By this I mean the tomato plant that came up as a volunteer in one of my planters last fall. My husband, Don, refused to let me pull it up. He and I nurtured it all winter, and today it has borne us a big, edible-looking fruit. I was worried about a spot at the bottom of it turning into blossom end rot, but whatever the blemish is, it looks like it is just a little spot that can be trimmed off. Don loves tomatoes and will have the honor of the first bite. I hope it tastes good after such a long effort on all our parts!

The Little Tomato Last Fall

The close-up picture of the fruit at the top was taken with my new Canon PowerShot A1300 point-and-shoot digital camera. My beloved Nikon P60, the one I had toted all over Italy and all through my honeymoon, finally gave out on me. So far I am quite pleased with the new camera and the quality of the pictures it takes. It has a faster flash and takes more reliable pictures in dimly-lit rooms than my Nikon did. The older Nikon would take great pictures, but sometimes I had to fiddle a lot with the settings to get what I wanted. The new camera is a true point and shoot. Light, easy, and reliable.

Urban Chicken Activists, Unite!

There have been some exciting developments in Chesapeake regarding urban chickens. As I explained in an earlier post, a group of residents has been organizing to get the zoning laws changed in Chesapeake, Virginia, for reasons I outlined in other posts. Our online petition now has more than 330 signatures. We also have petitions in local feed stores and other places. Our petition at Southern States on Military Highway has 24 signatures on it as of the morning of June 9.

Member Andrea Ball Margrave has been organizing our political strategy for City Council. Last night she and many members of the Facebook fan page, 4 Chesapeake Hens, and the group, Backyard Chickens for Chesapeake, met at an informal local political event called a "Town Meeting." Unfortunately, I had another commitment and could not attend. Here is what Andrea had to report, in her own words:

"Very excited tonight! Got a wonderful reception at the Town Meeting, which was packed because of some other issues going on, so I had a larger than usual audience, plus the entire council was present, including the mayor and the interim city manager, plus at least one of the new upcoming council members that I could see, Robert Ike. 

"I was able to put copies of the flyer in the hands of all but two of them as they entered, and handed out over 30 more to attendees. I met at least 4 or 5 members of this group there, but now I see there were more that I didn't meet that were in attendance! WOW! Sorry to miss some of y'all. I of course didn't get to say all that I wanted to say, forgot some of it, but one other gentleman came with his daughter, a Mr. Tims? and spoke up in support of chickens, very funny guy! Thankfully I was able to speak first, because of all the controversy over the other issues there, but I kept it positive and respectful, and I feel they were pretty receptive. 

"As the meeting adjourned my daughter and I stood outside the doors asking for people to sign the petitions, and we got 10 signatures and had some great conversations. A bunch of folks promised to sign online after they got home, using the link on the flyer. Some of the members were in a hurry to leave after the rough questioning of the evening, so I didn't get to speak individually to them all, but those I did speak with had nice things to say about our efforts. One even asked to learn more about it, and I told him I would come to his office to answer whatever questions they had. Overall a successful evening, and a great opening salvo in our quest to secure the changes we seek."

Thanks, Andrea! Great things are happening. All because a group of people got together and decided to give a cluck. ;0)

Early June Garden Efforts

This has been a beautiful weekend for puttering around in my garden. Most plants seem to be thriving, perhaps due to the weather, perhaps due to the top-dressing with compost and mulching with leaves as I mentioned in my previous post. I had a few garlic bulbs tucked in a small flower garden in front of the house. I had nowhere else to plant them last fall, since Don hadn't yet built our raised beds. Yesterday I harvested the bulbs, cut off the tops, cut back the roots to 1/4 inches, and let them rest in a lawn chair on our shady front porch to dry for a couple of days. Then they'll need to cure for a couple of weeks in a dry, dark place to develop full flavor for eating.

Then they won't last long. Don LOVES garlic, and he's developed his own system for peeling the garlic and then roasting it. After that, he eats it fast.

This is too bad, because I like to cook with it, and the flavor of this home-grown garlic is better than anything we can buy in the supermarket. I figure I will order cloves of different types in late August to plant in the fall in our raised beds. I am beginning to think we can't raise too much garlic.

The beer traps I have set out for the slugs have claimed some victims, so that effort has been a success. I've harvested most of my radishes, but I've been spraying what's left with Neem oil because something (caterpillars? I don't see any) have been chewing on them pretty badly. The spinach is looking OK, but something has started to attack it, so I sprayed it, too, just in case.

My Romaine lettuce is the perfect size for picking. We need to be eating some salads this week. I planted more lettuce where I've been pulling up Romaine and where the radishes have been pulled up.

Something, I suspect a rabbit, has eaten all the leaves off my precious young eggplant and a young "healthy pepper" plant. We have three dogs, so I gathered up all the dog hair I could find and spread some around that bed. I've read that rabbits don't like the smell of dog hair. Time will tell.

**Update: we later learned that the eggplant-eating culprit might have been a crayfish or "land lobster," as I called it.  I can't prove it, but the damage to the garden stopped after Don found and killed the crayfish.