Brenda Whiteside's Blog, page 110

How Does Your Garden Grow? No Cockle Shells...#34

Looking out into the orchardI picked my first baby carrots. Why I got such a kick out of this, I'm not sure. They are the tiniest of babies because my purpose was to thin out the clusters. Growing from seed, they come up in clusters so they have to be thinned in order for some to grow to normal size. But these tiny carrots will be great in salads.

Rows of carrotsThe main objective of our garden this year is experimental but at the same time to feed us. What are we good at growing and what is good to grow here? Eventually, we could take part in some farmer's markets or supply a couple of organic restaurants. That's the goal of head farmer, Lance. I'm hoping there's a financial silver lining.

Cabbage PeppersAlready, the first relief on the food bill is reality, small but it's something. We are now able to have salad out of our garden. Green salad bowl lettuce, rainbow chard, endive, radish blend, spinach and tomatoes make a really good salad. Tonight we'll be able to add baby carrots to the mix.

The experimental side is evident when you see the list of vegetables we tried this first year. So far, at least they are growing. Some are so very small, it will take time to see if we're successful.

Dill Rainbow chardWe have okra, Aztec spinach, asparagus, green basil, purple basil, chamomile, zuchini, tomatillo, several kinds of tomatoes, broccoli, three kinds of cabbage, wonder berry, black valentine bean, brussell sprouts, twelve kinds of peppers, cauliflower, parsley, rainbow chard, mustard Chinese tatsoi, dill, black cumin, carrots, radish blind, four kinds of onions, leek, green salad bowl lettuce, spinach, endive, several kinds of squash, potatoes, corn, peas and several kinds of beans. Then don't forget our orchard, strawberries and blackberries.

Salad lettuce and onions ChamomileNot everything will produce this year. Boo hoo to the frost that took the apricot, peach, and most of the blackberry flowers. And until everything matures, not sure how much we'll end up with on the table. When the end of harvest comes, we'll sit down and evaluate what worked and what didn't.






Another view of the orchardIf you're a frequent visitor to my blog, I hope you'll join my site so I can know you check in now and then. You'll see the join button in the right hand column.

A note outside the farm news - my book Sleeping with the Lights on is the book of the month for July on iBookBuzz.com. Yea!

Ba Ba Black Sheep #33

Eight days oldLast week I watched a lamb come into the world. My neighbor, Eunice, the wonderfully generous lady I've told you about in prior blogs, called and asked if I'd ever seen a lamb born. I'd been working outside, covered in dust and sweaty, but I ran a brush through my hair, jumped in the car and sped (as fast as a bumpy dirt road allows) over to her farm. I was darn near too late. The last leg cleared the mom as I stepped up to the stall. Truthfully, birth is a miraculous thing but not so lovely to see. The absolute best part was watching that little guy get on his feet and begin feeding within an hour - all part of the miracle. I learned all sheep are born black and turn lighter as they grow. Eunice and Dave have nine lambs at the moment. One sheep had triplets and rejected one of the babies for some unknown reason. Eunice has to hand-feed the baby every four hours, twenty-four hours a day. Right now, I'm glad we raise veggies and not animals.

What goes on day to day around here reminds me of something a supervisor at a day job said years ago. She gave a pep-talk to her young staff. We were understaffed and not all tasks were clearly assigned (not my job, man!). She talked about being raised on a farm and when something needed doing, you just did it, regardless of what the task was. Things fall apart if you don't. I got it, but then I was a little older than the rest of the crew. I really get it now.

Change of topic just because. The in-laws are getting closer to becoming in-laws. Lance and Christie have announced wedding plans. With Christie living right here, I get in on the buzz of bride-to-be and mother excitement. Her parents visited from Phoenix a few weeks back. We had dinner, and they were awed by what Lance has taken on and accomplished. Me too. And we love Christie to pieces.

Looks like the first stalks of chamomile are dried. I think I'll try a homemade cup of chamomile tea. Cheers!

Before and After/ Brown to Green #32

Back in March, blackberry patch Blackberry patch a couple of weeks ago Blackberry patch todayThe blackberry bushes are flourishing but the weeds outstripped them. Between weeding the garden and the time spent at conferences and writing, I'd neglected the berry patch. There was no way to hand pull all the weeds and spraying is out. I asked Frank to take his mower down the aisles. Then I used the weed eater on the areas he couldn't get close to. Next, I yanked out the offending plants in the mists of the bushes. I also had to get up at 3:00am to take Advil. My back did not think kindly of my accomplishment.

Backyard in March Backyard todayWhen we moved in the yard was non-existent. There were a few patches of what I called weeds or at the best wild grass. The realtor scoffed at me and said that was grass. Okay, maybe, but mostly dirt, and the mud was awful with three dogs. Frank has worked hard to get us ground cover. Granted, we have some hefty patches of weeds. When the grass came in, the weeds liked all the water and fertilizer. So we weed and weed.Seems to be a theme here!

Here are a few before and after pictures of outside. Pretty good progress in a little over three months. Most of our crop is behind schedule, but we'll still benefit although later in the season. Next year we'll start earlier.

Looking out front door in March

Looking out front door now












Then Now









Garden early March Garden at the end of March









Garden today







Orchard in March Orchard today

Before and After/ Brown to Green #31

Back in March, blackberry patch Blackberry patch a couple of weeks ago Blackberry patch todayThe blackberry bushes are flourishing but the weeds outstripped them. Between weeding the garden and the time spent at conferences and writing, I'd neglected the berry patch. There was no way to hand pull all the weeds and spraying is out. I asked Frank to take his mower down the aisles. Then I used the weed eater on the areas he couldn't get close to. Next, I yanked out the offending plants in the mists of the bushes. I also had to get up at 3:00am to take Advil. My back did not think kindly of my accomplishment.

Backyard in March Backyard todayWhen we moved in the yard was non-existent. There were a few patches of what I called weeds or at the best wild grass. The realtor scoffed at me and said that was grass. Okay, maybe, but mostly dirt, and the mud was awful with three dogs. Frank has worked hard to get us ground cover. Granted, we have some hefty patches of weeds. When the grass came in, the weeds liked all the water and fertilizer. So we weed and weed.Seems to be a theme here!

Here are a few before and after pictures of outside. Pretty good progress in a little over three months. Most of our crop is behind schedule, but we'll still benefit although later in the season. Next year we'll start earlier.

Looking out front door in March

Looking out front door now












Then Now









Garden early March Garden at the end of March









Garden today







Orchard in March Orchard today

Big Guns Needed - Blister Beetles! #31

Attacking the bean plantI intended on writing about other things, older things I haven't gotten to, but this Blister Beetle hatch is way to big to put off.

Although they feed on bees and grasshopper eggs, Blister Beetles are also known to attack leaves which they are doing to our crops. The Blister Beetle genus, Epicauta, is highly toxic to horses. Horses can die after eating alfalfa containing a few of these nasty creatures. The toxic chemical the beetle releases is cantharidin which is what doctors use to remove warts.


Several on the cornLance accidentally stumbled on a hatch last evening in our yard. There must have been a hundred in a cluster - a new hatch. He captured one in a plastic baggy, which ticked the beetle off and he spewed his green poison. Once Lance figured out what it was, he did a search through the garden and found two more hatches. One was under the cherry tree and one next to the corn/bean rows. That group had hatched in a clump of weeds in the part of the field we don't garden, had spread onto the corn and beans. Lance was up until 10:30, with flashlight, killing them as they hatched. Luckily, the organic spray we use on the tiny black bugs that tried to take out our broccoli and spinach works on these beetles.


Hatching in the weedsThere was another hatch today near the corn and beans. This could happen several times between now and the end of July. Beetle Patrol will be an around the clock endeavor!


So now we can add Blister Beetle to our list of pestilent visitors which includes frost (killed eighty tomato plants, damaged the potato plants, froze off the flowers from the peach, apricot and blackberry bushes), wind which threatened our baby pepper plants and tomato plants, tiny black bugs that nearly destroyed all of our spinach, broccoli and rendered our radish tops really ugly.


Lance waging war on the Blister BeetlesThe frost damage did not have a happy ending, although the blackberries are sending up more flowers so we should get some berries this year. We saved a few of the spinach and broccoli plants. The windbreaks have taken the stress off the peppers and tomatoes. And thank goodness Lance stumbled on the Blister Beetle hatch. If he hadn't, we probably would've lost all our corn and beans. Happy ending. It isn't over and he's going to have to patrol the fields often, but at least we know about them.


We may still have corn knee-high by the 4th of July!

Messy, Dusty and I Love It #30

Lance struggling with making a windbreakerThe pepper plants love the heat but not the wind. The directions say plant in a warm, sunny place out of the wind. Hahahaha. In Paulden? But we WANT peppers - all kinds. So we constructed a wind barrier around them while the wind was blowing at over twenty miles an hour. We didn't have time to get into Prescott or the money to buy anything special, so we used the row cover cloth. Our barrier lasted for a few hours. Lance and Christie had left when the wind picked up speed and began tearing through the cloth. Frank and I struggled to repair and add reinforcement. The wind here is so wicked. The house behind us got caught in a whirlwind and their stuff flew through the air

New and improved windbreakerWe had no choice but to rethink the design and buy better, stronger material. Discretionary funds are pretty depleted. But the peppers are happy. We had some tomatoes covered with blankets. Lance found the blankets were settled on them too heavy so he put windbreakers up for them, too. We'll just have to pay attention to the things that like to gnaw on them.

I've coined a new phrase and didn't realize it until my sister laughed at me. She called, asked what I was doing, and I said I was getting on my going into town clothes. The meaning, of course, changing out of dirty gardening clothes. I guess I do feel like I live way out there, and we do 'go into town.'

Adjusting. I'm still in that phase. I'm trying to decide which things I should keep working on and which I should say to hell with - let the situation adjust to me.

Okay - what to let go and what to adjust. I've complained about the dust before, and I'm not cleaning the floor everyday, but it still bothers me. Not adjusting. Until we moved here, I didn't kill - anything. Now, many bugs are my enemy. I've learned to kill. Adjusting. I like everything to have a place, and I do mean everything. No one else seems to care about this. I'm attempting to ignore or help others create places for their stuff. Halfway adjusting. We're on a fixed income. No more impulse buying. Adjusted. I prefer to write in the morning, when I feel most creative. BUT the garden work needs to be done in the morning before the heat is so overwhelming. So, I've found my afternoons can be creative. Adjusting most days.


And at the end of the day, my messy, dusty, unorganized existence is a happy one. I step outside, see the flowers on the perennials, the veggies in the garden and the lush green in the orchard. I sit with people I love at the table on the patio and share a meal (not cooked by me!), watch the sunset and enjoy.

I'll worry about the mess tomorrow. Unless I'm worrying about the wind or bugs taking out the plants.

No Bugs Under the Blankets! #29

See the pears?Farming is not for the faint of heart or weak of limb. Although, Lance is the lead in the vegetable garden and does ninety percent of the work, the other ten percent leaves me exhausted at times. My main pursuit is to eliminate the weeds. If you are at all familiar with fertile prairie, you're laughing at me. The big problem is we let them get ahead of us. But then I think they multiply while we sleep. We're going organic so manual labor is the about the only way to take care of the monsters. And if I don't get out of the vegetable garden soon and into the blackberry garden, we won't be able to see the blackberries to pick them! This is the weak of limb part.

Blankets protect our babies Pepper plants in the foreground The weeds came back with the blackberries Weeding the blackberries in MarchThe faint of heart part comes in when our little babies die or get eaten alive by bugs. Like I mentioned in prior blogs, the weather took out tomato plants and rendered our peach and apricots fruitless, the bugs destroyed some leafy greens. We got a scare with the potatoes - again the weather. The night that happened, we realized that whatever the reported low will be for Paulden will actually be about seven degrees colder here. The tops of the potatoes were black. I took little manicure scissors and cut off all the black areas. We then mulched and covered all the plants with the blankets. They seem to be responding.

Frank has worked hard on the lawnThe blankets are the best thing ever! If only we'd known about them earlier. Lance visited a large successful farm in Chino Valley. His friend is the owner's daughter and she encouraged him to 'just go talk to my dad'. He didn't want to intrude but the man was extremely gracious and helpful. So now we cover our babies in blankets which keep out the nasty bugs that devastated our leafy greens. They also help to keep the moisture in and keep down the weeds. We were able to actually save some broccoli and chard that we thought the bugs had destroyed.

Last night we had asparagus, and in our salad we had radishes. Next week we won't need to buy any salad greens or spinach. Our garden is beginning to feed us! Now, if we could only eat the weeds.

His Mother Made Him Do It? #28

Man of Your Dreams ContestOr so he had me believing. I took a couple of days away from Tortuga Flats Farm and went to the AZ Dreamin' Readers' Conference in Chandler, Arizona. So this is a brief interlude from blogging about the prairie.
JP steals the show.

Me, JP and sister, Deb My centerpiece that Nancy won











JP, the model without his shirt, had me fooled. One of the events at the conference was a Man of Your Dreams contest. Male models are a big part of romance book covers. Who doesn't know who Fabio is? The latest favorite cover model is Jimmy Thomas who you see at the top of this blog. He was there, strutting his stuff with his entourage of fans. I'm a bit mystified by the adoration these guys receive, but hey, who am I to figure out how the female hormones surge?

So back to the shirtless cutie! We (my sister went with me to the conference) met him on Friday night at the wine reception. If the air conditioner had not broken down, I might have thought all the ladies at the reception were getting a little overly heated from the three male models working the crowd. Shirtless cutie told us he was there because his mama had convinced him to enter the contest. Boy did he know how to work a room full of women. As the weekend wore on and we saw his stuff, it was pretty evident the kid's a pro. But he was very clever and funny and ended up the winner.
Fun with fellow attendees The book store

Nancy Dow

Meeting Nancy Dow - a Facebook friend who won one of the tickets I gave away - was a blast. Fun lady. And I also met Leslie Jones, the other winner. We had a great time visiting.

I also met some nice ladies who read. Need more of those. I took part in a speed meet - 20 tables in a hour. I was hoarse after that race. I conducted three book clubs, had some good food and lots of laughs. 

Now it's back to weeding! Only at a romance conference Speed meet all the attendees Dinner time With Nancy and author Donna Hatch

Jimmy again
Leslie Jones Jimmy Thomas at the wine reception

I Can't Take the Credit #27

Rose bushWhat's been totally uplifting in the last few weeks are all the blooms and plants popping up that we didn't plant. I've wanted to go out and spends hundreds on bushes, trees and perennials but there's not money in the budget for that. To go out in the mornings and find something new is exciting.
Miniature rose bush


I needed that because I found another spot on my arm. This kind of bloom I can do without. The good thing is I was 99% sure it wasn't melanoma again. I called the Indian Medical Center and they moved my already scheduled appointment up a week. My doctor even called me back. Every three months I have a full body check. He took a biopsy and scheduled me to come back in two weeks for the result and my full body check. I wondered, if this spot had been very suspicious would it still have taken two weeks for the results. I hope not. But the news was good - only pre-cancerous. Nothing more had to be done. I like this doctor. He's very personable but awfully shy for a doctor.Not a good thing. His full body checks skim over certain areas. He's obviously uncomfortable. But really? I've never met a doctor with this problem. I'm a little concerned about that.
Climbing rose
Some sort of desert bloom
Almost think maybe once a year I should see a civilian doctor for a thorough go-over and pay the price. I'm going to think on that one.

We've had some ups and downs with our own plantings. But I'll go into that in another blog. I've been scurrying to get my edits done on my latest book, The Art of Love and Murder, so I could get it off to a couple of agents before I take off for a few days to a conference. I'm heading out tomorrow which is why this blog is brief. This should be a fun conference since it's for readers - authors to meet, Jimmy Thomas in the flesh (he-he) and a male model contest. A few days away from the farm will be hard, though. I've gotten really accustomed to waking up here to see the progress in the garden and at the end of the day sitting on the patio to watch the sun go to bed. Maybe the male model contest will take my mind off of what I'm missing at Tortuga Flats Farm!
Snap Dragon I think Okay-it's a weed but isn't it pretty?

Emotional, Random and Scattered. #26

A random picture from a trip to Seattle.It's random thought day. Tidbit day. This and that day. Because I'm scattered. Last week took me on an emotional roller coaster and left me like when you've been on a boat all day and you still ride the waves even after you're on solid ground. Okay, long run-on sentence. Sorry.

Jimmy Thomas

I wonder if Jimmy Thomas is as cute in person as he is on his covers (or at the top of this blog). I'll find out next week.

I wrote 'the end' today on my latest manuscript and emailed the last three chapters to my critique partners. Part of the book takes place in the  haunted Monte Vista Hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona. As soon as I get their comments, I'll polish it up an ship it out. I'm hoping this book gets me an agent. I'm really, really, really hoping.

Paulden is dry. I'm going through bottles of lotion.

Soaking in a tub is twice as important but I do it half as often. Oh wait! I do shower.

It must be some sort of law you have to have at least two dogs if you live in Paulden.

Last time I mentioned putting up wind breakers for the plants - this screen like material we would cover the chain link fence with around the garden. Lance tested the theory and it doesn't work unless the break is within a few feet of the plants. I suppose this decision has saved us some money. And I suppose only the strong will survive.

Our latest victims are three rows of leafy greens. Bugs. Nasty little boogers. More research. Now we're investing in a thousand feet of a light weight material that you cover the rows with until the plants are big enough to sustain such attacks. Still, not guaranteed. Not sure where this fits in my budget, but if we're ever going to feed ourselves we need the plants to survive. Some day, I'll go to the grocery store and have a really small tab because most everything comes out of our garden. That's the plan, Stan.