The Incredible Exploding Thistle

On a recent sunny afternoon, I noticed a mass of white gossamer fluff on the giant bull thistle that stands seven feet tall in one of the garden paths. It had not been there that morning. The mass consisted of spidery whorls of white threads, each carrying a tiny oval seed at the bottom. Some of the whorls -- "light as thistledown" because thistledown is exactly what they were -- were already lofting away on the breeze.

Uh oh.

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I pulled out a handful of fluff, marveling at how neatly and densely the seeds were packed in -- dozens wedged into one small round seed pod about an inch across. No wonder the thing burst open.

In botanical circles there is a technical term for exploding plant parts: dehiscence.

I couldn't let this particular bull thistle go on exploding. There were enough seeds in one little pod and enough pods on a seven foot plant to eventually turn the whole yard into a thick thorny forest.

Already, the floating seeds were finding resting spots in quiet corners of the yard, ready to set up shop and bring forth new generations of towering bull thistles.

Before going after the plant with pruning shears and thick gloves, I took some final photos of the magnificent purple blossoms, full blown and feathery, or wilting, fading, and folding into themselves. Thistle blossoms are sought out avidly by bees and butterflies, and thistle honey, of course, is much prized. That's one reason I let the plant live out most of its span of time.

On YouTube I found an amazing video of a swallowtail butterfly feeding greedily from a thistle blossom for a full two minutes, in a scene I have never witnessed directly but fondly hope has occurred in our backyard and will occur again.

It's a Ronde de Nice!!!

Mystery solved. The unknown "round kind" zucchini from Green String Farm is a Ronde de Nice -- a coveted French heirloom from the southern Provencal region facing the Mediterranean and abutting Italy. It is so delicate, so easily bruised it doesn't show up in markets very often.

Despite the exotic heritage, the fancy name pretty much amounts to saying "round thingy from Nice." Welcome to our garden little round thing! May you be as happy here as on the Cote d'Azur.

The first zucchini harvest this year consisted of a couple of  "long kind" Emperor's Jade beauties on June 25. It took a few days more for the Ronde de Nice to size up to what my uneducated eye considered harvestable size. At any rate, with all the data in hand, the records for the zucchini chronicles can now be brought up to date:

Seedlings planted:

2009 May 10 (Green Racer)
2010 Not sure, but later than May 10 (Green Bush)
2011 May 8 (Cocozelle, Zephyr)
2012 May 12 (Ronde de Nice, Emperor's Jade)

First blossom:

2009 June 8
2010 June 13
2011 June 12
2012 June 19 (Ronde de Nice); June 20 (Emperor's Jade)

First harvest:

2009 June 14
2010 June 21
2011 June 25
2012 June 25 (Emperor's Jade), a few days later, about June 29 (Ronde de Nice)

We had plenty of zucchini on hand for a driveway picnic on the Fourth of July. The grilled veggies were definitely a big hit, as was the rest of the menu: corn with basil butter grilled in the husk, tofu dogs, deviled eggs, and a red white and blue fruit salad of raspberries, blueberries, and yoghurt. The zucchini and basil were the only items from the garden, but nobody was complaining.

 And there was still plenty of zucchini left for the first batch of summertime green soup on July 9.

Zucchini Time Is Here Again!

It's always a thrill when the first zucchini blossom of the summer season opens for business! Adding to the thrill is the mysterious identity of this year's first bloom.

Some weeks back at Green String Farm I was looking over a long wooden table of seedlings: squash and melons with generic labels like "zucchini" or "cantaloupe." The young intern on duty couldn't tell me which variety of zucchini was being offered for sale. "I think it's one of the round kind, but I'm not sure," she said. "It could be one of the long kind."

Just starting your internship, eh? I thought to myself. No matter -- the timing was right, the garden space was available, I love trying a new type of plant, and we all need to support the next generation of idealistic farmers. I bought two sturdy seedlings and, on May 12, transplanted them into one of the cucurbit beds in the northwest corner of the garden.

On June 19 the first sunshine yellow crepe paper blossom unfurled at the end of its long thin stem -- a lone male flower, testing the summer air of this new season.

As yet unopened, the first mysterious female flower was a tight green bud with a baby zucchini, distinctively round, at its base. So, it's one of the round kind -- but which one? I decided to let it grow a bit before beginning my online research.

 

The neighboring bed with three plants of Emperor's Jade zucchini from Sweetwater Nursury via Whole Foods was also planted on May 12. Nothing was blooming yet but a baby zucchini was in evidence beneath a bud furled tight as a folded umbrella.

By the next morning, June 20, the mystery squash had opened its first female flower.

And the Emperor's golden flags were flying too, both male and female standards.

Male flowers on both varieties are quite similar in the formation of the anthers, the pollen bearing parts, but there are subtle differences in the convoluted surfaces of the female stigmas, which receive the pollen.

So far it's a good year for zucchini, unlike last summer's spider mite disaster, a most demoralizing episode. I had to buy zucchini for green soup, feeling very furtive about it. If you can't grow zucchini you might as well turn in your trowel.

I think we will be able to pass the zucchini test this year.

Data from the last several seasons shows a pretty consistent pattern of growth even though I planted different varieties each year: Seedlings set in the ground in early May start to bloom about a month later, more or less. Perhaps, all in all, it doesn't matter a lot whether it's the round kind or the long kind. Zucchini is zucchini is zucchini. But that won't stop me from tracking down the mystery squash, for the record.

Seedlings planted:

2009 May 10 (Green Racer)
2010 Not sure, but later than May 10 (Green Bush)
2011 May 8 (Cocozelle, Zephyr)
2012 May 12 (mystery squash, Emperor's Jade)

First blossom:

2009 June 8
2010 June 13
2011 June 12
2012 June 19 (mystery squash); June 20 (Emperor's Jade)

Freesias in the Rain

A miracle of water has been falling out of the sky! We have had currents in the gutters, rushing streams, fallen blossoms pasted to the sidewalks, and in the backyard, plants bent down with the weight of accumulated moisture. In the middle of this happy hulabaloo the first freesias of the season quietly opened up their golden throats and took a gentle drink. I photographed them the morning of March 13 after several days of rain with more rain following.

First Plum Blossom!

The first plum blossom in our backyard inspired some haiku thoughts:

Spring makes a bargain
With the cold air of a bright day:
First white plum blossom.

Buson, when dying,
Hoped for plum blossoms of
Eternity's dawn.

Where every morning
Is the first morning and the
Blossoms never fall.

Buson, the cherished 18th century Japanese poet and painter, is said to have composed his final death-bed poem hoping to see the first iconic blossoms of early spring before he died and comparing them to what he hoped to see after he died.

Perhaps he was making up for an earlier verse with a less transcendent message:

"In nooks and corners
Cold remains:
Flowers of the plum."

(Translated by R. H. Blyth)

It's true that a large part of the haunting beauty of the fragile white flowers that spring suddenly from dead branches arises from their vulnerability and fleetingness. Storms may come; there might be frost. The brave new blooms could be littering the ground as quickly as they appeared.

But they also hold a promise of more beauty to come. Slow, hidden processes are coming to fruition and even though the petals may fall, life goes on and, perhaps, like a poet's prayer, merges with eternity.

That's why, although there have been blossoms all over town for several weeks -- flowering cherry, quince, tulip magnolias -- the first pale plum flower in our own backyard stopped me in my tracks. It's a surprise even when I know it's coming. Usually I'm not looking for it but just happen to notice it while walking by with other tasks in mind.

Something always impels me to note the occasion. I used to jot it down on my calendar. Now I take pictures with a digital camera that records for posterity the date and time.

According to my informal data of the past several years, the first plum blossom appears sometime around Valentine's Day, mid-February, when the seasons are shifting back and forth from day to day. The data is very informal since the "first blossom" is the one that I happen to see -- i.e. it's more or less at eye level, not way up on the high branches.

Let the record show that the first plum blossom of 2012 was photographed on February 17.

First blossom of 2011: February 13.

First blossom of 2010: February 7.

That's as far back as my photographic evidence goes.

Each year this momentary "first" seems more momentous.

A Tweet Mob of Robins

All day long the robins have been in a state of high excitement. This morning the neighbors' redwoods and eucalyptus were shaking and fluttering with hidden activity and the sunlit air was alive with loud, rowdy birdsong. It took me a while but eventually I figured out what was going on, based on previous experience with robins and ivy berries.

I've seen it before. When the ivy is fruiting, the robins go crazy over the myriad clusters of small dark berries packed with nutrition and quick energy. The continuous twittering of the first arrivals seems to draw others and soon there are crowds of them swooping here and there. A tweet mob for sure. Occupy the ivy!!!

I could see thick twining vines of ivy snaking up the tallest redwoods -- that's where most of the activity was centered as fat birds dove in eagerly, dislodging others who flew up onto nearby eucalyptus branches.

Because neither redwood nor eucalyptus drop their greenery in winter it was hard to see the birds except in flight. But when I went back out in late afternoon the action had shifted to our yard. The skies had clouded over and, in the bare branches of the locust tree by the garage, plenty of plump, chesty silhouettes were visible against a luminous grey field of light. 

The mood was much quieter. Most of the birds were too stuffed to do more than chirp -- or perhaps burp -- contentedly and wait politely for their turn to fly over to the small, ivy-covered plum tree.


 

Just a few birds at a time held sway in the spindly branches of the plum tree, occasionally dropping down into the mass of ivy for a few last tidbits. A fine closing to a fine day.

Glorious Gloom

It seems churlish to complain about a long series of bright days with clear skies, but that's what's been going on on the West Coast as farmers look to their water tables, planners measure the reservoirs, and skiers long for snow. With a dry December followed by a dry January the Sierra snow pack is at 30% of normal and the big ski resorts have resorted to trucking in machine made frozen white stuff that isn't really snow. Where are the winter storms????

Let me add a gardener's voice to the chorus. It feels odd to have to water the backyard at this time of year. I'm even watering the weeds. The patches of volunteer miner's lettuce, usually lush swaths of green-gold splendor, are sparse and pale. Yesterday, therefore, was a welcome respite from the relentless blue glare overhead as a dark cloud cover swept in and released not nearly enough rain for the big picture but plenty for the enjoyment of the moment and a brief pick-me-up for the plants.

This morning I tried to take some pictures of the glorious gloom before the mists dissipated. Hooray for a grey day!!