 |
Gryphon guards the garden - usually
|
My garden was haunted this summer, and now it’s moved into
my house. Appropriate for October, I suppose! When I was younger, I used to see
ghosts, fairly regularly. They were kind of fun: this is not.
It started this spring, while it was still quite chilly.
Fava beans – which are huge, the size of your end thumb joint, and very
hard - and so get planted fairly deep –
like cool soil. They get planted amongst the first seeds a gardener puts in the
ground up here in the cold Northeast, about the time you might plant lettuce
and radishes and peas. This year I put a long double row in one of the two
raised beds that are behind the garage, not far from the compost bins and apple
tree, close to the running marsh that makes my land, and a couple of neighbors’
places, an island.
A couple of warmer weeks later, I went out to plant some
more relatively early-season seeds, and discovered that something had dug a long, 4-inch deep trench all the length of my favas – didn’t disturb
the favas, didn’t eat any, but uncovered them so they and their newly
germinated sprouts were open to sun and wind.
Fortunately I found them in time and the new sprouts hadn’t yet dried
up, so I covered them up again. They never did thrive, however. And most oddly,
there was no scratching around the trench, like a chicken or the partridge we’d seen in
the area might make, nor paw prints or other signs of skunk or raccoon
activity. An oddness, but life in the country is sometimes odd.
All went well with the rest of the planting, though it was a
cold and too wet spring. The pumpkin seeds I’d put at either end of the raised
bed next to the fava bed had grown lush and large under their cloches, and unusually
soon it was warm enough to remove the cloches and let the plants stretch out.
A few weeks later I admired those two plants mightily
because all the rest of my winter squash plants had keeled over and died, no
idea why. But the pumpkins were lovely.
 |
Northeastern ghosts
|
Or they were - until the day I went out and discovered that
the larger of the two had been dug up carefully and lifted out of its hole and
set down, upright, next to it. Not a leaf or stem was broken, and again, there
were no claw marks or signs of other digging, or paw prints, and the plant –
which was fairly large - had been set down whole right next to the hole it had
been removed from. It looked like a human
had done it with a trowel, it was that clean and carefully done. Cleaner, in fact, than a human would have done.
Again, we wondered: what critter would dig up a whole
pumpkin plant and carefully set it down next to its hole? Or could? Or would
want to? Very curious. And the plant was dead when I found it – its roots had
dried out.
Weird. And weirder: a week or so later, something did exactly
the same thing to the remaining pumpkin plant. Again, perfectly cleanly, no
broken leaves, or claw marks, or paw prints or any other signs of animal or
marsh monster or alien depredation.
We thought about the usual garden suspects: chipmunks (too
small), the partridge (no claw marks and not sensible), foxes, raccoons, skunks
and bears. But no claw or paw marks; and why would any of those critters lift a whole prickly plant and set it aside,
when the compost bins, overflowing with goodies, were just a few feet away,
strawberries were ripening, there was plenty of critter-stuff to eat?
For a few weeks, everything was quiet. And then!
Next to those same two raised beds appeared two piles of the
strangest scat I’ve ever seen: black as night, fibrous, and powdery, almost as
if dark-of-the-moon sky had drifted down and shat near the now-gone pumpkins
and failing favas, just to the right of my potato bags (which were filled with flourishing potato plants). The
Tall Guy stopped by and I made him come look at the scat – he was a commercial
organic farmer for many decades, after all, and generally has opinions about
all things garden-related – and he looked and looked and poked it with his toe.
It puffed up and drifted, sort of like a giant – really, really giant –
puffball’s spore might. “Huh,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
 |
Bamboo chimes, out by the garden shed
|
Nope. It wasn’t bear scat, or fox scat, or coyote scat, or
raccoon or skunk scat. It was weird scat. And again, no paw prints or
scratching or anything else to give a clue to the pooper.
The summer went on, an odd summer, partly because of
chipmunks killing off stuff, partly because drought killed off stuff, partly
because every summer is odd. The zucchini plant produced fruits vigorously and
very early, even after squash borers killed off half the plant; the summer
squash, just a few beds away, produced lots of flowers but not a single fruit
until September, when it suddenly became prolific, at the time of year it
should have been dying off. At a point the zucchini fruits became totally
enveloped in some sort of grayish, globby, mucky substance, even on the side
that had rested on the ground. I’d never seen anything like it; neither had the
Tall Guy.
Shell beans were early or non-existent; pepper plants never
got much taller than 12 inches, so I picked full-sized fruits that were setting
on the ground. My peach tree, prolific last year, produced nary a blossom. The
cherry tomatoes were bounteous; the chipmunks – maybe it was chipmunks, maybe
it wasn’t - took out my poppies, a beautiful rose, a delphinium, several other
perennials, and some onions and garlic. And then for good measure, they also
ate two beds of beets, two of parsnips, three rows of carrots, and nibbled on a
bunch of green tomatoes. The onions, shallots and garlic never got terribly
large and died back early. The yellow beans preceded the green beans by weeks,
very early, then suddenly died; the green beans eventually produced a lot for a
short time, but quite late in the season.
The normal-sized tomatoes never got very big or very
plentiful, and were mostly buckled and odd-shaped and scarred because of the
water issue. Some of the sunflowers grew tall, some only knee-high. The fava
beans produced little. And still are:
one or two beans per week.
 |
More chimes - where the garden gremlins can ring them
|
And in one of the compost bins, there was some sort of
volunteer squash/pumpkin plant. The leaves were huge and many, so I couldn’t
really get a good look at the fruits that were clearly growing there. I decided
to just wait to see what, if anything, was brewing.
Mid-summer, during one of our few torrential rain storms, I
heard a thumping across the wart, and headed out to let in the two cats I was
sure were desperate to get in out of the rain. Instead, I found Lynxie, too fat
to easily do it, frantically trying to heft himself up onto the wart rail, and
just below him standing up on two back feet, a really pissed-off raccoon who
was determined to eat him. I opened the door and shouted , “Scat! Scat! Off my
porch!” The ‘coon looked at me, considered its options, and a little too slowly
for my taste decided to amble in front of me and exit down the stairs it had
come up, rather than leap off the porch.
I grabbed the cat, who was soaking wet from the rain, and
quickly checked him over for blood or bites; then grabbed the broom and went
out to see if I needed to fend off a rabid critter. The raccoon had
disappeared, unlike a rabid one would. Even so, Lynx had a bite and so had a
10-day quarantined vacation at the local vet’s, and an extra rabies shot. My best
guess was that he (who looks a lot from the back like a raccoon) stumbled into
a lady ‘coon’s nest, or she thought he was one of her kits, and when she
discovered he was a cat, she decided to teach him a lesson. Now, though, I’m
wondering if she was a raccoon at all…
For a few weeks, no weird stuff. Then one of the wart chairs
became haunted.
This summer the Tall Guy put a roof over the wart for us,
and The Boys, the cats, and occasionally I, have enjoyed sitting out under it
in sunny weather and rain. There’s a porch table out there, and three canvas
chairs – you know, the kind that fold up and look rather like director’s chairs
– and three more substantial porch chairs.
 |
Lunaria - moon plant - turns ghostly white
|
I started noticing that Lynxie was licking his nether region
a lot – so much so that I wondered if he’d gotten a UTI following his adventure
with the gremlin raccoon and subsequent enforced vacation. I picked him up and his underside was soaked.
Weird. No smell of cat pee. But the seat of the green canvas chair he’d been
napping in, out under the wart roof, was soaked. And it didn’t smell of cat
pee, either.
After a few days of this repeating over and over again, I
rinsed the chair thoroughly, set it out under the sun to dry for a day or so,
then moved it back under the roof. Next time Lynx napped in it, it and he were
soaked again.
I washed the scent-less chair again, and brought it indoors
for extra drying after leaving it in the hot sun until it felt dry. And next day or so, Lynx wanted to sit next
to me as I worked at the dining table, so I unfolded the chair and set it next
to me, so he could nap where I could reach him and give a rub every so often.
When he got up – the chair seat, and Lynx, were again soaking wet. And again,
no smell of cat pee. And the other cats were totally uninterested in it.
OK! Called the vet, said I thought we might have a cat with
a UTI, they told me I needed to collect some of his urine – this isn’t as hard
as it sounds but Lynxie was having none of it, nor did I find any puddles
wherever else he napped – so I flooded the chair with water, and left it in the
hot, dry sun for more than four days. Before I brought it back under the roof,
I felt it all over, I turned it upside down, I shook it, I pressed it, I found
not a bit of dampness.
And then the Husband decided to sit in that chair, for a change.
And when he got up, the chair seat was soaking wet, as were his pants, and his
underwear. And no smell of human urine, either. Then it stopped.
 |
Lynx in a not-haunted chair
|
I told my friend in Maine about the goings on – he’s also a
long-time gardener/farmer – and his suggestion was that I leave a jigger of
whisky out in the garden for the apparently cranky garden gnomes. I didn’t do it, but I probably should have.
When the green chair stopped peeing on itself and anyone who
sat in it, the kitchen sink started growling. No, seriously – growling growling
growling, whenever water was running. “I probably need to pour something down
the pipes to clear them out,” the Husband said; but he didn’t, and the sink was
draining with no problem. Then the bathroom sink started growling; and at the
same time, there was a nightly scrabbling and scratching and scritching noise
in the wall that the pipes to the tub ran through, that would start after dark,
and wouldn’t stop even when we banged loudly and repeatedly on the wall. Until
the sun came up – then it stopped until nightfall.
So one night I got pissed off and poured two tea kettles of
boiling water down the growling bathroom sink, followed by about a quart of white
vinegar, threatening to repeat the process if necessary. The growling in the bathroom
sink stopped; the growling in the kitchen sink stopped; and the scrabbling and
scratching noises in the wall stopped. Immediately.
A week later, I was woken up four nights in a row, at around
4 am (the time some religions believe the devas are travelling around the
world, putting things right, and changing “shifts” so to speak) by the smell of
toast, frying eggs and onions, and coffee. I got up to see if the Husband was
weirdly hungry and feeding himself while sleep-walking – but no; and the kitchen
was immaculate in the morning, no eggs missing, no coffee made, no bread slices
gone. Hmmm. No, I wasn’t dreaming: I’m a lucid dreamer, which means I’m almost
always aware that I’m dreaming when I am. I was awake. I checked the clock. I
kissed the cats. I got up to pee. It wasn’t a dream.
By then it was fall, and we had a killing frost. I could
finally see what was growing in my compost bin!
What was in my compost bin was: 9 oval Delicata squash, 1
butternut squash, and 4 round squashes that are colored like Delicatas but have
a different consistency and flavor. All on the same squash plant. And
underneath the squashes, a beautiful tomato plant with a load of purple
tomatoes on it, and about 3 green striped Zebra tomatoes.
Now here’s the thing: the tomato plant could possibly be a
volunteer from discarded tomatoes that I grew a couple of years ago. I like
heirloom varieties and Zebra is a green, stripey thing that I did grow a couple
of seasons ago. The purple tomato – might possibly be a Cherokee purple, which
I also grew a few seasons ago, but the Cherokee purples I grew were not
actually totally purple and egg-shaped, as these are – they had purple
shoulders and were normal tomato-shaped; and the two wouldn’t grow on the same
plant, unless someone – something? – did some fancy splicing of two types
together. For that matter, a tomato plant would not normally grow happily under
a huge squash plant, but this one did.
I was – am – suspicious of the egg-shaped purple tomatoes; I
did bring them in, they’re on the dining table in a basket along with other
green tomatoes from my frost-killed garden. Under the purple, they’re slowly
ripening in a way that lets me see some deep tomato red. I’ve cut open and
eaten a couple – nothing unusual was hatching out in them – but if I start
changing to a green or purple skin color, or start growling for no apparent
reason, someone should warn people to be wary of me.
About all those squashes: I hate Delicata squash. I do not
buy, eat, or plant Delicata squash. I love Butternut squash, and I grow them –
not this year because all my winter squash plants died early in the season - but
Butternut doesn’t usually grow on a Delicata squash plant. And the round
squashes that are colored like Delicatas but aren’t? I have no idea what they
are.
I harvested them all, they’re sitting under the dining table
in a basket. First I tried roasting a couple Delicatas and two of the
not-Delicatas – they are actually pretty good roasted, if you sprinkle them
with tandoori seasoning and flake salt and garlic powder and olive oil first.
The two don’t have the same cooked consistency or flavor, the round ones are
more like a Buttercup. I put the
Butternut in last week’s soup, with a lot of mushrooms – it was excellent.
 |
Bear ate all but three apples, then left giant apple bear poops
|
After the killing frost that uncovered the squashes and
purple tomatoes, I also picked all the remaining cherry tomatoes to bring
inside to ripen; and as I was picking the last of them, in the raised bed next
to the house, I found, out in full sight: a red cabbage, fully grown. I did not
plant a cabbage. I have never planted cabbage. It was growing in my parsley. It
was not there the week previously.
The Tall Guy had just stopped by at the time, so I made him
look at it, too How, I wanted to know, could a cabbage appear where I hadn’t
planted one, and that wasn’t there a week earlier? “I have no idea,” he said,
“but it looks like a good one. You should harvest it.”
I thought about it for about a week then decided to harvest
it. I checked for cabbage worms, found only a couple, cut off the stem, pulled
off the outer leaves, wrapped it up and stuck it in the frig. And thought about
it for a couple of weeks longer.
Sunday, I sliced up half of it to put in this week’s soup,
along with a lot of other good things from the garden.
Monday night, I pulled the big pot of soup out of the frig
to heat some for supper, and dumped the entire pot upside down, on my legs, my
feet, the kitchen sink rug, the floor, and of course, it ran under the frig,
too. I didn’t just lose my grip on one handle of the pot: the whole thing
turned completely upside down. The pot
cover went flying. A lot of swear words were shouted.
After we scooped it all up and moved the frig (yup, found a pile of mouse poop in the
corner by the counter, but no dead mice this time) to clean up under it, and
washed the floor, and decided to trash the rug, I found something else to eat for
supper.
Next morning, the Husband took the remains of the soup out
to the compost bin – where it can do whatever it’s going to do, out of my
sight.
I wonder what will grow in that bin next summer?
More to the point, now the garden’s pretty much over, except
for the garlic I still need to plant – I wonder what the garden gremlins are
going to be up to next?
For the blog, 20 October 2022
All photos Deb Marshall
 |
Rasta (rear) and Lynx in their pods
|
