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.
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.
Northeastern ghosts
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.
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.
Lynx in a not-haunted chair
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
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| Rasta (rear) and Lynx in their pods |
