Saturday, June 25, 2011

Nightshade

Tomatoes are part of the Nightshade Family. Who knew? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I always thought a Nightshade was a flower, but it indeed has various vegetable varieties including the chili pepper, the tomatillo and sweet peppers. All of which are in the GrowDammit gardens. The tomato’s leaves are poisonous. I think I knew that. At least I knew part of the plant was poisonous. Their flowers are bisexual. Definitely didn’t know that..

Anyways, the garlic spray only succeeded to scatter the aphids not annihilate them. Which is the goal. Plan B is to make us up a little Tomato Leaf Cocktail. Tomorrow morning the aphids will be in for a big surprise. Shock & Awe baby, Shock & Awe.

Eggplant and potatoes are also Nightshades. Neither one of these are in our lineup. I don’t eat many potatoes. I could go for a big ol’ plate of scattered, smothered & covered right now though. That was always my 4am soak up all the alcohol you just consumed go to meal. Ahhhh, the Waffle House. *drool* Ahhhh, College…Boozefest 1987-1991.

Where was I? Oh yeah, eggplant. The only way I eat it is in the form of Eggplant Parm. And since I try to defat a recipe as much as I possibly can, I only eat Eggplant Parm at a restaurant where I’m going to splurge anyway. I also only eat Indian food out. Almost all recipes can be defatted, but there are some dishes that shouldn’t be.

I just told Ted Plan B. He looked worried, so I quickly assured him it was for aphid control. It’s not your turn.

Talk of poisoning reminded me of the chocolate incident…Rufus vs. the Godiva. When we first moved into this house, I put all the baking supplies on the bottom shelf of the pantry. Rufus can nose his way into the pantry here. One day, I came home, and Rufus was lying by the front door. He was unusually listless. I looked around and didn’t see anything amiss. I hadn’t left any unsuspecting wheels of cheese or hams around. He got worse and worse as the afternoon went on. We were going out with friends that night, so I got dressed but kept an eye on him. Then, he started getting sick. And, getting sick. And, getting sick. Upon further investigation, I found the culprit. An empty pound bag of Godiva dark chocolate chips that I had bought the day before for a recipe was under the dining table. A Friday evening emergency trip to the vet to have his stomach pumped, a weekend at the vet with IV fluids and catheterization and $1,300 later Rufus survived. That’s right folks. $1,300. Dollars. We switched vets shortly after that. It wasn’t so much the price tag of the Chocolate Incident, as it was her suggestion to do acupuncture on the Dragon to fix some ailment exactly what I’ve forgotten. That’s right folks. Acupuncture. On the dog. Yeah…..No.

Next…The spawn are cramping my style again.

12 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Trying to post this again - hope the link works, this time. If not, oh well.

    I love roasted eggplant, mixed with roasted garlic, in baba ghanoush. Mmmmmmm.

    http://www.nomeatathlete.com/how-to-smoke-eggplant/

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  3. How to smoke eggplant?!

    I'm just about over these wive's tale recipes for getting rid of these fuckin' aphids. "Sevin Dust." That'll fix their little red wagon. It's just like real life (Wooly aphids.) Once you have everything all established.... Things are growing and looking beautiful.... Here comes these little shit heads who try and fuck everything up. Yeah? Well... We've got a surprise for 'em. I guess we'll try the tomato leaf concoction first, though. It may work... but I'm skeptical. Actually.... The more that I think about it... I've never seen a wooly aphids on tomato plants; Now I'm curious but I'm still gonna put my money on the straight up poison. What a nasty sounding word..."Poison." It kinds creeps me out.

    Well what do ya know.... Rufus Dragon ate something that he shouldn't have.... Next subject.

    The eldest spawn is heading off to camp for a week... Bye! (Next subject.)

    It's not like we see him around much anyways.... He hangs out at his Grandparents house. (That's where the pool's at.) Smart kid! Lemme see...What else? What else?

    Oil change at the Jaguar dealership? 70 bucks. A single wiper blade at the Jaguar dealership? 30 bucks... (Next fucking subject.)

    Farmer Chele cleaned the everlovin' pee nanny outta the kitchen; Not only did she clean it.....She re-arranged everything. She tripled the amount of counter space! It looks GREAT! I (Of course) was no help because I was down in the lair.... Getting everything just "so." We'll be sure to post some pics once I'm finished with it.... it's a slow process because I hafta check everything out...Go through plastic bins and shit and come up with a vision of how it's going to look.... and then make it happen. (Plastic bins.... Yeah.) Farmer Chele and I survived Hurricane Hugo so we can appreciate a plastic bin that has a tight fitting lid. Boxes.... Really don't stand a chance against a tidal surge. (FYI.)

    Oh.... this is good. getting back to the eldest spawn going to camp.... Undoubtedly... camp food tastes like ass...So they have a canteen there where you can buy....Whatever. So Chele was asking him how much cash that he'd need to get him by... "Forty bucks...Fifty bucks for the week...." Something like that. So "I" (Mister Helpful) decided that it was time to learn the "art" of economics... (Loan sharking.) If he needed 50 bucks for the week.... Send him with 100 bucks. Now... we all know that there's gonna be this kid that isn't gonna have enough cash for the honey buns or whatever it is that they sell at the canteen... Anyways, You can see where I'm going with this. All I had to do was put the germ of the idea into his head and his eyes lit up with dollar signs.... He was like...."Yeah!" "I could ten charge like...10% interest!!" I was like...."Fuck THAT..." 60% interest...Compounded DAILY! Awww man... He was all about it until his Mother.. (A.K.A.) "The skunk at the garden party," caught wind of what was going on and shut down the whole operation before it got off the ground...

    Whelp... That's it for me... I have shit to do. Maybe we will go to Wegmans tonight and I'll pick up an eggplant and see what Mo has going on with this business of smoking an Eggplant.

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  4. It's Boy Scout camp. I'm pretty sure Loansharking is not a merit badge.

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  5. "The skunk at the garden party" Ha! But no matter how lethal, all dressed in her finest black and white, she's still hot. ;)

    Poor Rufus. He never knew what hit him. Your wallet didn't, either. Ouch!

    Can't wait to hear if your Tomato Leaf Poison does those fuzzy freaks in. There is something that has been eating the leaves on my rose bushes and it's pissing me off!

    ETA...my captcha today was 'maters'. It's a sign!

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  6. Poison? There are a few organic poisons. The bees have been on the decline the last decade, so we don't want to kill the "help"...try DAWN dish detergent and some water (spray-mix) It kills them and works until a rain...but it's cheap, effective and smells good :-) Watch out for those tomato worms...best picked by hand and dumped in rubbing alcohol, these creatures can make a plant bare branched in days!
    Japanese beetles will be filling leaves with holes soon! The first few to emerge will leave a pheromone scent that will attract others that emerge until it becomes a feeding frenzy ON YOUR PLANTS! Hand pick the first you see and drown them, then the newly emerged might all gang on plants that are NOT yours~
    I sure enjoy reading your posts! Those that don't are missing out on humor, education and the daily living of "being human" ;-)

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  7. Good to know about the Japanese beetles. I've heard that about the Dawn..... But I just forgot about it. We're gonna dump the spawn off at camp and then come back and start on this "Bitch's brew" tomato leaf concoction.... I screwed my back royal yesterday while moving stuff around in the lair. It feels better whenever I keep moving around but lemme tell ya... This is for the birds.

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  8. If you use beetle traps be sure to put them as far away from your garden as possible as the lure will attract the beetles from your whole neighborhood.

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  9. What in the hell's a beetle trap? (As you can see... I'm new to this farming shit.)

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  10. We haven't had a problem with Japanese Beetles for a few years up here. The stinkbugs have all but disappeared this summer too. Now we have wooly aphids. All Asian pests BTW.

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  11. http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-Beetle-Trap-/300569128771?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fb50ef43

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