Category: Everything Else

OK, this disgusting beast is the well-known and reviled tomato hornworm.

One year, we went away on 4th of July weekend. Upon returning, we discovered all three of our tomato plants had ben ravaged. The culprit, presumably, was the lone hornworm we found nestled in the leaves, given away by its audible munching.

We maliciously put it in the bird feeder.

Earlier this summer Jeff found this guy on one of the tomato plants. He’d already found one, and had dispatched it quickly to hornworm heaven with a truly sickening crunch underfoot.

I convinced him to let this one live. I’ll tell you why.

See those nasty white things on his back? Those are the cocoons of braconid wasps. They are already feeding on the internal organs of this hornworm; he is not going to be doing any more damage to my tomato plants.

By allowing this hornworm to live long enough to nourish those wasps, I am in effect raising an anti-hornworm army, ensuring that any others will be killed as they leave their cocoons or similarly parasitized.

Of course, if I do find any more adults that do not bear cocoons on their backs, I’ll go ahead and give it to the blue jays as a treat. They love ’em.

I came by this information in Douglas Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens, and it was a real eye-opener for me.

I suspect, however, that it may be common knowledge to the experienced gardener. Did you already know about this? Are there any other “pests” I should be leaving well-enough alone?

I was woefully neglectful with my One Can a Month Challenge, mostly because I didn’t know how to make our trash interesting. Will that stop me today? Heck no.

A quick refresher: since our trash is picked up weekly, we were aiming for a quarter can a week.

The first week, we came in at a little less than half a can. This was due mostly to the tree that sprouted in my foyer.

The second week, a quarter can. I recall no details beyond that.

The third week, none of our indoor cans were full, so we didn’t put out any trash! This was exciting, on the one hand, because we were back on track for the challenge, but a bummer on the other hand, because we paid almost $8 just for the trash guy to back into our driveway and then leave again.

The fourth week, we had that trash from the week before ( why this did not occur to me, the fact that this trash would figure into the fourth week’s count, I do not know) plus a fair amount of spoilage from the power outtage. (Oddly enough, the dairy all seemed fine, but the bacon made me violently ill, and we took no chances with the potato salad.) The trash can smelled awful in the summer heat and I did not envy the trash man.

All told, we put out about a can and a third. Not terrible, I guess. A LOT of that was melon rinds, and non-recyclable plastic containers I bought pre-challenge.

I am now a lot more careful about checking the packaging before I buy, and I am thinking in earnest that a compost pile is definitely the way to go.

I am SO ENVIOUS of those in Southern Delaware who have pay-as-you-go programs of $1 a bag (which you drop off yourself). This would save us a bundle. In fact, I could probably drive my own trash to Southern Delaware, over an hour away, and still save on our trash bill! (Don’t worry, I won’t.)

We pay $100 every three months to have someone empty our trash can, which, clearly, is never more than half full. It’s a waste of our money and the trash company’s time and fuel.

Because we live at a potentially dangerous point on a rural road (absolutely zero visibility for a trash truck backing up) the company sends out a guy in a pick-up truck to collect our trash. Ridiculous! Hopefully they will take all this into account when I attempt to have them come out only twice a month.

So, I’m all done trash talking for now.

Those of you who also took on this challenge- How did you do?

Recently I came across an article claiming that the UK is considering banning artificial food coloring.

My mother-in-law has said for years that red food coloring makes my husband go batty, so I showed him the article.

He said, “I don’t eat anything with food coloring.”

Oh, yeah? How about that Crunchberry cereal you insisted I buy at the grocery store? Fruit roll-ups? All that candy you eat? (He is a candy addict– many’s the time I’ve found him in a dark room, stuffing gummy bears into his mouth before anyone discovers them.)

He said, “Well, don’t buy that stuff anymore!”

Um, that’s what I’ve been trying to do. For months. Only, there is this ever-present complaining voice, and sometimes it gets really loud and on my nerves.

And it’s saying there’s nothing to eat, there’s nothing to snack on, I need at least two desserts in my lunch because I need extra calories because I am such a hard-working man. You just went to the store! How come there’s no food? There’s just meat and fruit and vegetables and cheese and grains! Are you trying to poison me? Starve me?

He said, “I won’t complain as long as there’s snack food. I swear. But it has to be cut into individual portions already so I don’t have to do it. And carrot sticks don’t count.” (I had attempted to sneak these into his lunchbox that day.)

This, my friends, constitutes a major victory in the Elton family Food Wars. Sad but true.

As luck would have it, I had those pie cherries I bought at the farmer’s market in the fridge. And so, I decided to make a pie.

No fancy lattice crust, as the recipe was quite rigid about keeping the crust cold and it was over a hundred degrees in my kitchen. But handmade crust all the same. I was not allowed to do anything “weird” to the pie, no subbing wheat flour for all-purpose or butter for shortening. Strictly by the book. ( The book being, as always, The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.)

Now, I am not a pie person. Or a cherry person, for that matter. This was my first attempt at pie crust, my first cherry pie. But I tried some, thought it was pretty darn good. Allow me to preen for a moment.

Jeff also sampled the cherry pie and proclaimed it “not poison”.

He finished his slice only after setting up the stereo to play Warrant’s “Cherry Pie”. On repeat. I kid you not.

Since I don’t turn on the oven unless I can cook multiple things at once, I also made a yummy banana bread ( with wheat flour and homemade yogurt) and Jeff made a key lime pie.

That slice in the picture above was the last one. And after taking the picture I shamelessly ate it. It was REALLY GOOD.

So far, so good. Three days have gone by. He gets a sandwich, a fruit, “something crunchy”- this week it’s pretzels- and (sigh) two desserts in his lunch, and so far no complaining.

Baby steps, right? Let’s turn a blind eye for a moment to the fact that key limes and bananas don’t come from the farmer’s market.

He has become used to real meats in his sandwiches over sodium-filled deli meats, and now, his desserts are sans artificial food coloring and have very little sugar. That is progress.

Next, I’ll figure out a way around the “something crunchy”.

Any ideas?