The birds & bees, Waitsburg style

As you all probably know, I’m a city girl. Born In New York (Brooklyn), we then moved to Queens, and eventually to the suburbs of Long Island. We grew nothing in New York, except for one crab apple tree and a pear tree, that never bore fruit. Our vegetables didn’t come from the ground; they lived in little white boxes in the freezer. My mother would boil salted water, drop in the frozen vegetables, then cook the life out of them.

We eventually moved to Tucson, Arizona, because my father’s arthritis became debilitating from the cold weather. The only thing that grows in Tucson is cactus! We had a gray rock lawn, a few cacti, and an oversized air-conditioner.

Five years later, we moved to Los Angeles. Our first home was an apartment with no garden space. Eventually, my parents bought a house, wisely, they hired a gardener. Happily, my mother had graduated to cooking fresh vegetables instead of the frozen bricks of broccoli, cauliflower, and peas.

Until I went to culinary school, married Daniel, sold my condominium, and we bought a house, did I grow anything.

Any discussion of “birds and bees” had nothing to do with gardening. They usually are prefaced with a “wink, wink”, someone’s unplanned baby, or the permission slip from my parents allowing me to attend health class when the subject was human reproduction, and all that went with it.

Now that we have spent spring and summer becoming (or attempting to become) gardeners, the “birds and bees” have a whole different meaning. When I tried to figure out why sunflower and safflower plants grow in abundance in our backyard, I realized birds that we graciously feed, drop seeds all over, planting them wherever they happen to fall. The quails and mourning doves are too big to rest on the perches of the feeder, so they vacuum the seeds off the ground and then peck the dirt to grab worms. It would be great to train them to leave the worms and take the slugs!

I think that the birds like to pluck seeds that we plant and move them just for spite. I know exactly where I planted eggplant, somehow zucchini grew there instead. Yesterday I spotted an eggplant growing about 30 feet from where I know I planted it three months ago, and next to it was Kale, which I know I didn’t plant, because I don’t like Kale. Are the birds trying to mess with me? Are they trying to encourage us to eat a healthier diet? They don’t show much appreciation for all the feeders we stock for them.

I have learned that certain flowers attract bees and hoverflies, both I’m told are good pollinators. So, I let them live, even though they are incredibly annoying when I’m trying to water, weed, and harvest the three green beans I just spotted.

A few weeks ago, I yanked all of the “over the hill” arugula from the garden. Evidently, during my yanking, seeds dropped and have sprouted in the ground next to their original raised bed planter. I was thrilled; I love arugula. I called to Daniel to show him our “new crop,” instead, Mugsy came flying over, sniffed, and trampled the arugula, then promptly lifted his leg and peed on it. It has since lost its appeal, but maybe some bird or bee will be kind enough to grab a few seeds and replant them on higher ground, and out of Mugsy’s reach.