Strawberry heist

So, there has been a theft.

Two fat strawberries were ripening. One for me and one for Vince. Last night they looked about perfect, but because he was working late I decided to leave them till this morning. And this morning we scurried into SoHo to have brunch at Balthazar with good friends from his previous life on Little Cayman, so, no strawberry.

Just got home. Stepped onto the warm terrace.

One red strawberry.

The other, missing. The stem neatly nipped, snipped. Quite hard to get to. Facing the apartment, not on the outside, with easy gutter access for varmints.

Raccoon? Surely el bandido would have knocked something over in the act of. Thin squirrel, squeezing between pots? And it's not like it took bites, either. The whole thing is gone.

The cat is clearly not earning his keep.

On the other hand, the plants are the healthiest on the terrace.

Promising to make more berries, sending out runners to colonize nearby pots.

Varmint.

So I ate the other one (below), immediately, just in case.

It was warm and sweet.

Is your dog's name Lucy?

Do you live in DC? Are you a reader of 66 Square Feet? Are you at the beach this week? Did you meet Susan Harris of Garden Rant at the vet's the other day? Did you talk with her about this blog and that blog?

If your answers to all of the above are, Yes, that's me!, then Susan is desperately seeking you, to invite you to visit her garden, above (you lucky devils!).

Please get in touch with me so that I can put you in touch with Susan, who told me that you made her difficult day a little easier. She was too upset about her cat to get any contact details from you.

Coyote Attacks summed up

As Madeline Donovan, 5, said on her way to the pool, “Blah blah blah coyotes.”

Coyote Attack puts Suburb on the Alert.

That little girl is going to be a blogger. Such an editorial mind.

Lilies

With next week's weather going high 90's, I don't think these will last...

The Old Dog

He was pointed at the swinging exit door at Key Food, and not budging, also blocking the entrance. I snapped this as I walked past. The woman in the picture did not want to move him, fearing, perhaps, a bite. I had seen him before, slowly and painfully following his people, with an entire steak in his mouth, still wrapped in styrofoam and plastic.

He was waiting for the steak.

When I was half way down the block looking at the fruit at Mr Lee's, I saw them coming. A tall woman - one half of the couple I've seen him with before - with two small children walked by, with the dog a good twenty feet behind, carrying his steak. Then he stopped. They walked on. He started to open his steak, and then wolfed it down, leaving his container behind on the sidewalk. Far ahead, the tall mother turned to see where he was, glanced away when she saw his litter, and walked on. He followed.

The Edible Garden

My strawberries are ripening again, so the everbearing cultivar "Fern" really is one.

For more strawberries, visit the NYBG's Edible Garden this weekend.

Saturday is strawberries, Sunday raspberries, with blue and blackberries on Monday. Click here for the cooking and recipe schedule.

The Garden-to-Table weekend is free to members of the NYBG, or $20 per adult, with a $2 discount if you book online. The best part of it, of course, is the kitchen gardens themselves.

Roof farm progress

Well, it's growing...

Above, the watermelon's flowers, below, the cucumber.

Frank's suggestion of a horizontal trellis of sorts (it has to be very cheap, and must not blow away) will be applied this weekend, for the watermelon, which is running away. I don't see the vines or fruits (please-may-it-make-fruit) being very happy on the blistering tartop. And maybe for the alleged bush cucumbers, too.

If the cucumbers make fruit I will turn them into pickles. We had delicious pickles at Buttermilk Channel last night, which, aside from my cheese at the end of dinner, and a very good lady maitre d', were the best part of the meal. A very meh meal.

These are my grown-from-seed Mexican heirlooms, which came up on the terrace earlier in the year. They seem very happy. To my horror, I snapped the central stem off one while trying to poke it back into its cage. Loss, and shame.

I want more.