Category Archives: gardening

My New Love

September 25, 2017 verily sherrilee 27 Comments

Today’s post comes to us from Jacque.

I am smitten. I met my new true love in July at a near by nursery. Her name is Rosy Jane Indian Feather.

Every few years I find a new plant that entrances and seduces me. I plant it, baby it, admire it, and then buy more of them for years to come. This year it was Rosy Jane. It is not just an infatuation. It is a romance, but so much more. I think it will become a commitment.

Past loves have been Indigo salvia, an annual; another annual–licorice plant, both sage color and mint green; the wave petunia. Several years ago it was the small petunias that I cannot remember the name of. They all still show up in my pots.

And now I have added Rosy Jane. Tiny pink flowers appear at the end of a long stem that shoots out from a relatively small plant at the base. The flowers look like they are just floating from the pot. It is categorized as a perennial, zone 5. I am going to attempt to winter mine over, even though we are zone 4 because winters are warmer now. I think if I plant it close to the house it might make it. And if it does we will live happily ever after in a state of romance, me with stars in my eyes.

What romances you?

Art, Baboon Achievers, Food, gardening, Music, work

Music To Cook By

September 21, 2017 reneeinnd 50 Comments

VS’s story about making pesto reminded me of the pesto fests that Husband and I had this month as we harvested the too large basil crop in the garden. Husband took the leaves off the stems, which I find to be the most tedious of chores, and I whirred up the ingredients in the food processor. We ended up with 54 jars.

Husband has gout in one of his feet, and he needs to shift his weight from one foot to the next pretty regularly if he has to stand for any length of time. I figure that he stripped about 110 cups of basil leaves off the stems this year over three pesto making extravaganzas. That meant a lot of standing at the sink. He said it would be easier for him if he had some music to listen to and shift his weight to as he took care of the basil. He thought that Celtic music would be good for the purpose. One evening we tried something by Clannad, but that was too dreamy and new age. We finally settled on a disc by Danu, a group we heard once at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. He shifted and danced his way through the basil stems, and it wasn’t too tedious for him at all.

I listen to music as I do paper work for my job. I typically choose classical music for work. We have music on most of the time at our house, and choose music accordingly for what we need to get done.

What music helps you work?

Baboon Achievers, Food, gardening, Nature, Stories, Weather

Sweet Corn or Bust!

September 20, 2017 verily sherrilee 45 Comments

Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

My sweet corn finally got ripe. It’s not good. But Dammit, I’m going to eat it!

I get sweet corn from the seed corn dealer. Two small bags slightly bigger than what you’d pick up from Fleet Farm in the spring.

I use the first bag as I test the planter as I start corn in the spring.

I divide the seed into 3 rows of the planter and then plant the sweet corn testing depth and the monitor and just making sure the planter is working properly.

This year, the first 50’ I had the depth wrong so the corn never emerged. And the last 75’ was next to the pasture and woods and the deer ate all that before it even got tassels. But I kinda expected that.

Then I plant all the rest of my regular corn. And then, before switching the planter to soybeans, I plant the second batch of sweet corn. Some years that might only be 3 – 7 days. This year it was about 2 weeks between batches.

I plant the second batch in a different field, close to the house and on the other side of the field from the trees and deer.

This year with the weather being so cool, it took a long time for that second field to get ripe. The bottom of the ear was tough and the top and middle were just OK. I don’t know if was the variety of the sweet corn or just the way it ripened. And there was a lot. 12 rows 100’ long. I knew it was too much but I take a lot to the my siblings and I freeze some and I invite others. This year, I bought corn earlier to freeze as I didn’t know if mine would ever get ripe

But darn it; I look forward to sweet corn all summer and I’ll be darned if I’m going to not eat it just because it doesn’t taste good!

Sigh.

But I think I’ve had enough corn this year…

What do you do even though it’s a dumb idea?

Baboon Achievers, Family, Food, gardening, Stories

Pesto Party!

September 18, 2017 verily sherrilee 26 Comments

Our two basil plants have been constantly picked over this summer (YA and I can find a use for basil in almost everything) and I was thinking that maybe next year we should plant more so we would have enough for putting up some pesto. In swept a hero friends, bringing us excess bounty from their garden and with it a renewed dream of pesto through the winter!

YA wanted to help so we set up production. I stripped the leaves and minced the garlic; she did everything else, from washing the basil leaves to measuring, then running the food processor and getting the finished pesto into the jars. She even stayed at it when I had to run up to Kowalski’s for more garlic, although she did leave me with all the clean up.

So now we have pesto to last us for a while, although I doubt it will get us through the entire winter – we’ve already both had pesto on naan today!

What do you need enough of to get through the winter?

Baboon Achievers, books, Food, gardening, Nature, Stories

Tomato Land

September 13, 2017 verily sherrilee 40 Comments

It’s all your fault that I have too many tomatoes. Six years ago I read Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook, based on somebody’s recommendation on the trail. That made me want to grow my own tomatoes in the worst way. That led me to straw bales which had led me to today; tomatoes are taking over my kitchen!

This past weekend I tried to make a dent. First I made salsa for the freezer (2 jars):

4 cups diced, fresh tomatoes (Roma) – I didn’t peel them because I used an immersion blender after the salsa cooked down
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
4 chopped loco peppers – didn’t seed them so I could keep the heat
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup vinegar
1 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2-1 Tbs. cayenne pepper
4 Tbs. chopped cilantro

That didn’t make a big enough dent so then I made Tomato Veggie soup in the slow cooker:

3 cups diced tomatoes – again left the skins on
2 cup water
1 ½ cupsw green beans, cut into bit-sizes
1 cup diced potato
1 cup diced turnit
1 cup chopped cabbage
4 Tbs. cooked onion (sautéed w/ the garlic)
4 cloves of garlic, minced
½ green pepper, diced
2 bouillon cubes (I used vegetarian cubes)
Salt & pepper to taste

Everything into the slow cooker, on low for about 8 hours.

Then today I came home and found another batch of ripe tomatoes on my vines. Help!

What do you like to do with excess garden produce?

Fifty Words, gardening, Nature

Monarch Party

September 11, 2017 verily sherrilee 28 Comments

As I walked up the driveway yesterday afternoon, I noticed the monarchs having a party on one of my sedum plants. I don’t know if they’re really monarchs but they’re orange. They were only interested in that one plant. All the other sedum plants were bare!

What makes a good party in your world?

books, Family, gardening, Kids, The Future

What Were We Thinking

September 7, 2017 reneeinnd 36 Comments

We have lived in our house for 29 years. During that time we reared two children, and coped with two Welsh Terriers, one Fox Terrier, and 4 cats. It is a modest, ranch style house of about 1200 square feet with an attached garage. The basement is finished.

Over the years we have upgraded the kitchen and done some cosmetic flooring changes. We made the house and yard functional for our needs without much thought about the future. Well, the future is upon us, and I feel daunted by the things we need to undo and change in order to sell the house when I retire in 4 years. My main thought as I survey the house and property is “What were we thinking?”

The terriers dig up and consume the asparagus? Put a fence with steel posts and hog panels around the asparagus bed. Who cares if it disturbs the flow of the yard space and makes the back yard ugly. Don’t worry how you will remove the posts and haul away the hog panels when it is time to dismantle the fence.

Need more garden space? Just dig up the front yard and grow veggies there. Who cares that no one else in the region will appreciate that scheme and will want a grass covered front yard to mow.

Need book space? Just attach brackets and shelving to an entire wall in the basement family room. Then fill all the shelves with books. Don’t worry one bit about what you will do with all the books, or the damage to the walls when the brackets are taken down.

Closet doors in the entry way don’t slide well and get the way when you want to access things stored there? Don’t hire a carpenter. Just remove the doors and store them in the furnace room for 20 years. During that time, cannibalize the door slider hardware from them to repair other closet doors. Now, figure out how to put the entry way closet doors back on and find replacement parts for the missing hardware.

I figure we are looking at remodels of two bathrooms, wall repair and new carpets in the basement, lots of yard restoration, and the help of a patient carpenter who can just bite his tongue and not judge. I am glad we have several years to put things to rights.

What have you done, or what trends have you followed, that made you say “What was I thinking?”

Family, Food, gardening, Uncategorized

Name That Carrot

September 1, 2017 Barbara in Rivertown 30 Comments

Husband is now able to put some weight on his right foot, by using one crutch and his walking cast. Yesterday he was able to do some garden harvest; he came up with some lovely carrots and potatoes, and of course thousands of cherry tomatoes.

In past years we have unearthed some wonderful carrots – here is one we called Carrot Man from 2014…

And today I can’t resist taking a couple of pictures of one special (set of) carrot. I had a caption ready for it/them, but thought it would be fun to let the baboons come up with a caption

Do you have a special vegetable memory in your past?

Name That Carrot.

Food, gardening, Uncategorized

Defrosting the Freezers.

August 31, 2017 reneeinnd 58 Comments

The tomatoes are ripening. Due to the extremely hot temperatures this summer, the pole beans are only now loaded with flowers, and, if we have a late frost, we will be inundated with green beans and shell out beans. The third spinach planting is getting bigger. Husband just ordered two lambs from the butcher shop in Newell, SD. One lamb will eventually go to son and DIL, but we will need to store it until we can transport it to them. We currently have the largest basil crop in our history, and it all will go into the freezer as pesto. I estimate we will have 30 jars of pesto before we are finished. We give lots of pesto away to friends and family, but it all needs to be frozen and stored until it can be distributed.

Husband and I have three and a half freezers in the basement. We have two large uprights, one small chest freezer, and the top freezer of a refrigerator. There is really no reason for us to have so many, but that is just how it has turned out. Friends tell use that they will camp out with us in the event of a national disaster since they know we well be able to feed them for months.

Our freezers are usually full to overflowing. I can most of our tomatoes or turn them into canned salsa or sauces, but sometimes it is more convenient to stew them and freeze them. We haven’t figured out how to cook for just two, and so we have leftover soups and casseroles that have to get frozen as well. I make a wonderful, all-purpose stock from turkey wings and ox tail, and we store the stock as well as wings and tails for future batches. It is not easy to find either turkey wings or ox tails in town and when we find them we buy them. We freeze our garden veggies and seal them with a vacuum packer, and the frozen packets spill all over the shelves. We have lots of greens and beans left over from last year. Due to overcrowding and poor organization, it was hard to see exactly what we had in the freezers, so we bought twelve pounds of ground round this summer when we didn’t really need it, and we have pounds of ground veal, lamb, and pork as well. I will make lots of meat balls this Christmas.

It has been too many years since we defrosted the freezers, and the frost has been taking up too much space. As I thought about the new produce and lamb coming in to the house in the next couple of months, I knew that the freezers had to be defrosted and reorganized, and that was what we did last weekend. I purchased bins to contain the plastic veggie vacuum packages and ground meat, and tossed anything that had been there too long. Why, if We had many jars of grape jelly, did we need a large container of our home grown grape juice to make more jelly?

I really dislike defrosting freezers. It is messy and gross. It is a trick to keep what is frozen from thawing while the ice melts. It is so easy to just wedge a container in, and shut the door, and go upstairs, and try to forget about it. Imagine my surprise when, after all was done and mopped up and cleaned and organized, that we had freed up the space in one entire freezer. I told Husband that we are not moving all three and a half freezers when we leave here after retirement. We have to learn to minimize and cut back. I give us 5 years to figure it out. The freezers will need defrosting by then, so it will be a good time to downsize.

What tasks have you left undone that need your attention?