My Bit of Earth

Big Fat Paperwhites

Those of you who've been around for a bit know that I'm a paperwhite evangelist during the holiday season.  But I'm afraid I've led you all astray as to the best method for growing them.

In years past, I've simply put them in a bowl with rocks and water.  They always ended up a little spindly (I tried alcohol to combat this one year), but still lovely.

This year I didn't have enough rocks to fill my bowl, but I did have a leftover bag of potting soil.  So I used soil to fill most of the bowl, and just put a layer of rocks on top to make it pretty.

Guess what?  Paperwhites like soil.  They like it a lot.  These are the biggest, fattest paperwhites I've ever grown.  While you can certainly get by with just rocks and water, I don't believe I will ever be doing so again.

Butterflies?

Dancing Leaves on Strings

Red Leaves and Red Wagons

Last night, we pulled out the Kiddo's little red wagon (inherited from his Sweet Auntie) and took a maiden voyage around the block.  While we pull out the stroller pretty often, this new way of seeing things was clearly quite interesting.  With his "lap robes" tucked around him and a leafy stick for a scepter, we joked that it was almost as if he were a baby lord surveying his kingdom.

And what a kingdom it is right now, because this is THE week of Fall.

The week that you can't be tired or grumpy or do anything else but drink in the color of the leaves as often as you can.  The sky even cooperated today--going through it's full variety of moods from perfect cornflower blue this morning to just a touch of purple-y grey by evening.

The Last Tomatoes

All decked-out mismatch-style (a skeleton romper, striped wool socks, and his baby surprise jacket--really we were very tired), the Kiddo curled up in a little ball against my shoulder to hide from the cold as I carried him into school this morning.  Between my grey window and the weather forecast, I'll be surprised if we don't get a real frost this week.  And although the Kid was technically a February baby, it felt like the Spring came last year before either of us had properly woken-up from his birth.  Which makes this his first Winter, really.

We didn't get a lot of tomatoes this Summer.  (They're heat-lovers, true, but a few weeks at 110 degrees is bit much for any plant.)  However, this beautiful Fall we've got going has brought a tiny resurgence.  This weekend our farmer's market was full of little paper pints of cherry tomatoes.   Add in a sack of homegrown toms that our dear friends brought when they came for dinner last night--part of the reason for the sleepy morning and silly clothes--and all of a sudden this year's tomato crop is feeling less dismal.

One advantage of tomatoes in October is that you actually want to turn on the oven to slow roast them.  And the last herbs lingering in the garden?  Better toss those in before they freeze.  And garlic?  Well, that just goes in everything around here.

Whether we get that hard frost or not, I predict that, for the grown-ups, tomorrow's dinner will be a steamy, cheesy pot of risotto with roasted tomatoes on top.  For the Kid, the last tomatoes (which will also be his first tomatoes) might go well with one of Florence the Chicken's beautiful scrambled eggs.

Future Yumminess

In the ground last week.  I was a little late in ordering this year, so I went with Seeds from Italy instead of my usual Seed Savers.  I'm not sure how much I ordered even...is that bad?  It was about a shoebox full.  All tucked in the ground and ready for next Summer.

Made of Apples

The apple orchard we go to every year (and many of the others in our area too) had kind of a poor year.  Nonetheless, we had to go.

I don't know how many of these apples I ate when I was pregnant, but 20 or 30 pounds wouldn't be a crazy guess.  The Kid is literally made of the apples from these trees.

I know it's silly to think that he would remember them...the sweetness with just a little pucker...but, we made him about 10 half pints of applesauce, just in case.

Outside is a Good Toy

I've been wanting to clean up our (sort of pathetic this year) garden for several weeks now, but for one reason or another it just hasn't gotten done.  This Saturday, however, I had a free morning and the weather was gorgeous.  The problem?  Sweet Husband was working so the Kiddo would need to be occupied.  I wasn't sure if it would work or not, but I spread out a big blanket on the grass, brought out a basket of his toys, and left him to it.  

I worked for an hour and a half, folks!  That's, like, forever in baby-time.

And his "toys" barely were touched.  He watched the chickens.  He picked grass.  He smooshed his hands around in the dirt.  He may have swallowed a few leaf particles, but that's just building his immune system, yes?

Garden clean-up was a success.  The weeds are rotting in the compost pile, and I'm thinking of planting a Fall garden of some kale and radishes.  And now that we know that "outside" is such a fabulous toy I suspect we will be spending more beautiful mornings there.

Penance for July

We stepped off the plane from California last week to the most pleasant surprise.  Seventy degrees, cornflower blue sky, and the wild sunflowers blooming away....I'm not officially calling it yet, but I think it might be getting close to Fall.

In my opinion, Kansas sunflowers are a make-up kiss for the last two weeks of July.  It's like, the very ground underneath our feet knows that we're at the end of our ropes with the million degree heat and mosquitoes.  Just as we're all trying to figure out how to escape, up sprout the sunflowers...in the ditches, along the roads, in back yards and front yards...all whispering, "C'mon, this isn't so bad, now is it?"

This particular field isn't wild, but rather is planted by a farmer and his wife.  (And this year it had to be planted three times, bless them!)

It's one of my favorite late Summer/early Fall places to go visit.  Even in a "bad year", like this one, they just seem to go on forever and ever.  And each flower had no fewer than four or five bees on it, all dying of happiness.

With the help of our Nice Friends, we got a few obligatory family pictures knocked out too.  The lovely Ms. Cara Combs took all the pictures above that I am in.  And her nice husband, Nick, ever-so-cheerfully took a hand-off of the bebe, so that we could get a few shots of Sweet Husband and I by ourselves.

The Procedure for Harvesting Garlic

Useful items:

• 1 bunch of garlic.  Dug up, and hung to dry in a dark place for about a month.
• 1 old toothbrush.  For gently brushing away dirt.
• 1 pair of scissors.  For cutting away the stalk and roots.
• 1 cool drink.  Cucumber gin and tonic, plum tea, etc.--use is self-explanatory.

Procecure:  Cut stalk from bulb.  Lightly brush away any dirt that clings, being careful to--in as much as it's possible--not disrupt the thin, papery layers of the garlic bulb's skin.  Use scissors to cut excess roots.  Wrap bulb in paper (optional), and store in a cool dry place.

This year's garlic harvest is a little abysmal.  I'm calling it "The Ducks' Revenge" because they ate a bunch of my tender garlic sprouts last Fall, thus the poor numbers.  This coming Fall I think I'm going to plant a double sized bed of it.  We use it so much, it keeps so well, and (if you discount the ducks) it's pretty foolproof to grow.

Infusing Part 2: Mulberry Gin

Technically, it's raspberry and mulberry gin, but that gets a bit long winded.

We share a mulberry tree with our neighbors.  We also have a little hedge of raspberry bushes that I've added a few plants to for a couple of years now.  But even between the two of them, I only get a few handfuls of berries a day.  Sometimes, we enjoy them straight "off the vine", so to speak, but otherwise, there are often not enough of them to make a pie, for instance.  

I was perusing a few preserving books for ideas about what to do with just a few berries, when I came across the recipe for sloe gin in The River Cottage Preserves Handbook.  After a bit of googling, it seemed like it could easily be modified for berries, so it was off to the liquor store for a big ole' bottle o'gin.

The recipes I found called for a lot of sugar, so I'm trying to modify that downward.  (I think I've added about half a cup so far, and will probably add a little more as it progresses.)  Otherwise, I've just left the gin on the counter, and I add washed berries each day as we pick them.  According to the River Cottage book, it needs to sit for a few months with the berries.  Once it starts to taste berry-ish I will strain the berries out, decant it into smaller bottles, and let it age for about a year before drinking it.

Although--if we can stand to leave it that long--it will be next summer before we can say if it's good or not, I'll try to update on how it turns out.

A Midsummer Evening's Garden

Will we have the first tomato by the 4th of July?  Yes we will!  It may even be ready tomorrow.

The garlic was also ready to be dug up this weekend.  There's not as much of it as I would like this year.  I'm not sure if the ducks got to the leaves, or if I just need to start with fresh bulbs next Fall.  (To be safe, we'll probably just order new.)  

This is repetitive to the regulars, but now the garlic will hang in our shed to dry for a month or so before I clean it up and bring it inside.  Of course, I took a few bulbs "off the top" to tide us over!

And in the garden bed recently vacated by the garlic--as well as a little here, there, and everywhere--some new plants.  At about this time every year, Pendleton's has a "we're tired of watering these plants" sale.  Veggies are $1 per flat, all other annuals are $10 per flat--so that's $11 you see before you.  The peppers and tomatoes that are already clinging to the stalks are almost worth that, so it's a nice bargain.

These guys were roughly slapped into the ground, and wished the best o'luck this evening.  Much less tender care and cooing than the Spring plants got.  More of a very sweaty, but practical, "If you want to live, you'd better get to work!"

On the Summer Solstice

Our hedge of cosmos is looking particularly sunny, even though we have just a little in-and-out stormy cloud cover.

The mulberry tree is making a regular handful of berries a day...which I'm using to make mulberry gin.  (More about that later, I promise!)  I also had my first summer raspberry this morning.  After letting the Kid carefully examine it, I popped it into my mouth straight from the vine...mmmm.

A little idea that I came up with a few weeks ago that I was particularly delighted with and is very summery--a wee "clothespin bouquet".  These are herbs (for heavenly sniffing pleasure), but some sturdy, non-wilty flowers would work too.  If I had more time, I would have added cute tags.

Saving and Eating From the Garden

In one big bountiful haul, I brought in most of the Spring veggies from the garden on Sunday.  Armfuls of lettuce, rainbow chard, and green onions; dill, cilantro, and garlic scrapes; and a few handfuls of mulberries from our Nice Neighbor's tree that hangs over our fence.

We're working on eating the chard fresh this week, and most of the lettuce went to friends (it had to be picked, and I'm lettuce'd out).  But I also put several jars o'food away.

I froze the mulberries.  Because of the height of the mulberry tree I can only get a few handfuls of berries at a time, but I'm hoping to eventually save up enough to make a pie.

I also sliced up and froze about half of the garlic scrapes.  The other half went on a very tasty garden pizza, with the aforementioned chard...and some pickled green onions.

The bulbs of the green onions were pickled, using the cocktail onion recipe in Put 'em Up! (my current favorite book on food preservation, although I suspect it may soon be unseated by the forthcoming Food in Jars book).  

As to the green parts of the onions--waste not, want not--about half are currently fermenting themselves into kimchi in the fridge.  With the other half, I made a sort of green onion pesto.  I put the stalks in the food processor with a pinch of salt and just enough olive oil to make them liquidy.  Then I froze it in baby jars.  The plan is to use it more as a flavoring in soups and the like....although a green onion cream sauce could be in my future too!

Let's see...oh yes, the herbs!  The dill is drying from the ceiling of my back porch, and the cilantro went into the freezer using this method, except that I packed it into jars instead of plastic bags.  We have a ton of fresh cilantro to pick this summer, but I'd like try and freeze the extras for a bit of green on next Winter's tacos. 

[Also, a word about freezing in jars--traditional wisdom dictates that you shouldn't freeze things in glass jars because the food can expand and break the jar.  I freeze almost everything in jars, but I've learned the hard way that--particularly with liquids like vegetable stock--you need to leave more head room than you think you should.]

It always feels comfy and wise to squirrel away some homegrown food for later.  But this year I've been feeling like the garden is a bit lackluster because of my slow start this Spring, so it was particularly nice to be able to pack up such a nice bunch of goodies.

Little Birds, Little Birds

 

About a month ago, a pair of starlings began making a nest on our (still unscreened) back porch.  Sweet Husband kept promising to chase them off, but he was so busy at the time.  And, even if they are nuisance birds, I was enjoying watching them furtively sneak bits of nesting material in and out, so I didn't push the issue.

A few weeks later, the tiny "cheeps" started.  

The video clip above doesn't do them justice.  It was shot during a "quiet" moment when only one wee bird was "talking".  When all of them get going, it's a bit maddening.

And when you combine their cheeps, with the cheeps of the seven small chicks in the shed--oh yes, if you stand in the yard, you can hear them all together--I've caught myself humming (to the tune of the song from Annie)....

"Some women are dripping with diamonds

Some women are dripping with pearls

Lucky me!  Lucky me!

Look at what I'm dripping with 

Liii-ttle birds...."

The Mid-May Garden

Our first red strawberry......enjoying the flowers planted by those who've gardened here before...planting some wildflowers of my own...and some cotton, as a fun experiment...a pile of radish tops for Ms. Tori and friends.

Spring Feasts

There are many good reasons for eating seasonally, but the very best one--in my humble opinion--is that it makes dinner a bit of a celebration.  

If you can only eat fresh-picked asparagus from Pendleton's for a few weeks, it's all that much more special.  If you only have morels for one dinner each Spring, it makes a lovely occasion to pull out the pretty napkins and nice china.  

For the asparagus, I recommend roasting them, wrapping them in prosciutto, and dipping them in the yolks of some soft poached eggs.  (If you can get them from your own backyard, all the better!)

The morels are a more delicate matter.  Breaded and fried is always yummy, but to really get the fullest flavor I like them sauteed in garlic and browned butter over pasta.  (Like this.)

Another great thing about Spring feasts?  They're a prelude to the Summer ones...can I tempt anyone with a sun-warmed tomato topped with fresh basil and a sprinkle of salt?  I just got the tomato plants in the ground this week!

Ooh Baby, Baby, It's a Wild World

(I don't believe in sound with blog posts.  I've gotten busted too many times!  But if it's safe for you, open Cat Stevens in another window to get the full effect, and because, well, he's awesome.)

One of my favorite things about being his mommy?  Getting to imagine the world through his eyes.

Like, how miraculous must it seem to spend your first afternoon in the park, wiggling your toes in the grass, looking up at the blooming trees, feeling the warmth of the sun?  (And having your mama there as "shade tree" to keep your eyes from hurting, of course.) 

Just think about a world where origami birds and bright wooden rings are the best part of your day.

And music and books!  He's been a music fan since before he was born, but now we're learning to love books too--some Dr. Seuss, our favorite food books.  It makes me want to jump up and down a little for joy to think about all the wonderful places this will eventually lead him to--Hogwarts castle, Narnia, the Hundred-Acre Wood....I just can't wait for him to experience all of it!

Of Broccoli and Moonlight

Every few weeks or so we have baked potatoes for dinner.  Like, the loaded kind--almost more broccoli than potato, plus cheese, onions, and a little bacon if we happen to have some around.  Easy + good = dinner solved.

Today, I went to work for the afternoon and left Sweet Husband with the Kiddo.  

Incidentally, if you're feeling in a rut and want to get excited about your job again, take a month and a half off.  Can I tell you how nice it was to file a case?  This particular one wasn't actually due until June, but I busted it out just because it was little and I could.  There's something fabulous about checking something off a list and knowing that it's actually gone forever and isn't going to reoccur in three hours.

But back to the potatoes.

Sweet Husband put them in the oven for dinner as I was driving home, so by the time I got there all there was to do was chop and steam the broccoli.  Kiddo and I got that going while Sweet Husband went out to water our newly planted grass and strawberries.

But of course, the Kid (or maybe his mama) couldn't stand to stay inside on such a gorgeous night when there was gardening to be done.  It was perfectly warm, and the moon was just coming out.  Plus, there are only what seems like a handful of nice Spring nights before the bugs start coming out in hordes.  I figured we could duck outside for just a few minutes and keep Sweet Husband company while the broccoli finished cooking.

I blame the boys, really.  Sweet Husband and I started talking about this and that.  And the Kiddo and I were literally dancing in the moonlight.  (I love the way he insists on being held so that he can see the sky.)  Before I knew it twenty or thirty minutes had flittered by.

Incidentally, did you know that broccoli smells really, really bad when it's overcooked?  Turns a nasty color too.  But potatoes are pretty good, even with just cheese and onions.

Nonsensical Plantings

There has to be a diagnosis for people who plant seeds too early in the Spring.  Because it's crazy nonsense to gamble on the weather and plant things early, when just waiting a few weeks would virtually eliminate the risk of a killing frost.

In my defense, I did check the ten-day forecast to make sure it would be reasonably warm for a bit.  Further, this weekend it was gorgeous here!  Eighty or ninety degrees, breezy, beautiful.  And the Kid cooperated so well by napping on the porch on Saturday, that by Sunday I had gotten the garden sorted out well enough to plant some things.  And when it's that pretty out....well, how could I help myself?

Of course, some were very sensible things for early April--some peas, rainbow chard, onions.  But some were not so much--a little potted lavender bush that I'm going to have to cover every night this month, some cilantro, some dill.  And the hedge of cosmos seeds I painstakingly spread out?  Downright silliness, I tell you!