My Bit of Earth

Pickled Paperwhites' Progress

My paperwhites have started opening up, and the smell is heavenly!  Combined with the baking I've been doing, I could happily just sit in my kitchen all day and sniff.

As you will recall, this year I'm experimenting with my paperwhites pursuant to a study done at Cornell University.  I've been watering my paperwhites with a solution that's about 5% alcohol in order to stunt their growth and keep them from being tall and floppy. 

For the most part, the experiment has been very successful, but I've noticed something peculiar.  All the bulbs I planted in deep containers (e.g. jam jars, vases) are perfectly about half as tall as they should be.  But the five bulbs I planted in this shallow bowl are just as tall as they were last year.  I can't think of why the depth of the container would make a difference, but that's the only variable I can see.

I'm tempted to write Cornell and see if they can tell me what's up....

Grow Your Own: Rosemary Orange Truffles

Continuing with my Christmas food challenges, "Grow Your Own" is a monthly food blogging event hatched by Andrea of "Andrea's Recipes", that "celebrates the foods that we grow ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products."

But what's growing in frosty Kansas in November, you ask?  Well, truthfully, in my garden there isn't much.  However, my trusty little rosemary bush is trooping along still--and, if anything, has improved in flavor with the cold--so I decided I wanted to work it into my Christmas candy making somehow.

I love rosemary and I love chocolate, but I only learned that I like them together about a year ago when I had my first Christopher Elbow Rosemary Caramel.  It's an odd sounding flavor combination, I know, but somehow it works.

After doing a little research, I ended up mixing a little bit of this recipe with a little bit of this one to get these:

Although I was basically working by trial and error, the flavoring ended up just right.  You can just taste the perfect hint of rosemary on the front end and then you get a nice dose of orange.  I put the little pieces of candied orange on top for pretty, but I don't know if I would do it again as it kind of messes with the texture when it's all in your mouth.  For the recipe, read on.  For the round-up of all the recipes that were submitted, click here.

Drunken Paperwhites

Every year about this time I always start a big crop of paperwhites.  And every year three weeks later, I go around the house with a packet of stakes and string, tying the paperwhites up because they're falling over on their spindly stems.

Apparently other people have this problem too, because some Nice People at the Cornell University Flower Bulb Research Program have come up with a solution--getting your paperwhites drunk.

Nope, not kidding.  Researchers discovered that, when watered with a solution that's 4-6% alcohol, paperwhite growth is stunted by 30-50%.  The flowers aren't effected, just the stems.  From the Cornell report:

"We suggest planting your paperwhite bulbs in stones, gravel, marbles, glass beads, etc. as usual. Add water as you normally would, then wait about 1 week until roots are growing, and the shoot is green and growing about 1-2” above the top of the bulb. At this point, pour off the water and replace it with a solution of 4 to 6% alcohol, made from just about any “hard” liquor. You can do the calculations to figure the dilution, but, as an example, to get a 5% solution from a 40% distilled spirit (e.g., gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila), you add 1 part of the booze to 7 parts of water. This is an 8-fold dilution yielding 5% alcohol."

The report goes on to say you can also use a solution of 1 part rubbing alcohol to 10 or 11 parts water to get the same effect.  That's what I'm going to try this year--it's cheaper than the good stuff--and hopefully I'll be reporting back in a few weeks with some pretty, mini-paperwhites.

Morning Glory Death and Rebirth

The morning glories were trashed by a particularly cold frost this week, so this afternoon I decided it was time to pull them down. 

It's amazing how much vegetation was there--it took me, Sweet Husband, a weed eater, and one very sharp pair of scissors to finally get them detached from the fence.  They were tangled and tied around every nook and cranny, and even half-dead the vines are very strong. 

Once we got them hauled off, I noticed there were hundreds of little black things on top of the fence and on our sidewalk.  On closer inspection I realized they looked strangely like the morning glory seeds I planted this Spring.

In contrast to something like sunflowers where the seed making process is very obvious, the morning glories were much quieter about their propagation.  I guess I knew that they had to make seeds somehow--because, after all, they don't just get into those Seed Saver packets by magic--but I didn't really notice anything that led me to believe my particular morning glories were enceinte.

And boy were they!  By the looks of it, there will be pretty morning glories at our house--and probably our Nice Neighbors' too--for years to come.  And since we're not going to have to plant morning glories next year, I scraped as many as I could off the top of our fence to pass along to friends.  (And if you have some to collect--here's how.) 

How nice to discover a little surprise after I thought surprises were finished for the year!

Fall Colors

As you may have noticed, I'm a one blog woman these days--I just can't keep two or three updated well.  That means some of the random pictures that would have ended up on "That Camera Lady" are now just going to get tossed up here.

Like these two.  The one on the left is of a tree down the block from me.  The other is an Amish cockscomb flower that sprouted up in my garden from the seeds I planted early last Spring.

In the Ground After All

Despite the less than optimistic forecasts, this morning was sunny and cool.  The wind yesterday afternoon had dried out the ground so that it was not too soggy to work, but still damp enough to make digging easy.  In short, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect morning to clean up the Burrow garden and plant my garlic.

I started by giving everything a good dig-over and rake to get rid of the weeds that had taken up residence.  My little rosemary bush got some TLC, and then I started plunking in garlic cloves.  They ended up taking more space than I thought they would--about a third of my plot for next year is now already planted--but from watching other people garden this year, I think I'm going to plant more intensively next year anyway.  The nice paths I left this year only ended up being a place for weeds, whereas the people who just planted their entire plot not only still have plants making fruit, they still don't have any weeds at all.  I think that's the way to go.

And now the Burrow garden is all tucked in for the winter...and ready to go for the Spring.

Pretty, Pretty Garlic With No Place To Go

The garlic I ordered from Seed Savers arrived this week, on schedule and as promised.  I intended to go tuck them all into my garden first thing this morning, but a nasty thunderstorm rolled in last night and isn't scheduled to leave until next Thursday or so. 

Ahh, the weather.

So instead I just pulled them all out to look at...the shiny, papery skin; the tiny, brown insect holes; the blotchy, purple stripes; the curvy, fat cloves....I could think of worse ways to spend a rainy Saturday morning, of course, but at the same time I'm a little afraid if I don't get these guys in the ground soon colder weather is going to catch up with me.

Beautiful Bulbs

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Spring flowers.  But I think I might like Fall bulbs even more. 

I went to the nursery this afternoon to get some daffodils and spent the better part of a half an hour playing in the bulb bins.  You'd think a bulb is a bulb, but when you look closely there are all kinds of differences in color and size and texture of the skin.  Daffodils are brown and peel-y, while the tulips are pinker and smooth.  The allium bulbs are big as onions (which they're related to) and white with no skin at all, and the muscari are tiny enough that they're almost more like seeds.  And the hyacinths--although their blooms are many different colors--all start out bright purple.

I really could have brought home a few of each, but I was good for the most part and limited my choices to the space I actually have available...for once.

I did splurge on a few pre-chilled bulbs to grow inside this winter.  If you will recall, the last forcing experiment did not go so well, but I'm hoping--since they're ready to go and won't have to live in the fridge for two months--these will work better.

For a list of what I chose, click onward....

Letting the Garden Go

I read somewhere (perhaps a book of gardening advice for type A personalities) that when you start feeling like your garden is more job than joy, it's time to just leave it for awhile.  A month ago--when the summer veggies were really slowing down and after the battle of the squash bugs--I was ready to do just that.

After my my month of neglect however, this morning I woke up with a whimsy for some roasted onion soup (recipe and pictures to be posted later this week), and for that I needed leeks from the garden.

As you can see, the weeds did well for themselves while I was away.  The cucumber and bean vines largely withered to nothing, although there were still a few rotting tomatoes hanging on.  My rosemary looked better than it had all summer (sometimes less is more, I suppose), and the leeks, while small still, were of pick-able size. 

It seemed a lot of people had the same idea I did and had taken a break.  The result was that our community garden--pleasantly rambling on the best of days--looked just plain wild. 

I pocketed a few nice sprigs of rosemary, pulled up an armload of leeks, and went home to make my soup.  The clean-up will have to be done eventually (at least by the time the garlic I ordered from Seed Savers gets here in mid-October), but for now I'm still letting it go.

Seed Saver

The last time we had home-grown sunflower seeds I went through all the nonsense of brining them and roasting them.  When I was done, I realized I could have bought twice as many for 99 cents at the gas station down the street, and the gas station seeds would have tasted better.

So, when I pulled these seeds off of two nice big sunflower heads this afternoon--the lighter seeds from my 12 feet tall "Sunzillas", the darker from a much shorter volunteer that just popped up--they went straight to my box'o'seeds to be planted next summer.

It might be the first time saving has been more fun than spending.

After I pulled the heads off, I thought about pulling the rest of the sunflowers down.  They're pretty ragged, and the flowers that are left on them aren't going to make much in the way of seeds.  But just as Sweet Husband was about to start chopping (the "Sunzilla" stems really do get thick) he noticed three Monarch butterflies fluttering around the last little, yellow blooms.  Happily, the sunflowers will have to stay a few weeks longer. 

Gathering the Wounded for Retreat

Walked down to the garden tonight to check on the last of things.  The squash bugs were no longer even hiding--there were masses of them just hanging out on top of my pretty orange pumpkins.  It took both a hose and a hoe to rescue these three. 

I then turned the hoe on my pretty butternut squash vines.  Their last thoughts were probably, "We're growing well!  We're branching out, putting down roots!  What have we done to deserve this early and tragic death?!?"  And it's true--the squashes were growing very nicely from all outward appearances, but the second I watered them up came the swarms of squash bugs. 

Vindictive as it sounds, I'd rather burn the whole garden down than feed the little plant suckers for another two months, so, sadly, the butternuts had to go.

On the brighter side of things though, even with all the problems we got 4 cooking-size pumpkins.  With the heat we've been having, I haven't been in the mood to whip up any of my favorite, hearty, fall squash recipes.  However, according to several cooking sites the pumpkins will keep for several months in the fridge so, to a certain extent at least, I've accomplished what I set out to do.

A Cowardly Defeat? A Moral Victory? Or Maybe Just a Learning Experience?

"Well, the book says if you squish them, they stink...but they can swim for quite a bit too, so they're hard to drown."

"Well, I have a torch, you could just burn them off."

"But I think that would burn my pumpkins too, and besides doesn't that seem a little...medieval?"

"More so than stepping on them or drowning them?"

"You have a point...."

So went a pre-bedtime conversation between Sweet Husband and I the other night, concerning that thing in the picture above (if you must know, it's a squash bug).  He and a hundred of his little buddies have set up camp in my pumpkin patch, decimating the vines faster than I thought possible. 

They're a plague!  And I hate them, hate them, HATE THEM!

Tired

After the most productive weekend I've had in recent memory--combined Sweet Husband and I cleaned every nook and cranny of the house including behind the fridge, replaced a light fixture, did all the laundry, went to the store, replaced our thermostat, made four jars of watermelon pickles, made a weeks worth of dinner for the dogs, and even found time to make dinner for ourselves--I went down to the Burrow garden this evening, intent on getting things all ship shape to plant some stuff for the fall. 

Shovel in hand, I hoped out of the car full of energy and ready to do some heavy digging; but as I surveyed the scene all of a sudden a wave of exhaustion hit me. 

Don't get me wrong, things are going well.  I picked a dinner's worth of beans, a cucumber, a tomato, two handfuls of baby yellow bell peppers, and one small leek.  On top of that, my hot peppers (pictured above) are starting to ripen and I think I have a pumpkin just about ready to come home. 

But despite the continuing productivity, there's a definite sense that most of my plants are on their last gasp.  The tomato plants are now more brown than green, the beans have a distinctly chewed-on appearance, and let's not get started on the weeds....

After all we had already done this weekend, I just couldn't face it; I halfheartedly stuck my shovel in the ground, decided it was too wet to work, and came home for a lay-on-the-couch, early-to-bed evening.  The digging will wait until next weekend, I think. 

I'll Follow the Sun(flowers)

There's just something great about growing plants that get as big as your house, especially when it doesn't take a miracle--or even really any water once you get them started.  I really understand why people say they're good for planting with kids.  And since I am sometimes kid-like in my wonder at plants and flowers, they're good for me too!

By the way, this is an example of why I write everything down.  I would swear on...well, on something important, that I planted Chianti sunflowers this year.  I remember all the details even--they're supposed to be about 7 feet tall and red.  When these guys started getting close to 12 feet and bloomed yellow, I was a little confused until I looked back and saw--sure enough--these are not Chiantis, but "Sunzillas" just as the package said.

Teenage Pumpkins

They're about the size of small footballs, and there are two of them that I can see without digging through the surrounding pumpkin vines over much (the vines are surprisingly prickly and cause a weird, itchy reaction when they come in contact with my skin.)

Overall, the plants have been looking a little bedraggled--a combination of the heat and a funky looking little bug that I seem to have gotten rid of with my trusty bottle'o'neem--and I was a little afraid I was going to lose them for a few days.  However, this little guy and his sister are good signs.

Good Morning Big Red

I didn't do it on purpose, but by happy accident I seem to have planted flowers that are blooming in nice succession.  For example, the lavender and saliva have kind of died back, but my black-eyed Susan's are just starting to pop out.  And this morning I walked out in my 'jammies to be greeted full in the face with this dinner-plate-sized "Fireball" Hibiscus.

Piles of Tomatoes

We're finally at that point in the summer where the tomatoes are coming in droves.  If you'll recall, I planted 4 kinds of tomatoes this year--a Purple Russian, a Cantrell German Red, an Arkansas Traveler, and one called Nyagous. 

The Purple Russian has ultimately been pretty unsuccessful--it's been unhealthy looking from the start and I don't think I've gotten more than maybe one tomato from it. 

The Cantrell is producing big tomatoes like the one pictured in the upper left corner of this bowl.  I've only gotten 3 or 4, but they have a nice flavor and they're huge--at least the size of a softball. 

The Arkansas Traveler's are the little red tomatoes pictured.  They've probably been my favorite this year.  Their flavor isn't terribly remarkable, but it's not bad either.  And boy-goodness have they been steady and reliable--I haven't had one crack or bruise, and they're ripening up just perfectly one or two every couple of days.

The Nyagous--the darker tomatoes pictured--are the exact opposite.  They have a very interesting, kind of smokey flavor, but they've been all kinds of touchy.  I've thrown several away that have been too badly split or cracked to use.  They've started to look better since the weather's leveled out, so maybe I'll get some better quality ones as the summer goes on.

Root Vegetables

I dug up the last of the potatoes and onions this evening.  The 'taters were dying a slow death (note to self, plant them in a different place next year I think the grow box may have some sort of funky potato disease), and even though some were still small, the onions were shoving themselves out of the ground.  I'm clumsy, I was afraid I was going to trip on one and break something.  (And second note to self, white onions only next year--the purple ones are a little stunted.)

Boot-tay

(The pirate kind, not the J-Lo kind.)

I can't resist posting this picture of today's garden booty--I love this time of year when you can pick the garden over on the way home from work and almost have dinner, all fresh-picked.  I'm having just some little tomato difficulties (they're splitting and outgrowing their cages), but hope to get everything all ship-shape over the holiday tomorrow.

Shown above:  Three different kinds of cucumbers, two onions, some "Globe" basil, the first "Cantrell German Red" tomato (the big one), a "Purple Russian" tomato (the one that's all split on top), and an "Arkansas Traveler" tomato (the little red trooper).

Baby Beans

I'm so happy that I didn't give up on them after the beetle attack.  I was really a little doubtful when my gardening reference book told me to just plant again, but--in the words of the illustrious George Michael--you gotta have faith.