Tag Archives: garden

Celery?

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My wonderful sister-in-law has started getting organic produce delivered to her home regularly. She now has a dilemma: what to do with all the celery. Since she didn’t take my suggestion and get a pet rabbit, I’ve decided to come up with a list. Friends, family, and Internet acquaintances, please chime in.

  • Ants on a log: celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins
  • Variation on ants on a log: celery sticks with Nutella
  • Add diced celery to: casseroles, soups, salads, baked beans,
  • Use it as a garnish – to almost anything, not just Bloody Mary or V8.

I ran a search for “recipes with celery” and found lots of suggestions.

  • Apple-celery salad, anyone?
  • Almond baked celery
  • Sweet and sour celery
  • Celery and rice
  • Stuffed celery
  • Celery sauce…the list is endless. And don’t for get celery root! That’s an entirely different flavor.

Then there are the other uses. Slice a long, leafy stalk halfway up – lengthwise (does that make sense? I really need a visual.) It’ll have two “legs” that come together at the top. Set each end in a separate glass of water. Add red food coloring to one glass and blue to the other, and let my darling young niece learn about capillary action.

Does that help, SIL? Readers, give her a hand. What else can you do with celery?

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Tools – Some Things Stay the Same

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This encore post covers what I’m doing now. The only change is this: we emptied the garage completely because the garage is going down and getting replaced soon. All of my tools, old and new, are in the basement for now. The rest? Everything old is new again.

Tools! I’ve been pulling my gardening supplies and tools out of the garage more and more often. Let’s see: a trowel or two, several pairs of gloves (each fits a particular task – all are dirt covered), blue basket of seeds, tongue depressors —

Tongue depressors?

Teachers use tongue depressors in all sorts of ways. This box came from a retired teacher’s garage sale and served my fourth graders for four years. When I left my classroom behind for a cubicle, I brought the remaining sticks home. They’re biodegradable, easy to use, and a perfect size on which to write. Good thing I had a lot left – look at these tomato seedlings!
 

And if you had any doubt about the effectiveness of my little wooden supplies, take a closer look.

They’ll go into the garden soil near each plant so I know what’s there until the plant grows up and shows its true colors, er, fruits.

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Winter. Such a Long, Long Winter.

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Winter always feels long toward the end of February. No matter when the first snowfall came, I’m always ready to look for spring right about now. I don’t believe that goofy furry faced groundhog, either. In the cold Midwest, not far from an NFL stadium nicknamed the Frozen Tundra, we always have at least six more weeks of winter after the groundhog “speaks”.

The question remains, then, what do we do about it? Some people travel to warm places. Some of us stay here and face the thermometer. Some of my colleagues share links to “Frozen Office Syndrome” and “21 Products You Need to Stay Warm in the Office“. Each day we pull on our fingerless gloves, drape blankets on our laps or over our shoulders – or both – boot up our computers and get to work.

And then it’s time to come home. Home, sweet home, where the furnace is pumping and the crock pot is simmering with comfort food like chicken dumpling soup or lamb stew with plums. We can’t quite forget that baby, it’s cold outside.

Really, what does a resident of Wisconsin do when there are still at least six weeks of winter? If you’re a die hard gardener like me, you might be starting seeds right about now. I braved the cold (4 degrees above zero, people, and that’s before the wind chill) and brought home two big bags of potting soil. I took inventory of my seeds and decided what I still needed to buy. I spent almost $50 on soil, seeds, and a few random snacks and a big roll of packing tape (for wrapping books to swap), presented my $10 off coupon, handed over my own shopping bag, and focused forward. Spring will come, and I will be ready!

I can hope and plan and even dream a little. The grow lights will keep the little seedlings warm, and the Muk Luks slippers will keep me cozy. Muk Luks? Oh, that’s another story.

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Save No Money at the Big Box Store

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We needed a shed – a big box, if you will. We’d somehow missed the seasonal sales, so it took a good search to find the best deal on the best size shed. Chuck found one at a store that doesn’t usually attract our attention.

“With the discount, it’s the right price for exactly the right size, and we can have it delivered.”

“Okay.”

“Well, it’s not really a discount. It’s a rebate.”

“Then we’ll be sure to do the paperwork.”

“And the rebate is in the form of a store credit gift card.”

“If that’s what it is, that’s what it is. I’ll apply it toward garden supplies in the spring.”

We came to regret it. The delivery ran into snags and got here several days later than expected, which gave Chuck the job of assembling it outside in nasty fall-hints-at-winter weather. Then we all shared the same virus, and not even rebate paperwork could pull me away from the bucket next to my bed. Those were small inconveniences, though. The final word, however, was this: the email with the rebate instructions came after the rebate deadline.

Now we’re shaking our heads, saying we knew better, but we didn’t act on our past experience. It’s highly doubtful that we’ll go back to this store, rebate or no rebate. If we miss the sales, we’ll go to the store that has everything and more and a big orange silo in the middle.

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Is the Soup Organic?

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It was a simple question. I’d brought in my latest minestrone for Soup Day at the Office. I invited a couple of coworkers who didn’t normally partake. They were friends, colleagues, and of course they deserved a bowl of Daisy’ best!

And then it came up: the question. “Are all the ingredients organic?”

I had to say no. And of course, I had to start thinking. My soup offering was made from scratch. But organic? Let’s see.

Broth – mainly a beef broth from my freezer. No preservatives, just bones boiled with a few scraps of onion and maybe peppers, too. But organic? I doubt that the meat was organic, and the onion and peppers probably weren’t organic, either.

Minestrone is all about vegetables. It’s February. The peas and corn, out of my freezer, came from the farmers’ market. The handful of yellow beans were from my garden. A little tomato sauce – canned from fresh-grown tomatoes in my own backyard. And then – carrots, onion, a little celery, all from the grocery store, none organic.

In July or August, that soup would have a lot more organic to it. Maybe that’s my next move: grow more, preserve more, and start making a point of buying organic more often.

Now if only the snow would melt.

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Almost an encore

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The cold weather and snow storms got me thinking about spring. Of course I thought about planting. Doesn’t everybody?

I had some help preparing the garden plot last year. Here’s one of my helpers with her pink shovel, a shovel that belonged to La Petite when she was about this size.

Have shovel, will travel!

Have shovel, will travel!

We put her in charge of uprooting the dandelions and feeding some of them to Buttercup. Bunny was very happy.

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Looking back at early fall

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It’s all part of the preparations for winter. I had these on my camera for a while, and now they’re outdated. I thought I’d share anyway.

the last farmers' market

the last farmers’ market

At one of the last farmers’ markets, we picked up all of the above goodies. The honey (front, left) is still in the cupboard. The soups and salads from the downtown deli are long gone. I used the bell peppers in…I can’t remember. I did cook them. The small bag of lettuce became my lunches for the week. I shared a little with Buttercup the bunny, of course.

Meanwhile, we used up the tomatoes as they ripened.

Tomatoes!

Tomatoes!

Remember these? I’m down to a few yellow pears now. We’re almost done eating and cooking the last batch of tomatoes.

I’m looking ahead, though. I’ve moved my stakes to a temporary home under the lilac bush, and the supplies for starting seeds are tucked under a table in the basement.

Tomato Stakes in all shapes

Tomato Stakes in all shapes

That’s snow in the background. Not much, but snow.I think we’re almost ready for it. Maybe.

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Prepping for Winter

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Prepping for winter at the O.K. Chorale means – well, I’ll show you rather than tell you.

Firewood on the deck

Firewood on the deck

Chuck moved the entire pile from beside the garage to the deck. This accomplishes two goals; it clears the side of the garage for our spring construction, and it moves the firewood closer to the house for the winter. I predict a few Packer Sundays next to a roaring fire. Cozy, eh?

last of the green onions

last of the green onions

The mess in the colander is not seaweed, my friends. It’s the last of the walking onions. They started coming up again in the cool spell of August, and I pulled them as the autumn freeze approached. The bulbs, small though they are, went into the freezer. The greens boiled and simmered along with a little garlic for a delicious soup broth that never made it into the freezer. I used it up too soon.

Bunnies take shelter

Bunnies take shelter

The ceramic bunnies are huddling with a souvenir cup, ready for snow. As ready as they can be, I guess. See you next spring, little bunnies.

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What’s Next on the Blog?

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The garden has officially succumbed to the freezing temps overnight.

The election will be over (and I’m worried, yes, I’m worried) on Tuesday.

So what’s next? How will Compost Happens find a way to continue without politics or gardening on the topic list?

Don’t worry, friends, family, and fans. There is still almost half of the NFL season to go. You’ll read the reactions of the O.K. Chorale as the Packers do their best to protect their best – Aaron Rodgers, that is.

The garden by be a simple pile of dirt and scattered straw, but I’ll continue composting all winter long. The second (and smaller) compost bin is closer enough to the house that we dump scraps in it all year round. I still have a tray full of green-turning-red tomatoes. There isn’t enough for soup, but I have enough ripe cherry-type to add to salads and stews and other dishes that we’ll still have fresh tomato taste for a little while longer.

As for the election results – I’m sure there will be reactions, good or bad, from the family here at the Chorale or from our favorite time traveler, Grandma Daisy.

What to write? Blog fodder? No shortage here, folks. As my favorite quarterback said a few weeks back, R-E-L-A-X. I’m not going away any time soon.

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Green Tomatoes

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Folks, this was a week ago. I hope to slip out at halftime (of the Packer game, need you ask?) and pick what’s left outside. We’ve had unseasonably warm weather, so I have a few tomato plants and several pepper plants bearing fruit.

I have a few choices. One: wait until enough tomatoes turn red to make a sauce or soup. They’re sitting in the sun; this plan has possibilities..

Tomatoes in the sun!

Tomatoes in the sun!

Or – there are two things that money can’t buy:

True love and fried green tomatoes.

True love and fried green tomatoes.

As the end of the harvest season approaches, we’re still eating good tomatoes.

Tomatoes - and herbs.

Tomatoes – and herbs. 

It’s shaping up to be a delicious autumn. Winter? We won’t talk about that yet.

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