I’m blaming a colder than usual winter. That’s one possible excuse for the compost not fully composting, which is an excuse for the random tomato seedlings turning up in random places.
Tomato and Dill
tomato and grass
Tomato and – mums?
It’ll all be irrelevant if we get an early frost, so I’ll just nurture these little strays of mine and maybe I’ll get an extra salad or two.
I’ve brought herbs inside for the last few winters. They don’t always do well indoors in this cold climate. This year’s herb collection is doing well on the deck – so well that I’m attempting the process of drying and crushing and storing herbs. I’ve tried two different locations in the house for drying. So far, the attic is winning out. The basil didn’t fully dry, though, even after hanging for about a week and a half. I ended up putting the basil (and its friends oregano and cilantro) in the oven on a low heat setting for about 20 minutes. At that point, I could pick up a leaf and crumble it.
The fun part was playing with my new kitchen toy: a ceramic mortar and pestle set. The set is rather pretty, and it grinds nicely. See how it works!
Oregano!
Basil! Purple basil!
The poor rabbit, though. Little Krumpet, the tiny and very furry lion head rabbit, was upset when I tried to grind herbs in “her” room, the den. Maybe she didn’t like the overwhelming odor. Maybe the grinding sound was hard on her fuzzy bunny ears. Whatever it was, she kept thumping when I tried to grind.
You know me, readers. I relented and finished prepping herbs in the kitchen.
We Packer fans are serious about our team. These biker was serious enough to broadcast it to the world, or at least everywhere the bike goes!
Is there a Packer bar in Sturgis, South Dakota?
I repurposed a few containers to make room for the volunteer tomatoes and mystery plants. I think one of the mysteries is basil; they other might be peppers. But anyway, back to the repurposing.
These are reaching for the sky. That’s La Petite’s old laundry hamper.
Not far away, on the other side of the rock garden, lies another repurposed container holding tomatoes.
Much smaller, slower growing.
This batch is growing much more slowly, but the carrot seeds are starting to germinate. Carrots love tomatoes, right? Maybe they’ll both put in a good effort and produce some produce.
The crate gets a lot of sun.
This picture reminds me that I must water the chives. The tomatoes and the mystery (basil?) are coming up quickly now that they have space.
So readers, gardeners, eco-scientists, what do you think? Is it as simple as the sunlight, or does the basket have some other reason not to grow as fast as the others? Leave a comment. Let me know your thoughts.
Last time I reviewed a table full of Farm Market purchases, I told you what I didn’t buy. This time I’ll point out the unique, the not-quite-typical fun finds that made it into our bags.
Home from Downtown!
We’ll start on the left. The large plastic bag contains ice and two fresh, cleaned trout, ready for cooking. Chuck cooked them on the grill.
Directly to the right of the trout you’ll see two, no, three packages of pasta made in town. We enjoy their unique flavors. Last year Chuck came home with a package of fettuccine with squid ink. The noodles were black, and the taste was, well, unusual but tasty. In this picture you see two kinds of fettuccine: roasted beet, spinach/garlic and finally, a mix suitable for soup or salad.
Peas, corn, carrots, and then wine. There’s an upscale deli in City Center Plaza, right next to the ramp where we like to park. Chuck picked out a Spanish wine to bring home and serve with the spinach-garlic pasta and grilled trout.
So there you have it, folks. And if you’re wondering just how fresh those trout were, see below. They were still flopping on the scale. For a small fee, the vendor prepped them and cleaned them.
Fresh trout for supper! And I didn’t have to bait a hook.
Long ago, a wise leader spoke these words as the Continental Congress adopted the first draft of a courageous document, the Declaration of Independence.
“I am apt to believe that it (Independence Day) will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival…It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, and sports, guns, bells, bonfires, illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.”
— John Adams, in a letter to his wife, Abigail
Amigo and I are home today. Our plan:
Watch Brewers Baseball in the morning (games and sports)
Patriotic Sing along at noon (shows, bells)
Grill burgers for supper (bonfires, perhaps?)
In general, relax.
Have a great holiday!
Top row: Chuck, Daisy
Front: Amigo, La Petite
Photo, of course, by La Petite.
Photo by La Petite originally posted in July of 2009 – worth a repeat
The short story: Our deck umbrella was impossible to close. The wind picked it up and threw it – tucked it in behind the herbs and the lilac bush.
The much more complete story —
The deck umbrella was uprooted by a gust of wind. It would no longer stay open all the way. Chuck took a roll of black duct tape and repaired the broken piece. That’s good. But now, the umbrella could not be closed. That’s not so good.
A major storm came through town. That’s bad. The wind picked up the umbrella and tossed it. That’s also kind of bad – but only kinda. I like to think the new placement of the large umbrella protected the herbs in their pots from the hail as the second part of the storm raged through the neighborhood.
Umbrella, umbrella.
You can decide. Good or bad?
Note: Chuck made a few adjustments to his repair job, and now we can close the umbrella. We wrap a bungee cord around it so the wind can’t blow up its, er, skirt and take it away. This umbrella’s traveling days are done.
I stumbled upon a suggestion one day – rhubarb BBQ sauce. I looked over the ingredients and said to myself, “Self, we have all of these ingredients in the house, including plenty of rhubarb.” Chuck was skeptical at first, but I made some anyway. He tasted it before I went to the trouble of canning, and he pronounced it good.
This recipe uses a lot of rhubarb. I took a look outside to see how much rhubarb we might have, and if I might have enough to make another batch.
Will there be enough?
I needed at least 8 cups of diced rhubarb. Did I get it? Here’s the after shot.
After picking
I have about 6 and a half cups of diced rhubarb now. The dilemma: do I go back outside to pick right now? Or do I set aside the current harvest, maybe freeze it, until the remainder fills out a bit more? Or – cue the ominous music – do I buy a few large stalks of rhubarb at the Farmers’ Market?
Decisions, decisions.
These guerrilla gardeners are getting creative with their travel methods. This batch came by helicopter.
This one left its helicopter in full view.
This sneaky arrival wanted just a little more thyme. Haha.
Tricky things, those maples.
I won this round. All the mini maples are now in the compost. I will remain vigilant, however. Those guerrilla gardeners can attack at any time.
Chuck was busy cooking lunch, so I posed the produce on the table instead of the kitchen counter.
What didn’t I buy?
Well, I bought lettuce, but no spinach. I bought strawberries, and just a few blueberries and cherries. We’ll wait until later, when they’re ripening closer to home. I bought eggs, but no cheese. I bought asparagus, but no peas. We could have had sugar snap peas, but I thought I’d wait until I could get a larger quantity for less money. It could happen this weekend!
Chuck complains that I bring too many bags to the market. He’d better look out; I might just feel I must prove him wrong by filling them all. Sneaky snicker.