>Oh, the compost, it happens.

>Compost. It cuts down (significantly) on the amount of kitchen garbage. It gives my garden soil an extra boost of nourishment. It cuts down on our trips to the brush dump and leaves fewer leaves for the city trucks to pick up.

Compost is awesome. It takes time, it’s a slow process, and eventually it happens. Before and after pictures can be fun, but I rarely take them. I concern myself with adding goodies to the pile and stirring it once in a while. Well, I do admit, we’ve knocked down an old fence and trimmed a tree to make room for the bin. There’s a little effort once in a while.

There are specific “recipes” a home composter can use, but I’m pretty easy about it. If the compost is too dry, I add more wet ingredients (and I use the term ingredients loosely). If it’s too wet, I start adding dry ingredients like dried grass clippings. But right now, the decomposition is not happening smoothly.
Husband added a batch of wet grass clippings after he mowed the lawn last. This usually works great; the heat of the pile increases, speeding up the process, and the grass itself decomposes quickly. This time, though, the Week of Constant Rain hit the Midwest.
The additional moisture made the grass clump together, develop mildew, and stink.
The continuous rain made any other dry ingredients that were set aside, well, just as wet as the grass clippings.
The result: Eeew.
Today I’ll add the usual kitchen waste and stir what I can to separate the clumps of green and, um, grey-green. If the sun stays out, there may be hope for a few dry stacks from the beyond-bloom daylilies and other past-their-prime perennials.
But even if I don’t “fix” it, eventually, next spring some time, I’ll have a pile of luscious, deep brown compost to mix with my garden soil. No complaints here. Compost, no matter what I do, will happen.

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>10 Ways to Leave your… Zucchini

>We have a bumper crop this year. I have about four cups of grated zucchini in the fridge waiting to be turned into cake or bread or some other sort of goodie. I nearly turned away La Petite’s boyfriend Saturday when he walked up the driveway carrying two large zucchini and a couple of banana peppers. So here we go: a few ways, some real and some not, to get rid of the excess. Feel free to suggest more! I have at least three growing in the garden jungle even as we speak.

10. Give them away to neighbors and friends.

9. Give them to relatives.

8. Place a few on the neighbor’s front porch, then ring the doorbell and run away.

7. Grate a little into spaghetti sauce. Stew. Soup.

6. Go to the farmer’s market and sneak yours onto the vendors’ tables when they’re not looking.

5. Grate some for the freezer. You’ll love it in January.

4. Feed some to the rabbits, wild or pet.

3. Convince the neighborhood kids to use a big one as a baseball bat.

2. When someone tries to give you a zucchini, insist they take two tomatoes in trade.

1. Offer a zucchini “free with purchase” at your rummage sale.

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>Mmm…banana bread

>It was 80+ degrees and humid, my back was in agony, and I couldn’t let the bananas just sit there. So — I waited until evening, mixed up the batter, and baked a double batch of banana bread. (The eggshells and banana peels will become compost, but that’s a different sort of recipe altogether.)

One Loaf of Banana Bread

2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened
3 eggs or 3/4 cup egg substitute
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium-large bananas)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups flour (I like 1 cup all-purpose flour and 2/3 cup whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
(optional) 1/2 cup chocolate chips or 1/2 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8 or 9 inch loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Beat the sugar and butter/margarine in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, bananas, and vanilla. Beat until well blended.
Mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir into the banana mixture just until moistened. Blend in chocolate chips or nuts. Pour and scrape batter into the loaf pan.
Bake the 8 inch pan for 60 minutes, 9 inch pan for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick test comes out clean.
Cool 5 minutes. Loosen sides of loaf from pan. Remove from pan and cool completely on a rack before slicing.
Mmmmm.
Warning: Teenagers in house will inhale this. Make two if you want some for yourself.

I have two zucchini sitting on the counter waiting to be diced or shredded into some form soon. And there’s always the ever-growing rhubarb. The family will not go hungry.

Thanks again to Betty Rohde of the Super so fat, low fat, no fat cookbook. This recipe is adapted from hers. If you bake it the low-fat way, it has only 1 fat gram per serving.

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>Daisy’s Top Ten: #3 is FALSE

>

3. I am an expert in flower gardening.

This is a trick question. I grow vegetables; La Petite is in charge of the flowers around here. I thoroughly enjoy the process: the planting, the weeding, and of course, the harvest. Preparing compost for next year is slow and steady, much unlike my fast-paced and stressful work as a public school teacher. The garden and the compost help me slow down in this speedy and multi-tasking world. I grow a few herbs, too, and I’m still learning how to incorporate them into my cooking. Harvesting fresh basil smells so good!

So no, I’m no expert. I learn a little more every year. I grow a simple vegetable garden, and my darling daughter puts flowers around the deck and the house every year.

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>Mom’s playing in the dirt! And she likes it!

>Assignment: Why do you enjoy weeding? Explain. Support your thesis with details or pictures.

I enjoy weeding because I can see progress. My garden is divided into small sections, set apart by my stepping “stones” made from old deck and fence pieces. I set a goal of weeding one section at a time. When that’s done, I can quit weeding or choose to finish another section. This is a managable goal; I feel productive when I can see the results in one part of the plot. It spares me the frustration of not “finishing” the whole thing, which is of course an impossible goal. Today I chose one triangular section of the garden and weeded out the many mini maples that flew in from the lot behind ours. If I ever abandon this small plot of ground behind my garage, I predict the mini maples will take over, leaving room for a blanket of clover underneath. But for now, look out maples! I have garden gloves and I know how to use them. Bwahahahaha!

Below, left: Mini Maple Farm Below, right: Mini Maple Farm battling with Zucchini squash

Who will win this dramatic battle of wills? Stay tuned for more, on Mom’s Playing in the Dirt.

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>Dad’s playing in the dirt! Where’s Mom?

>

The vegetable garden may be my “turf”, but Husband (despite his complaints about his boring name) is an active participant in the process. He is the best cook in the family, I admit it, and when there are fresh vegetables he will find a delicious way to use them. This weekend, he rented a rototiller and expanded my small garden to, well, at least medium size. I removed as many grass/dirt clumps as I could, replanted the chives I’d moved out of roto-tiller range, and set out my pseudo stepping stones.
My stepping “stones” fall into the category of waste not, want not. After we knocked down an aging fence in the corner of the yard, I used the remaining boards as a walking path. I did the same this year, also incorporating boards left over from our deck remodeling project. They’re not beautiful, but they will fade in the sun to match the dirt and to me, that’s aesthetically pleasing. The knowledge that I didn’t waste money, I re-used something that would have taken up landfill space, and I’m about to plant veggies that will feed my family contributes to the general feeling of well-being that a garden provides.
Now if I can get the fence tight enough to keep those cute little neighborhood bunnies out of my carrots, all will be well with the world.

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>spring surprises

>

Hey, where did that tulip come from? I didn’t plant any tulips in the daylilies.

It must have been moved there by a squirrel. I know the humans didn’t do it.

Oh, well, it looks healthy and happy. I hope it doesn’t miss its friends.

Wait a minute — are those daylily leaves sneaking up next to my tulips?

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