I happened to land at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan this week. By chance. It is a place I had long meant to visit. Although not under these circumstances.
We choose the path that has heart. It is not the easiest path to take.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Life makes a turn on the path
I happened to land at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan this week. By chance. It is a place I had long meant to visit. Although not under these circumstances.
We choose the path that has heart. It is not the easiest path to take.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Tomatoes, we have tomatoes
I don't know what to do with all the tomatoes!
Herb planted his usual 16 or so plants... Fourth of July, Early Girl, Celebrity, Brandywine, Big Boy, Viva Italia, Sweet 100, and a new one (for us) this year, Principe Borghese, a drying tomato.
Even with the damaging hail in June, it would have been plenty. More than plenty.
But the CSA farmer we are participating with is supplying us with her plenty as well, and I am running out of ideas!
(Hi Pat! Doesn't she have a pretty set-up!)
I took some to the relatives, and gave some to the kids. Froze some whole, made sauce to freeze, and dried a couple of quarts in my dehydrator.
My favorite recipe to diminish the bounty is to cook Sweet 100s into a topping for bruschetta. I vary it with a variety of cheeses and different herbs, but always like rosemary the very best. I'll find a copy of the recipe and post it later.
Anyway, my Master Gardener friend Francine mentioned making catsup last week when I was at the farmers' market picking up my CSA share. (She was at the MG table, offering advice to the crowd. I always stop to ask 'what is the question of the day?' lately it's been Japanese Beetles. uGGH!)
The word catsup sparked a creative synapse in my mind, so here is a catsup recipe I played around with last week, it's easy and fast ... and it tastes pretty good too.
I had red and yellow tomatoes from Pat, so the catsup turned out a burnished orange color, quite pretty!
Roasted Tomato Catsup
1 1/2 - 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, remove stems ends and cut in half
3 -4 tablespoons sunflower oil, divided
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Place tomatoes in an oiled casserole and brush tops with oil. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes or until they begin to carmelize on top.
Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat and saute the onions and garlic until translucent.
If your tomatoes are homegrown and therefore truly ripe, they will produce a lot of extra juice, so transfer them with a slotted spoon to a blender and process until smooth. (Refrigerate the juice for other use.) Add the tomato puree to the remaining ingredients in the saucepan and continue cooking, uncovered for 20 t0 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until thick. Refrigerate and USE it!
Herb planted his usual 16 or so plants... Fourth of July, Early Girl, Celebrity, Brandywine, Big Boy, Viva Italia, Sweet 100, and a new one (for us) this year, Principe Borghese, a drying tomato.
Even with the damaging hail in June, it would have been plenty. More than plenty.
But the CSA farmer we are participating with is supplying us with her plenty as well, and I am running out of ideas!
(Hi Pat! Doesn't she have a pretty set-up!)
I took some to the relatives, and gave some to the kids. Froze some whole, made sauce to freeze, and dried a couple of quarts in my dehydrator.
My favorite recipe to diminish the bounty is to cook Sweet 100s into a topping for bruschetta. I vary it with a variety of cheeses and different herbs, but always like rosemary the very best. I'll find a copy of the recipe and post it later.
Anyway, my Master Gardener friend Francine mentioned making catsup last week when I was at the farmers' market picking up my CSA share. (She was at the MG table, offering advice to the crowd. I always stop to ask 'what is the question of the day?' lately it's been Japanese Beetles. uGGH!)
The word catsup sparked a creative synapse in my mind, so here is a catsup recipe I played around with last week, it's easy and fast ... and it tastes pretty good too.
I had red and yellow tomatoes from Pat, so the catsup turned out a burnished orange color, quite pretty!
Roasted Tomato Catsup
1 1/2 - 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, remove stems ends and cut in half
3 -4 tablespoons sunflower oil, divided
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Place tomatoes in an oiled casserole and brush tops with oil. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes or until they begin to carmelize on top.
Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat and saute the onions and garlic until translucent.
If your tomatoes are homegrown and therefore truly ripe, they will produce a lot of extra juice, so transfer them with a slotted spoon to a blender and process until smooth. (Refrigerate the juice for other use.) Add the tomato puree to the remaining ingredients in the saucepan and continue cooking, uncovered for 20 t0 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until thick. Refrigerate and USE it!
Friday, September 14, 2007
Beautiful Veggies and Flikr Updates
Theresa just posted some cool pics (link) of the Home Street Demo Veggie Garden over on her blog. I must say, 'the beautiful veggie garden' is really producing vegetables... difficult weather, late start, and Doubting Thomases (me) aside!
The seminar we presented to meet with the neighbors and showcase the garden to the Land Bank worked out great! Next year will be even better :) Congratulations and "a job well done" to Theresa, Phil, Mel, Sharron, Helen and Erin and Thanks to our sponsors, Keep Genesee County Beautiful, the Genesee County Land Bank and the Applewood Gardening Initiative.
Also, I'm going to add my gardening project photos to one general gardening "set" on my free Flikr account, but it'll take time and I can only add a certain amount per month (unless I upgrade to the paid account.) For you to look at the pictures in my Flikr set you need to double click on any of the flikerin' the photos right there IN the tag, right.
When you link to the Flikr page, there should be a "set" called Herb Sampler that you can click through with the arrows, or view as a slide show. If you'd like to see a nice larger picture of any photo you see, click on it from the set. Pretty easy. I've also added some pretty pics of one of the Genesee County Herb Society's continuing herb garden project - the Doctor's Herb Garden at Crossroads Village. More to come!
The seminar we presented to meet with the neighbors and showcase the garden to the Land Bank worked out great! Next year will be even better :) Congratulations and "a job well done" to Theresa, Phil, Mel, Sharron, Helen and Erin and Thanks to our sponsors, Keep Genesee County Beautiful, the Genesee County Land Bank and the Applewood Gardening Initiative.
Also, I'm going to add my gardening project photos to one general gardening "set" on my free Flikr account, but it'll take time and I can only add a certain amount per month (unless I upgrade to the paid account.) For you to look at the pictures in my Flikr set you need to double click on any of the flikerin' the photos right there IN the tag, right.
When you link to the Flikr page, there should be a "set" called Herb Sampler that you can click through with the arrows, or view as a slide show. If you'd like to see a nice larger picture of any photo you see, click on it from the set. Pretty easy. I've also added some pretty pics of one of the Genesee County Herb Society's continuing herb garden project - the Doctor's Herb Garden at Crossroads Village. More to come!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
a rich but lowly weed
After weeding, weeding, weeding the purslane out of the vegetable beds that we built from fresh compost at the Home Street garden, fellow gardener Mel sent the following pertinent article to our little gardening group, supporting what I'd been telling everyone about the lowly weed we were discarding, Portulaca oleracea.
Purslane. My friend Milli calls it 'pusley' and won't eat it because of the name... but purslane has the richest concentration of omega-3 fatty acid of any vegetable source.
I've been adding fresh purslane as a green garnish to fajitas and baba ganoush for some time, and lately had the inspiration to add it to stir frys, at the last minute to keep it from melting away from the heat of the frying pan.
My friend Sharron tells me she puts purslane in omlets, which is traditionally a Mexican recipe.
Even my CSA farm has been adding purslane to the salad greens in our shares, urging us to find ways to use this healthy little green.
If you can put a little 'pursley' in your diet, I urge you try it... it is one of the richest vegetable sources of omega-3 fatty acids. You never need to plant it, and if you pick it from healthy soil in your garden, you can skip the heavy metals and other pollution that come to you in omega-3 rich fish from the market.
Purslane can be used in variety of dishes
by Leslie Land
New York Times Service
Saturday, August 25, 2007
QUESTION: I have a tabbouleh recipe that calls for purslane, but
the only purslane I know is the horrible weed I battle every year
in my garden. Is it really edible, or is the recipe calling for some-
thing else?
ANSWER: Lebanese cooks know that the horrible weed Portulaca
oleracea has just the right brightly acid flavor and crisp juicy
texture to be delicious in tabbouleh.
Purslane appears in Japanese pickles, Mexican stews and Indian
curries. It's also used in the cuisines of France, Russia, Malaysia
and Manhattan, where chefs have been playing with it for years.
The chefs are probably using cultivated purslanes such as garden
and golden, which have more upright growth, larger leaves and
more toothsome stems than your (lifetime) opponent. And unlike
the weed, they are easy to clean.
But cultivated purslanes are also likely to become weeds before
long, so unless you too have a restaurant you might prefer sticking
with the one you've got instead of adding more.
And you might want to stick with eating it raw. Cooked purslane
is as mucilaginous as okra.
On the other hand, it shrinks when heated, so if you eat it cooked
you can eat more of it. Purslane is a powerhouse of vitamins,
minerals and the kinds of fatty acids that justify fish oil.
Portulaca oleracea is used in many ethnic cuisines for its brightly
acidic flavor.
================================
So today I googled purslane and found this abstract...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1354675&dopt=AbstractPlus
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/4/374
(Journal of the American College of Nutrition)
Common purslane: a source of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants
A. P. Simopoulos, H. A. Norman, J. E. Gillaspy and J. A. Duke
Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, Washington, DC 20009.
omega-3 fatty acids, alpha-tocopherol, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene and glutathione determined in leaves of purslane (Portulaca oleracea), grown in both a controlled growth chamber and in the wild, were compared in composition to spinach. Leaves from both samples of purslane contained higher amounts of alpha-linolenic acid (18:3w3) than did leaves of spinach. Chamber-grown purslane contained the highest amount of 18:3w3. Samples from the two kinds of purslane contained higher leaves of alpha-tocopherol, ascorbic acid and glutathione than did spinach. Chamber-grown purslane was richer in all three and the amount of alpha-tocopherol was seven times higher than that found in spinach, whereas spinach was slightly higher in beta-carotene. One hundred grams of fresh purslane leaves (one serving) contain about 300-400 mg of 18:3w3; 12.2 mg of alpha-tocopherol; 26.6 mg of ascorbic acid; 1.9 mg of beta-carotene; and 14.8 mg of glutathione. We confirm that purslane is a nutritious food rich in omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants.
Purslane. My friend Milli calls it 'pusley' and won't eat it because of the name... but purslane has the richest concentration of omega-3 fatty acid of any vegetable source.
I've been adding fresh purslane as a green garnish to fajitas and baba ganoush for some time, and lately had the inspiration to add it to stir frys, at the last minute to keep it from melting away from the heat of the frying pan.
My friend Sharron tells me she puts purslane in omlets, which is traditionally a Mexican recipe.
Even my CSA farm has been adding purslane to the salad greens in our shares, urging us to find ways to use this healthy little green.
If you can put a little 'pursley' in your diet, I urge you try it... it is one of the richest vegetable sources of omega-3 fatty acids. You never need to plant it, and if you pick it from healthy soil in your garden, you can skip the heavy metals and other pollution that come to you in omega-3 rich fish from the market.
Purslane can be used in variety of dishes
by Leslie Land
New York Times Service
Saturday, August 25, 2007
QUESTION: I have a tabbouleh recipe that calls for purslane, but
the only purslane I know is the horrible weed I battle every year
in my garden. Is it really edible, or is the recipe calling for some-
thing else?
ANSWER: Lebanese cooks know that the horrible weed Portulaca
oleracea has just the right brightly acid flavor and crisp juicy
texture to be delicious in tabbouleh.
Purslane appears in Japanese pickles, Mexican stews and Indian
curries. It's also used in the cuisines of France, Russia, Malaysia
and Manhattan, where chefs have been playing with it for years.
The chefs are probably using cultivated purslanes such as garden
and golden, which have more upright growth, larger leaves and
more toothsome stems than your (lifetime) opponent. And unlike
the weed, they are easy to clean.
But cultivated purslanes are also likely to become weeds before
long, so unless you too have a restaurant you might prefer sticking
with the one you've got instead of adding more.
And you might want to stick with eating it raw. Cooked purslane
is as mucilaginous as okra.
On the other hand, it shrinks when heated, so if you eat it cooked
you can eat more of it. Purslane is a powerhouse of vitamins,
minerals and the kinds of fatty acids that justify fish oil.
Portulaca oleracea is used in many ethnic cuisines for its brightly
acidic flavor.
================================
So today I googled purslane and found this abstract...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1354675&dopt=AbstractPlus
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/4/374
(Journal of the American College of Nutrition)
Common purslane: a source of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants
A. P. Simopoulos, H. A. Norman, J. E. Gillaspy and J. A. Duke
Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, Washington, DC 20009.
omega-3 fatty acids, alpha-tocopherol, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene and glutathione determined in leaves of purslane (Portulaca oleracea), grown in both a controlled growth chamber and in the wild, were compared in composition to spinach. Leaves from both samples of purslane contained higher amounts of alpha-linolenic acid (18:3w3) than did leaves of spinach. Chamber-grown purslane contained the highest amount of 18:3w3. Samples from the two kinds of purslane contained higher leaves of alpha-tocopherol, ascorbic acid and glutathione than did spinach. Chamber-grown purslane was richer in all three and the amount of alpha-tocopherol was seven times higher than that found in spinach, whereas spinach was slightly higher in beta-carotene. One hundred grams of fresh purslane leaves (one serving) contain about 300-400 mg of 18:3w3; 12.2 mg of alpha-tocopherol; 26.6 mg of ascorbic acid; 1.9 mg of beta-carotene; and 14.8 mg of glutathione. We confirm that purslane is a nutritious food rich in omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Blog update
I finally took some time to figure out how to Flickr, though I'm just a beginner Flickr-oo or Flickreeno or whatever they call it. See the photo flickering tag on the right side of the screen? If you double click on it you can see some of the photos that I uploaded. (I also posted a set from the Doctor's Herb Garden at Crossroads Village which is a Genesee County Herb Society volunteer project.)
You can Flickr too, if you have a website or blog, or just like to have a cool spot to park your photos. A limited account is free.
A neat feature is the searchable map ... it can be a time consuming form of entertainment, though. I looked at wonderful photos of the Acropolis today, and Manitou Island, and the Burning Man Festival. No wonder it's already noon!
You can Flickr too, if you have a website or blog, or just like to have a cool spot to park your photos. A limited account is free.
A neat feature is the searchable map ... it can be a time consuming form of entertainment, though. I looked at wonderful photos of the Acropolis today, and Manitou Island, and the Burning Man Festival. No wonder it's already noon!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
more backyard wildlife
The bees and butterflies and hummingbirds are nutty about my back corner - tall yellow agastache, obedience, 'Tina James' primrose, and silphium, a.k.a. cup plant, must have some magical allure...
The sky was clear summer Michigan blue on Sunday when I took this shot - something to remember come dull overcast Michigan February. Everything to its season.
No tale to tell, just a photo. Remember, click the photo to enlarge it. But do you dare... who wants bigger spiders?!
And I see this little gal out in the side yard quite often... she's camouflaged pretty well in this sedum.
The sky was clear summer Michigan blue on Sunday when I took this shot - something to remember come dull overcast Michigan February. Everything to its season.
No tale to tell, just a photo. Remember, click the photo to enlarge it. But do you dare... who wants bigger spiders?!
And I see this little gal out in the side yard quite often... she's camouflaged pretty well in this sedum.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
to a Wee mousie
So today I'm out in my herb garden pulling catnip plants. It was too easy to let them grow, thinking I might dry some for the resident cats, but these self-sown volunteer plants have had a banner year, growing tall and wide, and now they are in flower. The decision to pull is easy: I'm sure to find a few seedlings next spring, and if I don't act boldly now, I will have nothing but a catnip jungle next year, ga-ran-teed! So, I hack my way back to the bee skep artfully placed on the floor of the hops arbor... do you see anything amiss?
Not bees under the skep...
It looks to be composed of grass, dryer lint, unknown mammal fur... a nest...
Look carefully_
Can you see her? This is about as good a photo as I could get on short notice... she's hiding in the duff under the deck. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can make out a large ear, mommy, and a small ear, baby.
She was exceedingly noiseless, the several babies stayed "attached" as she jumped out of the nest, and when I returned to the garden with my camera she was wary and shy, and well camouflaged.
Funny thing, she'd built her nest under the bee skep on a deck right next to the huge catnip plant, and my brave feline hunters never found her... do you think the odor of the catnip, or even the hops, lulled their feline senses and provided her a natural defense?
Of course, me being me, I had to Google The Scottish Bard...
I agree with Our Rabbie: let wee Mousie live, and her brood. Winter'll come soon enough, and only if she comes indoors will she have to deal with me then.
Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
To a Mouse
WEE, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell—
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Hemerocallis 'Aubrey Olivia'
By coincidence, I took this picture at 9 a.m. on the morning of the day my brand new granddaughter Aubrey was born, Thursday, July 26, 2007.
It is a daylily I grew from a seed planted a couple of years ago, that had never bloomed until this year. I'm unofficinally naming it 'Aubrey Olivia' after our little Aubrey.
I hope it blooms every year on Aubrey's birthday!
(Note: I'm only posting it now because it took me THAT long to send this photo to her mommy, and I wanted her to see it in her mail before she sees it here. Now I have to figure out what goes into naming a variety 'officially'.
As I've always said, Gardening sure keeps the mind active!
First I'll have to find my old notes from the Master Gardener conference class where I got the seed some time ago. I recall the instructor telling the class that if one of us was lucky enough that our seed turned out to bloom the coveted blue daylily, that we could share the spoils with him. We'd be rich and famous!
I wasn't expecting a blue daylily, and was hoping it wouldn't turn out yellow, orange, or muddy ... but truthfully, I didn't really expect such a pretty daylily as this one. And I already feel rich, beautiful daylily or no.)
It is a daylily I grew from a seed planted a couple of years ago, that had never bloomed until this year. I'm unofficinally naming it 'Aubrey Olivia' after our little Aubrey.
I hope it blooms every year on Aubrey's birthday!
(Note: I'm only posting it now because it took me THAT long to send this photo to her mommy, and I wanted her to see it in her mail before she sees it here. Now I have to figure out what goes into naming a variety 'officially'.
As I've always said, Gardening sure keeps the mind active!
First I'll have to find my old notes from the Master Gardener conference class where I got the seed some time ago. I recall the instructor telling the class that if one of us was lucky enough that our seed turned out to bloom the coveted blue daylily, that we could share the spoils with him. We'd be rich and famous!
I wasn't expecting a blue daylily, and was hoping it wouldn't turn out yellow, orange, or muddy ... but truthfully, I didn't really expect such a pretty daylily as this one. And I already feel rich, beautiful daylily or no.)
yesterday in the herb garden
Pretty, isn't it? But this is even more importantly, a TASTY garden.
In other words, these are culinary herbs, used for nutrition and for flavoring the other foods you eat.
Pinch them to keep them pretty, but use the trimmings!
And if you can't use them today, then learn how to preserve them for later.
Dry them, freeze them, pickle them, sauce them ... in the dead of winter you'll remember this day from the flavors of your herbs.
Dear reader: Please make some time this weekend to read this speech by a modern American hero.
The situation has only gotten worse since he spoke these words, but there is always hope, right?
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
the urban veggie plot
Here's a link to another garden that has been part of my summer ... the demonstration urban vegetable garden on the corner of Home and Chestnut in Flint.
"It is, as Phil dreamed it, a beautiful garden. Veggies can be beautiful. We are learning as we go, because as you all know Rome wasn't built in a day. But it is amazing what a small group of volunteer gardeners can do in a short amount of time."
"It is, as Phil dreamed it, a beautiful garden. Veggies can be beautiful. We are learning as we go, because as you all know Rome wasn't built in a day. But it is amazing what a small group of volunteer gardeners can do in a short amount of time."
backyard wildlife
Remember (link) the praying mantis egg cases I set out in the spring? One of my babies showed up today while I was trimming a lavender...
I heard a little voice crying "mommy!" (not really). Anyway, remember, if you click on a photo you can get a bigger version of it.
And here is another critter I saw in some mulch under a spruce tree yesterday...
Blog-housekeeping notes:
This is cool! Right after I embedded my little HGTV (Herb Garden Television -Haha!)gadget into my template so my videos will always be on the main page (see WAY below), Blogger has decided to make uploading videos straight from my computer available. Great minds (eh?) thinking alike, right? Now I wish I could figure out how to add Powerpoint presentations to the blog, because I have a couple good'uns.
I've Googled advice on how to do it, but it is either too time consuming or expensive, depending on the method. If anyone sees a blog with a powerpoint on it, let me know?
I added some newspaper articles about the Detroit Urban Farm and Garden Tour here. These articles take up a lot of space, but the information is important, and some other website/blogs have linked to it, so I thought interested readers deserved to know more.
I heard a little voice crying "mommy!" (not really). Anyway, remember, if you click on a photo you can get a bigger version of it.
And here is another critter I saw in some mulch under a spruce tree yesterday...
Blog-housekeeping notes:
This is cool! Right after I embedded my little HGTV (Herb Garden Television -Haha!)gadget into my template so my videos will always be on the main page (see WAY below), Blogger has decided to make uploading videos straight from my computer available. Great minds (eh?) thinking alike, right? Now I wish I could figure out how to add Powerpoint presentations to the blog, because I have a couple good'uns.
I've Googled advice on how to do it, but it is either too time consuming or expensive, depending on the method. If anyone sees a blog with a powerpoint on it, let me know?
I added some newspaper articles about the Detroit Urban Farm and Garden Tour here. These articles take up a lot of space, but the information is important, and some other website/blogs have linked to it, so I thought interested readers deserved to know more.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Homegrown tomatoes for breakfast
Nothing better.
Decent white bread, a little mayonaise, and a couple slices of a Brandywine tomato two minutes from the vine.
MMMM!!!
Makes me want to keep this picture for a screen saver...
And to accompany your meal, here are some folks singing about it
at the Northwest Folklife Fest 2006,
Jay Mary performing Home Grown Tomatoes:
UPDATE: if my link doesn't work on your system, the video easy to find here:
http://www.youtube.com/v/U1BBl-d0Gb4
The song that says it all, written by Guy Clark (link here)
Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one
Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes
You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with egss, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle
If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Worm thief, captured!
No, not Puffy. Stupid old dear. Meaow!
The racoon escaped from the live trap baited with corncobs. But when we beaded marshmallows on a string and tied it down to the floor of the cage, he had to spend some time in there and he set the spring. We caught him yesterday...
Quit Hissing, robber!
We let him go a few miles away on a wooded road - he immediately tried to climb the nearest strong tree.
If I'da painted his toenails red, I'd know if he makes it back, but didn't think of it until he was set free. Herb did see two racoons, so we're setting the trap for the other one. And my worm bin will definitely stay in the garage.
Worm Bin Update:
Last night at the Master Gardener meeting I talked to our community worm farmer, Brad, and he gave me permission to bring home a scoop of red wigglers from the worm farm he has been tending all summer at the Extension. Yipee! now I'll be able to get another bin going before winter sets in.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
a work in progress
This video is a visual diary of the project I volunteered to do with the Genesee County Master Gardeners, and as part of my commitment toward finishing the Applewood Community Gardening Initiative. We began to restore the ten year old herb garden "in the backyard" of the landscape at the county extension office. My take home idea for visitors in restoring this demonstration garden is "if I can do this, so can you."
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Worm Thief!
I THOUGHT I had a pretty good set up.
Out the back door, on the shady side of my shed, right near one of the compost piles I located my worm box.
Did I tell you about the Growing Power Urban Agriculture workshop at the Extension, when Will Allen came to Flint and left behind a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm, and some of his red wiggler worms?
Anyway, I had a worm box, but never had the right kind of worms - so it was unused - until Will Allen's worms came home with me.
My beer-brewing son gave me a bag of spent barley mash for bedding, and with my food scraps, I was ALL set.
So, today I'm taking my scraps out to bury them in the bedding. And this is what I find...
A WORM THIEVING RACOON STRUCK! The Rubbermaid top was pretty tight, I guess, so he must have chewed through the side.
The hail in June and the drought and 90 degree temperatures weren't bad enough. AUUGH!
I dug through the remains, and found a few worms, maybe I can start another box, but in the garage this time.
Oy vey, time for some Lemon Balm tea.
Out the back door, on the shady side of my shed, right near one of the compost piles I located my worm box.
Did I tell you about the Growing Power Urban Agriculture workshop at the Extension, when Will Allen came to Flint and left behind a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm, and some of his red wiggler worms?
Anyway, I had a worm box, but never had the right kind of worms - so it was unused - until Will Allen's worms came home with me.
My beer-brewing son gave me a bag of spent barley mash for bedding, and with my food scraps, I was ALL set.
So, today I'm taking my scraps out to bury them in the bedding. And this is what I find...
A WORM THIEVING RACOON STRUCK! The Rubbermaid top was pretty tight, I guess, so he must have chewed through the side.
The hail in June and the drought and 90 degree temperatures weren't bad enough. AUUGH!
I dug through the remains, and found a few worms, maybe I can start another box, but in the garage this time.
Oy vey, time for some Lemon Balm tea.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Hot Fun...
Summer in the City
UPDATE:
Our Master Gardener e-newsletter included the following article from the Detroit News:
Urban farming tour sprouts - How does your Detroit garden grow?
Hundreds are expected to learn secrets
by David Josar / The Detroit News
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Event: 10th Annual Detroit Agricultural Network Tour of Urban Gardens and Farms
Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007
See this link for more information: http://www.detroitagriculture.org/
DETROIT -- More than 400 people are expected to sign on for one of the biggest annual events of the city's underground culture: a behind-the-scenes tour of Detroit's urban gardens, slated for Wednesday, August 1, 2007.
The tour's popularity, organizers and supporters say, is further evidence the city is becoming a national example of how unused land in depressed cities can be molded into fertile, crop-producing enterprises.
"The interest is there about growing healthy and locally and this fits in with that trend," said Ashley Atkinson, project manager of Greening of Detroit who is helping coordinate the tour with the Detroit Agriculture Network.
The groups have chartered seven buses, and the two-hour tours will start at 6 p.m.
People can choose between visiting gardens on the west side or the east side of the city; there is also a tour of gardens in the Corktown, Woodbridge and Hubbard Farms neighborhoods that will be available to bike riders.
This is the 10th year for the tour, which is becoming one of the city's most popular independent, low-cost events which, despite no official support from the city and sponsors, are extremely successful.
Atkinson said the urban gardens tour regularly sells out even though the number of slots for participants keeps growing.
"When you talk about the weird things that make Detroit Detroit, this is on the list," said Carrie Rusker, a Wayne State University graduate student who lives in the Cass Corridor and went on the tour last year.
The urban garden tour is starting to get mythical status in the city on par with the Fourth Street Art Fair, the annual unofficial block party just west of Wayne State where bands play in a vacant lot and neighbors sell homemade cocktails from their front porches, and the Abreact Theatre, a black box theater that operates in a residential loft in downtown.
"Everyone will be inspired," said Rusker, who started growing tomatoes and peppers for the first time this year.
One garden on the tour is inside an abandoned building near the city's waste incinerator at Interstate 75 and I-94. Another garden, maintained at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, is used to teach high school students but also produces its own cheese from goats on the property.
To further hook participants on urban gardening, Atkinson said chefs from several local restaurants will take homegrown fruits and vegetables that garden tourists drop off before they embark, and make them into appetizers ready for noshing at the end of the tour. "We want people to know what they can do with what they grow," Atkinson said.
The tours will start from the Catherine Ferguson Academy on Selden in southwest Detroit.
For 72-year-old Sandra Hicks, a retired Detroit Public Schools teacher, the tours are a way to illustrate how gardening can transform a city.
"You will see ideas and potential that most people couldn't imagine exist for Detroit," Hicks said. She used to grow her own greens and tomatoes, but has had to downsize to herbs since moving into a high rise.
From 2004-06, the number of community gardens in Detroit that raise agriculture crops nearly quadrupled, from 80 to 302, according to the Detroit Agriculture Network. Organizers expect that tally to jump by another 25 percent this year.
Atkinson said about three times as many people contacted the Detroit Agriculture Network to have their gardens showcased as the tour would allow.
"People have a lot of pride when their garden is chosen for the tour," she said.
UPDATE 2:
VEGETABLES AND CONCRETE: Urban gardeners are turning vacant lots into profitable produce plots
July 27, 2007
by MARTY HAIR
FREE PRESS GARDEN WRITER
Greg Willerer raises specialty organic produce -- burgundy bush beans, pungent herbs for flavoring teas, edible flowers -- and sells them to restaurants.
It's unusual fare, "stuff you just can't buy off a truck," he says.
The fact that he grows this produce in Detroit, near Tiger Stadium, might strike some as unusual.
But Willerer, a 38-year-old teacher who loves to cook, is one of many urban gardeners turning to microfarming as a smart use of vacant land. He says his neighborhood near the old stadium is nearly as open as the country, ripe for cultivation. Growing produce to sell allows residents to reap some economic benefit from unused space where businesses and homes once stood.
"What we're doing here is kind of a wildfire of positivity," he says. "We're not going to be filling the void left by the auto industry, but we're doing something."
Across Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck over the last decade, an urban gardening movement has taken hold in backyards and community gardens. The harvest is good-tasting and nutritious fruits, vegetables and herbs, produced at reasonable cost and in areas where fresh organic produce can be difficult to find.
For extra cash or to launch niche businesses, an increasing number of gardeners are beginning to sell their produce at farmers markets and elsewhere under a new Grown in Detroit label. Several will be on an Aug. 1 urban garden tour.
One stop on the tour will be at a roofless brick building on Chene. A former furniture factory, the building is now owned by a church called Peacemakers International, which ministers to addicts and prostitutes.
Open to the sky, like a light-filled sanctuary, the old factory has become a walled garden in the last three years. The salad greens and other produce grown there are being sold to the Henry Ford in Dearborn, which has made a commitment to buy locally grown food. The church also has a community garden a block away.
"One day we'll have lots of lots. The pastor owns 17," predicted Teresa Miller, 49. She says she arrived at Peacemakers a few years ago as a crack addict. She works there as a secretary and in the gardens, having learned organic gardening techniques through the Garden Resource Program.
The program is a 4-year-old collaboration of groups that promote urban gardening: Detroit Agriculture Network, Greening of Detroit, Michigan State University Extension and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen's Earth Works Garden. For a modest annual fee, members get seeds and plants as well as access to information and class instruction.
Of the hundreds of individual and family, school and community gardens involved, this summer 35 people, double last year's number, are raising produce to sell. The garden resource program supports them by paying the cost for farm market stall rentals, insurance, the Grown in Detroit logo and compostable bags.
Willerer was at a farm market in northwest Detroit one sunny afternoon earlier this month, selling Grown in Detroit produce alongside Roy Kelly, 12, who will be a seventh-grade student at University Preparatory Academy this fall.
For the last two years, Willerer has used hands-on gardening to teach both environmental science and economics. Students who are interested sign up to participate.
Roy, who raises produce in a garden at the school, says he already has learned a lot about plants, like how nasturtiums, which he raises for their edible flowers, grow better in poor soil.
"It's fun," he says, and he gets to keep the money he earns helping grow and sell produce.
Grown in Detroit
Others in the program are exploring niche markets with food products. Detroiter Marilyn Barber, 50, who has been in the Garden Resource Program for three years, grows and purchases collards, which she prepares as a spicy stir-fry. She's now investigating ways to preserve and package them to sell.
Dawn DeMuyt, 44, of Highland Park, says she left a corporate job last winter to "do what I love" -- develop a business growing and selling 20 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in her Highland Park yard with her partner, Patrick LaMourie. She still works part-time for a program that promotes ways to turn gardening into retail opportunities. In an e-mail, she says most backyard or microfarmers have to juggle several ways to make money as they pursue farming as a livelihood.
Also selling produce with the Grown in Detroit label at farm markets this summer are Cornelius Williams, 66, and his partner Leslie Huffman, 48. They hope to add a hoop house, or unheated greenhouse, later this year to extend the growing season at their farm-garden on Detroit's east side, where they grow collards, lettuce, okra, green beans and peppers.
"I want to be an example of what can be done -- and it's good," says Williams, who is a builder. He especially likes to show neighborhood youngsters how plants grow and where food comes from. Most have no clue, he says.
"They don't have the opportunity to see grandma or mom in the backyard, gardening every day," he says.
Vacant lots for the asking
When it comes to potential for gardening, Detroit is a land of vast opportunity. The city owns 20,000 vacant parcels that are available free by permit for gardening during one growing season, according to James Canning, deputy press secretary for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. He says the city is considering creating several community gardens that could be open next spring.
Ashley Atkinson of the Detroit Agriculture Network says she would like the city to provide longer lot leases, allow fences and provide water sources to encourage gardeners willing to invest time, money and inspiration on lots.
Some of that investment could pay off as demand increases for locally grown food. The Henry Ford, for example, now buys 70% of its produce, grain and meat from local farmers, according to Susan Schmidt, director of food services and catering.
"If we can get food locally, instead of shipped from God-knows-where, with the fuel to get it here, the more the better," she says.
Starting this fall, Peacemakers plans to add shiitake mushrooms to its crops. Meanwhile, Miller is considering other ways to expand its production.
She nodded in a direction across the street from the church. On the corner is what looks to be a long-vacant building. It is empty. It has no roof.
"One day I want to go over and find the owner. And then I want to make it into a strawberry patch," Miller says.
Detroit Garden Resource Program
The Detroit Free Press
Gardening - Marty Hair
July 27, 2007
QUESTION: Who's behind it?
ANSWER: The Detroit Garden Resource Program is sponsored by the Detroit
Agriculture Network, the Greening of Detroit, Earth Works Garden at the
Capuchin Soup Kitchen and the Michigan State University Extension.
Q: What does it do?
A: Provides seeds and plants, use of tools, support and education to
families, schools and community gardeners in Detroit, Hamtramck and
Highland Park for a $5 to $20 annual fee. People may join now to start
plants to harvest this fall.
Q: Who pays for it?
A: The sponsoring organizations support it. It also gets funding from
foundations and individuals. This year it is operating the garden resource
program on a $150,000 budget.
Q: Is it safe to eat food grown on abandoned lots?
A: One thing it also pays for is soil testing before the gardens are
planted.
"We rarely get any scary samples," says Ashley Atkinson of the Detroit
Agriculture Network. Out of hundreds tested this year, she says, two
gardens had to be relocated because of lead levels in the soil.
Q: How do I find out more?
A: Go to www.detroitagriculture.org/garden_resource_program.htm or call
313-237-8736.
UPDATE:
Our Master Gardener e-newsletter included the following article from the Detroit News:
Urban farming tour sprouts - How does your Detroit garden grow?
Hundreds are expected to learn secrets
by David Josar / The Detroit News
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Event: 10th Annual Detroit Agricultural Network Tour of Urban Gardens and Farms
Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007
See this link for more information: http://www.detroitagriculture.org/
DETROIT -- More than 400 people are expected to sign on for one of the biggest annual events of the city's underground culture: a behind-the-scenes tour of Detroit's urban gardens, slated for Wednesday, August 1, 2007.
The tour's popularity, organizers and supporters say, is further evidence the city is becoming a national example of how unused land in depressed cities can be molded into fertile, crop-producing enterprises.
"The interest is there about growing healthy and locally and this fits in with that trend," said Ashley Atkinson, project manager of Greening of Detroit who is helping coordinate the tour with the Detroit Agriculture Network.
The groups have chartered seven buses, and the two-hour tours will start at 6 p.m.
People can choose between visiting gardens on the west side or the east side of the city; there is also a tour of gardens in the Corktown, Woodbridge and Hubbard Farms neighborhoods that will be available to bike riders.
This is the 10th year for the tour, which is becoming one of the city's most popular independent, low-cost events which, despite no official support from the city and sponsors, are extremely successful.
Atkinson said the urban gardens tour regularly sells out even though the number of slots for participants keeps growing.
"When you talk about the weird things that make Detroit Detroit, this is on the list," said Carrie Rusker, a Wayne State University graduate student who lives in the Cass Corridor and went on the tour last year.
The urban garden tour is starting to get mythical status in the city on par with the Fourth Street Art Fair, the annual unofficial block party just west of Wayne State where bands play in a vacant lot and neighbors sell homemade cocktails from their front porches, and the Abreact Theatre, a black box theater that operates in a residential loft in downtown.
"Everyone will be inspired," said Rusker, who started growing tomatoes and peppers for the first time this year.
One garden on the tour is inside an abandoned building near the city's waste incinerator at Interstate 75 and I-94. Another garden, maintained at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, is used to teach high school students but also produces its own cheese from goats on the property.
To further hook participants on urban gardening, Atkinson said chefs from several local restaurants will take homegrown fruits and vegetables that garden tourists drop off before they embark, and make them into appetizers ready for noshing at the end of the tour. "We want people to know what they can do with what they grow," Atkinson said.
The tours will start from the Catherine Ferguson Academy on Selden in southwest Detroit.
For 72-year-old Sandra Hicks, a retired Detroit Public Schools teacher, the tours are a way to illustrate how gardening can transform a city.
"You will see ideas and potential that most people couldn't imagine exist for Detroit," Hicks said. She used to grow her own greens and tomatoes, but has had to downsize to herbs since moving into a high rise.
From 2004-06, the number of community gardens in Detroit that raise agriculture crops nearly quadrupled, from 80 to 302, according to the Detroit Agriculture Network. Organizers expect that tally to jump by another 25 percent this year.
Atkinson said about three times as many people contacted the Detroit Agriculture Network to have their gardens showcased as the tour would allow.
"People have a lot of pride when their garden is chosen for the tour," she said.
UPDATE 2:
VEGETABLES AND CONCRETE: Urban gardeners are turning vacant lots into profitable produce plots
July 27, 2007
by MARTY HAIR
FREE PRESS GARDEN WRITER
Greg Willerer raises specialty organic produce -- burgundy bush beans, pungent herbs for flavoring teas, edible flowers -- and sells them to restaurants.
It's unusual fare, "stuff you just can't buy off a truck," he says.
The fact that he grows this produce in Detroit, near Tiger Stadium, might strike some as unusual.
But Willerer, a 38-year-old teacher who loves to cook, is one of many urban gardeners turning to microfarming as a smart use of vacant land. He says his neighborhood near the old stadium is nearly as open as the country, ripe for cultivation. Growing produce to sell allows residents to reap some economic benefit from unused space where businesses and homes once stood.
"What we're doing here is kind of a wildfire of positivity," he says. "We're not going to be filling the void left by the auto industry, but we're doing something."
Across Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck over the last decade, an urban gardening movement has taken hold in backyards and community gardens. The harvest is good-tasting and nutritious fruits, vegetables and herbs, produced at reasonable cost and in areas where fresh organic produce can be difficult to find.
For extra cash or to launch niche businesses, an increasing number of gardeners are beginning to sell their produce at farmers markets and elsewhere under a new Grown in Detroit label. Several will be on an Aug. 1 urban garden tour.
One stop on the tour will be at a roofless brick building on Chene. A former furniture factory, the building is now owned by a church called Peacemakers International, which ministers to addicts and prostitutes.
Open to the sky, like a light-filled sanctuary, the old factory has become a walled garden in the last three years. The salad greens and other produce grown there are being sold to the Henry Ford in Dearborn, which has made a commitment to buy locally grown food. The church also has a community garden a block away.
"One day we'll have lots of lots. The pastor owns 17," predicted Teresa Miller, 49. She says she arrived at Peacemakers a few years ago as a crack addict. She works there as a secretary and in the gardens, having learned organic gardening techniques through the Garden Resource Program.
The program is a 4-year-old collaboration of groups that promote urban gardening: Detroit Agriculture Network, Greening of Detroit, Michigan State University Extension and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen's Earth Works Garden. For a modest annual fee, members get seeds and plants as well as access to information and class instruction.
Of the hundreds of individual and family, school and community gardens involved, this summer 35 people, double last year's number, are raising produce to sell. The garden resource program supports them by paying the cost for farm market stall rentals, insurance, the Grown in Detroit logo and compostable bags.
Willerer was at a farm market in northwest Detroit one sunny afternoon earlier this month, selling Grown in Detroit produce alongside Roy Kelly, 12, who will be a seventh-grade student at University Preparatory Academy this fall.
For the last two years, Willerer has used hands-on gardening to teach both environmental science and economics. Students who are interested sign up to participate.
Roy, who raises produce in a garden at the school, says he already has learned a lot about plants, like how nasturtiums, which he raises for their edible flowers, grow better in poor soil.
"It's fun," he says, and he gets to keep the money he earns helping grow and sell produce.
Grown in Detroit
Others in the program are exploring niche markets with food products. Detroiter Marilyn Barber, 50, who has been in the Garden Resource Program for three years, grows and purchases collards, which she prepares as a spicy stir-fry. She's now investigating ways to preserve and package them to sell.
Dawn DeMuyt, 44, of Highland Park, says she left a corporate job last winter to "do what I love" -- develop a business growing and selling 20 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in her Highland Park yard with her partner, Patrick LaMourie. She still works part-time for a program that promotes ways to turn gardening into retail opportunities. In an e-mail, she says most backyard or microfarmers have to juggle several ways to make money as they pursue farming as a livelihood.
Also selling produce with the Grown in Detroit label at farm markets this summer are Cornelius Williams, 66, and his partner Leslie Huffman, 48. They hope to add a hoop house, or unheated greenhouse, later this year to extend the growing season at their farm-garden on Detroit's east side, where they grow collards, lettuce, okra, green beans and peppers.
"I want to be an example of what can be done -- and it's good," says Williams, who is a builder. He especially likes to show neighborhood youngsters how plants grow and where food comes from. Most have no clue, he says.
"They don't have the opportunity to see grandma or mom in the backyard, gardening every day," he says.
Vacant lots for the asking
When it comes to potential for gardening, Detroit is a land of vast opportunity. The city owns 20,000 vacant parcels that are available free by permit for gardening during one growing season, according to James Canning, deputy press secretary for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. He says the city is considering creating several community gardens that could be open next spring.
Ashley Atkinson of the Detroit Agriculture Network says she would like the city to provide longer lot leases, allow fences and provide water sources to encourage gardeners willing to invest time, money and inspiration on lots.
Some of that investment could pay off as demand increases for locally grown food. The Henry Ford, for example, now buys 70% of its produce, grain and meat from local farmers, according to Susan Schmidt, director of food services and catering.
"If we can get food locally, instead of shipped from God-knows-where, with the fuel to get it here, the more the better," she says.
Starting this fall, Peacemakers plans to add shiitake mushrooms to its crops. Meanwhile, Miller is considering other ways to expand its production.
She nodded in a direction across the street from the church. On the corner is what looks to be a long-vacant building. It is empty. It has no roof.
"One day I want to go over and find the owner. And then I want to make it into a strawberry patch," Miller says.
Detroit Garden Resource Program
The Detroit Free Press
Gardening - Marty Hair
July 27, 2007
QUESTION: Who's behind it?
ANSWER: The Detroit Garden Resource Program is sponsored by the Detroit
Agriculture Network, the Greening of Detroit, Earth Works Garden at the
Capuchin Soup Kitchen and the Michigan State University Extension.
Q: What does it do?
A: Provides seeds and plants, use of tools, support and education to
families, schools and community gardeners in Detroit, Hamtramck and
Highland Park for a $5 to $20 annual fee. People may join now to start
plants to harvest this fall.
Q: Who pays for it?
A: The sponsoring organizations support it. It also gets funding from
foundations and individuals. This year it is operating the garden resource
program on a $150,000 budget.
Q: Is it safe to eat food grown on abandoned lots?
A: One thing it also pays for is soil testing before the gardens are
planted.
"We rarely get any scary samples," says Ashley Atkinson of the Detroit
Agriculture Network. Out of hundreds tested this year, she says, two
gardens had to be relocated because of lead levels in the soil.
Q: How do I find out more?
A: Go to www.detroitagriculture.org/garden_resource_program.htm or call
313-237-8736.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Recipe: Fresh Garlic, Roma Tomato and Basil Confit with Angel Hair Pasta
The morning of the day we left for vacation I pulled my garlic bulbs.
Rain threatened, and my years of experience associate "vacation" with "rain".
The garlic could afford to die back another week - we'd only be gone for a week - but I figured that rain-fattened heads of garlic would split and dry badly, while the already dry bulbs I harvested would be perfect for drying tightly.
So I pulled them and laid them on racks in the garage to dry.
The back door was cracked open to allow the cats to go in and out (please do not bother to comment - my little mousers would have gone nuts trapped indoors for a week) and the air would circulate well enough.
When we returned a week later to a trashed garage, we soon figured out the culprit... Herb saw a racoon... cat food and birdseed were scattered everywhere, but my garlic was perfectly dried and ready to clean, trim, bunch and hang. The critters hadn't bothered the garlic, but neither had it kept them away.
The weather had turned- there was no rain all week, a dry north wind, the nights were cool and the days were warm. I could have left the garlic in the ground. C'est la vie.
I'm not sure which is which variety-wise. I bought a bunch of different varieties when we had a garlic farmer come to speak at our Herb Society tea a few years ago.
Of course I can tell the elephant from the others, and some are pink skinnned and some are white, but I'd have to find my notes to guess what they all are.
ANYHOW, I once read something about growing an optimum garlic for your own use, probably in Kitchen Garden or Organic Gardening magazines... that I'll share with you here.
You need to plant only your biggest cloves from the head. In the early autumn. In rich soil. And then do that again next year, and repeat again the year after. By the third year of selection and proper growing, your garlic should have adapted to your particular location... and you will have 'selected' the best for your location.
We ate the fish Fish FISH we caught, all week we ate fish*. Enough! I'm ready for fruits and veggies for the rest of the summer!
*However! we did get out between times to eat at Bortelli's (more fish, yes, but the setting on the Lake Michigan beach where we had our lunch has a million dollar view), Luciano's classic Italian, The Hamlin for breakfast, Ronnie's Ribs, and the Jamesport Brewery. You can eat well for a week in Ludington without nary a ringer.
Anyway, here's the recipe I meant to relate, what with all the sweet fresh garlic and the current basil blowout, and what with using up the last of the frozen Viva Italia tomatoes trying to make room in my freezer for the tomato harvest to come ...
Pasta with Tomato Confit
You'll need an oven proof casserole which will determine the size of your recipe.
Make a bed of basil leaves in the bottom of the casserole, depth depending on how much you love basil... Fit as many cored Roma (Italian paste) type tomatoes as will fit snugly, core side down, on the bed of basil. Tuck slivers of fresh garlic into the spaces.
Lightly season. Salt, ground black pepper.
Drizzle over enough olive oil to come halfway up the sides of the tomatoes.
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees until the tomatoes become browned and carmelized, and softened. (About 1 hour or so.)
Cook the angel hair pasta (it takes like 2 minutes! or cook the pasta of your choice), drain and place in a large serving bowl. Yes, I cooked these birds nests of nidi capellini right in with the green beans - saved a pan! 
Dump the hot tomato-basil confit over the pasta and toss gently. (Or, in this case I added the pasta right into the casserole of tomato confit.)
Plate it up while warm and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
...life is good
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
A Herb or Not a Herb?
Useful plants is how I've always described herbs. My tree peony isn't useful, as far as I know, for medicine or flavoring or any of the other multiple ways herbies make use of plants. But there must a niche in the concept of usefulness that contains the usefulness of plants to memory, association and symbolism.
My youngest son brought me this 'Japanese tree peony' for mother's day, many years ago, before they became popular. It was the most unusual plant he could find at the nursery. I should have suspected then that he would grow up to be the wonderful and unusual young man that he is. If you were the mother of a strong willed child who marched to the beat of his own drum, then you will understand why I say that. But all of my children are unusual individuals.
See how this plant recalls associations for me? When it blooms every May, I always remember the day he gave it to me.
Monday, May 21, 2007
May magic
"They always called it Magic
and indeed it seemed like it
in the months that followed--
the wonderful months-- the
radiant months-- the amazing
ones. Oh! the things which
happened in that garden!
If you have never had a garden
you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to pass there."
The Secret Garden, by F.H.Burnett
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