spring

I’m leaving town tomorrow, so…

May 15, 2015

It’s time to frantically plant the garden.

_MG_7607 — Herbies. Many are overwintered and sort of “just barely hanging on” at this point

I don’t know what it is about going out of town that flips some switch in my brain and makes me decide to get done what I have not gotten done in the comparatively long and more open days prior to this, but it happens every time. Like clockwork. I guess that just verifies something I already know.

I am a procrastinator.

Of the worst, worst. sort.

With everything. Work. Kids. Meetings. Everything. It’s why I’m late everywhere. Well, the other reason is because I am actually am more embarrassed to be early, than late. But that’s a whole nother subject into my psyche that I probably won’t explore here because then people won’t believe my rather extravagant excuses as I cruise into meetings and appointments and lunch dates and BSF carpooling driveways precisely 10 minutes late every time. I recognize this is not an attractive trait. And recognizing it has done nothing to improve it. Nor did making it a New Year’s Resolution. So I’m kind of over trying to change. (Sorry Pam)

Anyway. This is about the garden.

Hello strange yellow-green pac choi plant.

Tomorrow, bright and early, I’m leaving for Boston to see my darling niece graduate from Boston College. I sort of forgot about this fact until some time this morning. After freaking out about all the things I needed to get done, I decided, “Damn. I better get those seedlings in the ground.” Because I was also thinking, “…they will never survive the weekend with Charlie and Dave in charge.” Did I let the fact that I only had about two hours to pack, and plant the garden and get a couple work-work things done deter me? No, I did not. Did I try to talk myself into waiting? –Seriously. This could have waited. — Yes, I did. But I ignored me.

I also have a very warped perception of time. (I guess that is another reason I am always late.)

But I dug in (haha) and ran from the barn to garden, back to the barn, to the house, to the garden, sweating and huffing and being very, very productive. Being the organized person I am, I had calculated that I needed to leave for Charlie’s track meet by 1:30 (tricking myself, because I actually didn’t have to leave until 1:45). And, to make a long story short, I got in the house at 1:50, totally freaked out because I thought I was supposed to leave at 1:30, then remembered I had tricked myself and ran upstairs to change. Then got something to drink. Then grabbed my camera. And… and sped out of the garage at 2:05. Twenty minutes late.

Never mind. Google maps is always wrong about how long it takes.

Not this time, they weren’t.

Anyway. The good news is: I was exactly on time for the estimated start of Charlie’s first race. The bad news is that for the first time in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD, a track meet was running ahead of schedule. I got there in time to see the last 100 meters of his mile. At least I wasn’t lying when I said, “Great finish!”

Anyway. This post is about the garden.

Lola the anti-garden helper, looking innocent

OK. Maybe it’s not about the garden. I got a lot left to do before going to bed. But I did take some pictures:

Here are the sugar snap peas that I planted about 2 weeks ago. I am trying something radically different this year. I’m trying to combat Lola, the pea eating dog, as well as the annual pea plant blow down. Stay tuned:

Sugar Snap Peas on 6' cages — Sugar Snap Peas on 6′ cages

And here are the stupid leeks. I haven’t grown them for several years and I kind of miss them. These aren’t looking real promising though. I started them from seed several weeks ago. If they don’t make it, I’ll just pull them out.

These leek plants are practically microscopic

Garlic and shallots are planted in late October (or early November if you are a procrastinator) and are looking pretty good!

And my favorite photo of the day, the radish soldiers under the “don’t-poop-here-cat-deterrent.” If you look closely at the leaves, they already have telltale holes from flea beetles!

radish seedlings hiding under old tomato cages to keep the cats out.

That’s a wrap. I didn’t get ALL my plants in the garden and in pots, so Dave and Charlie will still have a lot riding on their shoulders. If they fail, you can be sure I will let you know.

The Good News Is: I Am Not Dead

May 17, 2012

And that’s about the only good news.

I’d love to rant and rave about all KINDS of blog posts that I have written in my head as I go from one crisis to another, always 7-19 minutes late for everything, but I don’t have time. Charlie has to ref in about 30 minutes, Morgan has to coach alone for the first time ever, more shingles just flew off the roof, I forgot to order net clips for the soccer goals, Dave just left for fishing (please don’t come and kill me), and the cat is sleeping on my keyboard making all of this a lot more difficult…

So here is a round up of the blog worthy things that I might have enjoyed writing about in the last month since the carnage:

I FOUND SOME MORELS!

OK, so I guess that was a good day.

THE ASPARAGUS:
…was a mess this year. Due to our crazy warm March things were greening up and my annual burning wasn’t done in a timely fashion. I did finally manage to get the dead stuff cut down, but the weeds are going nuts.

The asparagus doesn’t seem to mind. I’m giving it out by the armload once again. So, if you can think of a reason to visit me…

This year — yesterday, in fact — I made my first ever asparagus soup. It was the most vile looking gloop you’ve ever seen. But it tasted good…

I GOT A NEW STOVE!

(and need to sell my old one…) Here is a tribute to the cooktop that has taken me through 17 chaotic years. Goodbye old friend:

[Look for it on Craig’s List soon!]

HELLO NEW FRIEND:

(and pretty pictures of bread made for people other than my family. Very bitter children, have I)

It’s a 6-burner BlueStar. So far, so good. It’s HOT!

And for the Piece de Resistance (that makes no sense, I just wanted to say it):

MY GARDEN:

Or perhaps I should call it My NOT Garden.

Or my Garden Not YET.

And that is why I must go now.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I am now all caught up on my blogging.

Stop the Insanity!

June 6, 2011

(Insanity as in asparagus.)

As I was working in the garden this weekend — planting almost the remainder of the seeds — it occurred to me that the date was June 5th. Or 6th. I’m still not sure of the date because Charlie was using my watch this weekend to referee a soccer game and the strap broke. Note that in the picture above, I do have my watch on, which is confusing to say the least. I can neither remember the order of events, nor explain them to you. Just know that I speak the truth.)

(Yes, I yelled at him. And, yes, he denied any wrong-doing. So, yessss, I yelled some more and told him to bear some responsibility for the the things that just seem to “happen” to him all the time. “Be accountable,” I yelled!)

Anyway, that’s the only way I know what the date is, to look on my watch. Even that, as a source, is failing me mightily since the numbers are about two millimeters high and I can barely even see them anymore.

But I digress.

As I was working in the garden, it occurred to me that it was early June. The fact that I was in the middle of my insane asparagus bounty and still planting seeds shocked me. As I contemplated what I would say in this post, I realized that I would be writing for a small audience –only Minnesotans — for who else in this world considers June to be Spring?

Who cares, really? If you have fresh, tender asparagus, I’ve got a tip for you: keep it raw and put it in a salad. I won’t go so far as to tell you to eat spear after spear raw, like my dad does — because I think it tastes like grass — but in an effort to plow through a ridiculously large pile of the stuff after being gone for the weekend, I decided to try it in some salads. I made refrigerator pickles (good, but what isn’t good when soaking in sugar and vinegar?) and an asparagus quinoa salad (amazing!)

I highly recommend you try it. I’ve made the salad twice now, once with quinoa and once with bulgar wheat. Both were good and had their benefits. The quinoa was more fun to eat since the tiny grains burst and pop in your mouth like the little fish eggs on sushi (that sounds so gross, but it’s true). The bulgar had more eye-appeal since it had — at least the way I cooked it — less moisture and more contrast.

The salad would also be good with barley or orzo pasta.

I tried various implements to slice the asparagus razor thin and defaulted to a knife. The mandolin was a pain (and dangerous) because the asparagus tends to have a lengthwise fiber to it which interferes with the mandolin. Most of my stalks had this split toward the bottom:

…which is maybe a factor of them being so tall when I picked them. But made the slices less pretty. A vegetable peeler is great if you want long strips, but I found long strips to be too cumbersome to eat. So I just used a knife and cut them on the diagonal. Then I used the mandolin on a super thin setting and sliced up two radishes.

I also added garbanzos, toasted pine nuts, shaved pecorino (as always, my cheap and beloved substitute for ridiculously priced parmesan).

The quinoa was super salty (I like it like that) and a little “wet” (I don’t like it like that.)

I’m not a quinoa expert. I’m not even a novice. Is this the right texture??

Anyway, I dressed it with lemon juice and olive oil, salt and pepper. Who knew something that stupidly simple could taste so good? (Seriously. I did not know that.)

Asparagus Salad with Grains

3/4 cup quinoa (or bulger or other grain) cooked according to package directions, but be sure to season with salt!
approx 8 thinly sliced raw asparagus spears
big handful pine nuts, toasted
1 can of garbanzo beans rinsed and drained
2 radishes, very thinly sliced
shaved pecorino or parmesan to taste
1/4 – 1/2 fresh lemon, squeezed (amount to taste. start with 1/4 and add more if necessary)
1/8 – 1/4 c olive oil (same as above. add more as necessary. I added 1/8 c with the wetter quinoa and 1/4 c with the drier bulgar wheat

Toss together all ingredients. It lasts for days in the refrigerator!

Here is a picture of what it looks like with bulgar wheat:

This is a spoiler alert, but I also added preserved lemon to my second batch. That’s fodder for another post, as you’ll see why later in the week, but it was good.

And as a point of reference in my ongoing battle of the asparagus bulge, here is a before and after of the pile:

Before making salads:

After:

Either I’m a bad photographer, or that pile didn’t change much.

With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

May 12, 2011

And Asparagus Stalks All Over the Messy Row.

Mary, Mary would have a hard time with this stage of the garden. Let me illustrate:

9 am:

4 pm:

And finally, at 9 pm, right before I picked it:

And, no, I didn’t touch the ruler all day. Isn’t that amazing? I marvel every year in astonishment.

And then I go running around trying to unload asparagus on everyone I know. I should note that not two hours after my last writing when I finished with…

*now would be a convenient time for all you locals to conveniently stop by to drop off some fictitious object and casually ask for a ‘garden tour.’

…my friend Michelle’s husband showed up with 6 pallets for Charlie’s soon-to-be Airsoft gun war (God help me) and left with about a pound of asparagus. So, call me what you will, but don’t call me a liar.

Here is another astonishing thing I found in the garden last week:

Lettuce seedlings!

Last September, I re-seeded lettuce with plans for a fall crop. They never germinated. I couldn’t believe that it was because the weather was still too hot, because it was September, and only weeks away from the first frost. I never figured it out.

And then they germinated. Eight months and about 1000″ of snow later. I guess it was too hot. So yeah, I’ll be enjoying some early garden lettuce.

…and not much else, since I haven’t gotten anything else planted yet.

Maybe I can eat toasted woodticks sprinkled on top of my garden lettuce. I seem to have a lot of them hanging around my office.

For some reason, I imagine they would taste a lot like pine nuts. And they’re a lot cheaper, too.

Random Acts of Spring

May 10, 2011

Well, it’s here.

Or at least we think it’s here. (Spring.)

Based on the air quality today, however, my guess would be that we pretty much are skipping Spring and heading straight to Humidity. After a long winter, I’ll try my best not to complain.

It’s just that my hair is…

It’s just that my armpits are…

It’s just that my feet really do…

Speaking of feet, I just don’t get all these people jumping up and down for joy because they get to put their socks away for the season and wear flip flops. Am I the only one who wishes she could wear socks all summer long? Am I the only one with sweaty, slippery, slimy, smelly feet? (Socks help.)

So, I finally, finally, FINALLY picked asparagus this morning!

And then I promptly made this:

Which really does not look very good in that picture, but I can assure you it was. One note: I sniped some chives to sprinkle on the top; I always seem to forget to use chives. And for how much I hate the damn plants (see here), you’d think I would at least try to get some enjoyment out of them.

And here’s what I realized today:

I have dug so many chive plants out of my garden, cursing the whole while, that I have come to associate the taste/smell (they are one in the same) to be a bad thing.

So, my aesthetic attempt to make the plate prettier almost ruined my enjoyment of the meal!

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I hate chives. I used to say “the plant and not the food.” But now I think I have to say “the plant AND the food.” The cycle is complete.

Speaking of chives, (isn’t that the worst lead in for a topic? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a story that starts with “speaking of…___” that I really wanted to hear. Oh well. Stop reading if you must.)

…I was spreading compost on Sunday — a full month later than last year, due to our late Spring — and came across tons of this weird matted grass stuff that hadn’t fully composted.

I could break up the bundles with my hands, as I pretty much do for all the compost, since I never turn it and it needs to be ‘fluffed’ before spreading

(sorry – over-exposure!)

And when it’s all broken up it looks more like this

And if I step back one more step, it looks like this

Which is really crazy, if you look at that top layer. You’d never think the compost underneath was ready! But anyway, I just kept coming across those very dense, matted grassy clumps. I just couldn’t figure out what they were. And then I saw this…

Chives! Living, breathing, green, flippin’ CHIVES! How did they get there, you ask? Well, here’s an excerpt from last year or the year before, when I dug out massive, overgrown clumps of chives. I can’t remember when; I’ve blocked it out:

The impromptu plan was to dig them all and toss them into the weeds. Or the compost pile. Would they adequately die in the compost pile? Or would they take root in there and cause me no end of problems come spring? Worse, if I tossed them into the deep grass outside the garden, would they root out there and take over our entire prairie? So many things to contemplate as I dug these horrific, good-for-nothing plants! So huge! So heavy!

Then, I noticed all the worms living in the mat of roots beneath the surface. Would they die if I heaved the 30 pound plant hunks into the void? Are worms active enough this time of year to move their locale? Maybe I should put them carefully into the compost pile. Poor little worms. Such hard workers in the garden…

Suffice to say, I did indeed put them into the compost pile. I knew they wouldn’t die easily and I took measures, continually turning them over to expose the roots to air, and when that didn’t work, hitting them with RoundUp. (I know. That’s cheating.) RoundUp seems to kill everything you don’t want it to kill.

Because, to what should my wondering eyes appear? …but a miniature shoot and 8 tiny chives (not so) dear.

I hate chives.

On a good note, I don’t hate Pokie.

And I almost never hate Lola.

…who always looks so stupid in photos. I assure you she is not. And that’s why I sometimes don’t like her. I would prefer a dumb dog to a brilliant one.

AND, I don’t hate my Mother’s Day flowers.

…because Morgan made them for me and of course I don’t hate her.

Even though she is a 16 year old girl. Was I ever like that?

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll be telling you how much I hate asparagus* very soon. (But not yet!)

*now would be a convenient time for all you locals to conveniently stop by to drop off some fictitious object and casually ask for a ‘garden tour.’

Tired of the Eggroll Post Yet?

April 29, 2011

What an amazing discovery. All these amazingly cool and nice people read the stupid stuff I write. They actually cook some of the recipes I post. It’s utterly baffling.

And wonderfully flattering.

And very guilt provoking when I’m not timely at updating.

And terribly frightening. What horrible things have I written about again? Good thing I can’t remember pretty much everthing or I wouldn’t even be able to look people in the eyes anymore. Poor Dave.

(for new readers, we like to work “Poor Dave” into the occasional post as a celebration and honor to my husband who, in his ever loving and constant devotion, has to put up with me). Hopefully new readers will also know where to place my witty sarcasm.

Anyway, I so wish I could just cut and paste some soccer emails here just so you could see the inanity that I deal with this time of year. Hundreds of mind-numing emails a day:

Filled with mind numbing questions… and helpless people… and….

I digress. I digress. I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about was my annual post about mud.

And rain.

And snow.

And my car.

…which is filthy. But not nearly as filthy as it could be, given our recent weather.

And that thing hanging off the bottom?

…I’m pretty sure is a worm.

And my driveway.

… that the FedEx truck got stuck in a few days ago.

And the reason

…that we had to drag the garbage all the way to the top of the God-forsakken very long and muddy driveway.

Which is responsible for

…this extra stash of mud I like to carry around on my running boards.

That is, no doubt, the source

… of the worm.

Think Spring!

It’s Still 40 and it’s Still Raining

May 13, 2010

I need a garden fix. I want to weed. I want to escape this stupid computer and stupid soccer and get the Hell out of my office. My dog is ready to implode. I have chicks in my laundry room. The cats are sitting in the trees with the bird feeders. It’s raining. It’s cold. And I never went looking for more Morel mushrooms. My asparagus has stopped growing. I want to take a bath. I want to take a bath and go back to bed. I want to eat banana bread in the bath and then go to bed.

Waa waa wahh.

How’s that for a pity party? I’m good at those. Oh. I forgot one thing. I have a headache. I had two meager glasses of wine last night after a long day and today I have a headache. So stupid.

With plenty of work-work to do today (work-work is my made up word meaning ‘real work’ for ‘real clients’), I put on my ugly hood (shown on model with the face I use to scare my kids with):

And went out to feed the chickens, the birds, empty the compost bucket and take some garden pictures. Come along for the ride…

First stop: Let the chickens out. You think that’s a scary face in the photo above? How about this one? Especially when he flies at your face. I have a big stick I use to keep him in his place.

Sadly, I lost one of my two hens — on MOTHER’S DAY of all days. She must have flown out of the 7′ high fence. We are blaming Lola.

Next stop: Empty the compost and check out the garden.

That’s looking back toward the house. You can see that not much has happened in the last three weeks.

Lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula and cilantro are all just eeking along.

One big surprise are the strawberry plants. They were new last year. I struggled with bugs and this year I have removed the straw mulch, having read it makes the bug problem worse. My *plan* is to keep the refuse under the plants very clean. We’ll see how that goes…

Look at all the blooms!

Here is the garlic, planted last Fall. It is huge compared to other years. The heavy snowfall protected the bulbs and I didn’t lose even one. I predict a June harvest instead of last year’s August harvest. That is both good and bad. Good because I’ll have garlic sooner, bad because it is much harder to store through the hot months.

Here are those scary red potatoes I planted in early March. They are doing well, except for the frost damage from last weekend.

It got down to 28 here in Watertown. See the damage?

And they were even covered with a heavy blanket:

In fact, I tried to cover EVERYTHING with blankets, which was actually quite funny:

So glad I did. Not sure what the apples will do, but you can tell which blossoms were covered and which weren’t.

Here are those shallot plants I was so worried wouldn’t fill in. I should have planted the bulbs last Fall with the garlic, but I forgot. They went into the ground in late March. Most came up and and I am excited. I haven’t had shallots in several years.

I have a bunch more pictures to share, but my ‘work-work’ awaits. After the garden/compost stop, I filled the bird feeders. Thanks to Red-Winged Blackbirds, my gallon-sized feeders have to be filled daily if I want to sustain my little Chickadees, Nuthatches, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers and so on. On the way, I pass my very favorite shrub, the Snowball Viburnum:

I hack about six feet off this thing every year. (I have no idea how large it would eventually get.) I’m trying to prune it so that the left side sort of arches over the path. Yeah. Good luck on that one. I’m a spaz with a pruning saw…

That’s the flower close-up. It is the most gorgeous chartreuse green at this time of year. No scent to the flower, unfortunately, but man are they pretty in a vase.

Then it’s back into my God-Forsaken house with my God-Forsaken animals and the new God-Forsaken chicks.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Jennie. Please send Sunshine. And a personal assistant. I promise to try to be a nicer person.