Yucky Day Gardening

When I got up this morning it was only 50-odd degrees and the wind was blowing ferociously out of the west. Of course it was the morning I had planned to do a little gardening before plunging into the busy rest of my day. Coffee with a girlfriend at 9. Work at the greenhouse at noon. I had a little time after getting Daniel up at 7 to putter in the yard. But the dilemma was, what to do?

So, I came up with a list of my top five favorite "Yucky Day" gardening activities.

#1. Read my latest garden magazine. Admire the pictures. Plan what I want to do next in my own garden to make it match one of those lovely pictures. Admire the recipes and check the kitchen to see if I actually have the ingredients.

#2. Move from the magazine to one of my many garden catalogues. Then I can actually figure out how much it might cost to implement my new vision, or if I could grow the ingredients for the recipes.

#3. Make a cup of chamomile or mint tea with fresh steeped herbs from my garden. OK, I don't actually have chamomile growing this year, but one of my students gave me some that she had grown. And my mint this year is chocolate mint. I haven't tried it as tea yet. I'm not actually sure what to do with it, other than feed bits of it to visiting friends and their children to enjoy their reactions.

#4. Pull on my warm red sweater, take my tea outside to a sheltered corner, and listen to the wind blow. Sitting outside, warm from my tea and my sweater feels like a manageable adventure.

#5. Play in the kitchen. Use the last of those lovely strawberries for a pie. Make a batch of strawberry-rhubarb jam. Even just chop the rhubarb so it can wait in the freezer to be a taste of spring in February.

Hopefully by the time I'm done entertaining myself in the kitchen, the weather will have cleared up and I can actually go outside and get dirty.

More later,
b

Fresh Air AND Flowers

After a very busy week, I finally have a few minutes to post again. We've had overnight guests and daytime company and several visits to the doctor to get immunizations for Kate, one of my twin daughters. She's getting ready to go to South Africa for a month and has needed a few unusual things. The immunizations are pretty standard, but the typhoid immunization and anti-malaria pills are something we don't see very often in North Dakota. Not that that has anything to do with my garden. Oh well.

Anyway, today's topic is one of my favorite perks of gardening. Besides fitness and fresh air and finding time to think, we get ....... cut flowers.

I planted a lovely healthy foxglove this spring and, as soon as it flowered, I snipped off the blooms and brought them in the house to enjoy. My enormous columbine was flowering at the same time and they make a lovely combination. I've had nothing but compliments on the foxglove and can hardly wait till they make more flowers. They do have more unopened buds that I left on the plant. I've put them right beside my daisies and they make another wonderful pair.

Now I've got a peony just opening up that I'll bring inside, although I will leave a few buds outside for the neighbors to enjoy too. And soon the baby's breath will be ready to tuck into every bouquet I gather. My dahlias, big and small, are covered with buds, and the cosmos, four-o'clocks, and snap dragons should bloom all summer long to enjoy inside and out.

It seems to me that gardening is the perfect antidote to my regular life in ND. I have to slow down, be patient and take a few deep breaths. The garden is one place where hurrying simply doesn't work. Hallelujah.

More later,

b

Happy Father's Day

Yesterday, as you all know, was Father's Day. In honor of the day, I would like to pay a brief tribute to Phil who is one of the most accomplished gardeners I know.

Favorite Phil facts....

Phil loves to dig holes. Maybe this is a guy thing, or maybe it's just a Phil thing. Either way, any time I want a tree or shrub planted, he's my go-to guy. He will happily dig a hole as deep and as wide as I want and then fill it with water to make sure it drains. He'll add compost or fertilizer, and then he'll fuss with the tree until it's facing the direction I want. If I change my mind, he'll even dig it up and replant it in a more suitable spot.

So far this year, he's planted five healthy Saskatoon bushes (or juneberries or serviceberries depending on where you grew up). We were going to put a row all along the back yard, but five was all they had at the nursery.

He also -- uncomplainingly -- planted two cutleaf staghorn sumac babies in the holes in my shrub border where a couple of things died over the winter.

Phil loves his plants. One of my favorite garden memories is of Phil splinting a broken tomato plant. He had been weeding or watering or something and accidentally broke a tomato. Of course there were many, many more lined up in neat rows. Still, he found a straight stick and some plant-friendly tape and made a tiny splint. The good news was that the plant didn't even blink. It continued to grow and eventually contributed to our abundance of tomatoes.

I just wanted to take advantage of this big day to celebrate Phil. Husband and gardener extraordinaire.

More later,
b

Strawberry Treats

So since I was expecting a house full of people last Thursday, I thought it would be fun to try some lovely spring treats. Sadly I don't have any rhubarb or any asparagus or any chevre. So I tried strawberries instead. And had great success.

I made tiny meringues -- beat egg whites and sugar and cream of tartar -- topped them with sweetened whipped cream and laid strawberry halves gently on top of the whole thing.

They were fabulous. Not only were they pretty to look at, they were delicious.

Tomatoes and Peppers and Sprouts, Oh My!

After returning from a weekend spent with my sister, I was happy to return home and find that sweet Phil, helpful Phil, wonderful Phil of the green thumb had taken advantage of the spring weather and planted the garden. After dropping my bags in the house and petting the dogs, I headed straight for the backyard to admire the straight rows of lovely green plants. There were rows of tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts, squash and onions; all of which will provide fabulous ingredients for summer supper experiments.

We planted the usual varieties of tomatoes -- some early girls and sheyennes for eating tomatoes and romas for salsa and cooking. And we're trying Mr. Stripeys, an heirloom variety that is yellow with red vertical stripes. It's written up as fabulously sweet. It was irresistable. We added a few Lemon Boys to round out our plates with lovely sweet yellow tomatoes. If they're as good as advertised, I'll save a few seeds and try out a few new varieties next year.

Phil always grows a wide variety of peppers for his salsa. We have sweet peppers and hot peppers and super hot peppers that he'll enjoy trying in different combinations. We always do several types of squash, summer and winter, that we'll grill and saute and bake and eventually give away to our friends when we're all squashed out.

The really new thing on our list is the brussels sprouts. About a month ago we bought some baby sprouts and sauted them in butter and ate them straight out of the pan. They were wonderful. We're hoping to recreate the experience and try a few adaptations this summer when they're REALLY fresh -- just from the garden. I'm open to recipe suggestions if anyone has a favorite.

I'll share recipes and pictures if they work out.

More later,
b