Weekly Garden Thread - November 16-22, 2019

November 16, 2019 | Diana in Wisconsin/Greeneyes

[Liz]

Great idea..........pot/pancakes from dried hash browns.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“I like the freeze dried hash browns from Costco in the little milk cartons.”

This is a THING? Where have I been living? LOL!

When I moved Dad out of his apartment into Assisted Living I discovered that he had bought 12 CASES of various dried foods from some prepper company.

It’s going to take me the rest of my natural life to use it all up, but I will!

No freeze-dried hashbrowns, though :(

[a little elbow grease]

A worker at my house and I were talking about some trees in our yards. We ended up talking about big maple trees. So I looked up some sources on the subject.

One source was:

https://kidsgardening.org/growing-guide-sugar-maples/

Therein it read:

“According to the Champion Trees National Register, the largest known sugar maple in the country is in New London, CT, and measures 123’ tall and 86’ wide. The trunk has a circumference of 219” — that’s a diameter of almost 6'"

________

(Who is the “excellent” mathematician who did this math? Public Skoolz? Looks like it should be 6.9’ in diameter ..... nearly 7 feet.)

*********

Nevertheless, I'd love to see a MAPLE TREE that big!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

We have three mature Maples in our house yard and we tap them for syrup in the spring.

They are one of my favorites, too. But those Silver Maples will be the first tree to fall on your house - plus they have all those messy ‘propellers’ to fish out of the gutters.

We never sold them at Jung’s. They grow fast but aren’t worth the trouble they can cause.

You can also tap Box Elder trees for syrup - they’re in that same family, though are basically a scrap tree you want to be rid of, too. ;)

[MomwithHope]

They are called "Idaho Spuds" and can be seen on the Costco website. Price is lower in the store than online. Fill up the carton with boiling hot water, let sit for about 15 minutes. Drain thoroughly and you are good to go. Great with salt, pepper, dried onion flakes a granulated garlic.

I must need more coffee this morning. I was looking at the satellite guide and saw a program that looked like Extreme Composting but it was Extreme Couponing. Small print on my laptop...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

‘Extreme Composting’

Hard to believe one of the home & garden channels hasn’t already done that, LOL! :)

[Liz]

A fabulous holiday treat; amaretto and chocolate; crunch of almonds.

CHOCOLATE ALMOND PASTE TRUFFLES

ING--12 oz. pkg best quality milk chocolate chips 1/3 c h/cream 3 Tb amaretto 3 Tb almond paste fine-chp almonds

METHOD BTB combined h/cream, Amaretto, almond paste. Offheat, pour hot cream into chocolate chips. Set 3-5 min. Slowly start stir/melt chocolate and cream smooth. Saran surface. Chill 2 hours. Once solid, scoop out 1-2 tsp; roll into balls. Keep hands cold to prevent melting. With clean hands roll into fine-chp almonds. Store airtight; fridges a week.

NOTE: Taste/test flavor after adding Amaretto/tsp almond extract. Use more extract for more flavor....but use caution...almond extract is an assertive flavor.