Weekly Garden Thread - November 18-24, 2023 [Gardening For Wildlife Edition]

November 18, 2023 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Liz]

Looks scrumptious.....and I especially like your side suggestions.

I dont have access to venison......so beef it will be.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Your deer harvest will yield more than one meal, so here is a second recipe for the season!

Creamy Venison Mushroom Stew

1 ½ lb venison loin
1 ½ cups mushrooms e.g. porcini, mushrooms
½ onion
2 ⅛ oz butter
½ cups game stock
½ cups dry white wine
4 tbsp sour cream
5½ oz rich cream
2 tbsp cranberry jam or other dark berry jam
Salt
Black pepper
Parsley for decoration

1) Cut the venison fillet against the grain (preferably diagonally) into fine strips and salt and pepper it. Now cut the onion into fine pieces as well as the mushrooms. If you use dried mushrooms, soak them in hot water and leave them to soak for about 30 minutes before continuing with the next steps.

2) Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the strips for about 5-10 minutes until they are toasted through. Remove them from the pan and set aside. Sauté the onions in the same butter and then add the finely chopped mushrooms. Sauté everything briefly and then take it out of the pan.

3) Deglaze the mixture with the white wine and let it all boil down. There should be a thick, spicy layer on the bottom of the pan.Then add the game stock and stir well, it should all come off the bottom of the pan. Add the cream and let everything boil down to the desired consistency on a low flame.

4) Stir in the jam at the end and add the venison, onions and mushrooms and let it simmer for a few minutes. It must not boil any more!

5) Divide the venison into plates with the side dishes, add a spoonful of sour cream and sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Liz, Always ready to encourage the use of Kansas raised beef! (Your solution is also my solution to sourcing venison!)

[goodnesswins]

Orange..one of my fave colors. Thanks for posting this “Wildlife” thread. We inherited property (@2+ acres) where using casaron, etc was de rigeur. It is fun seeing what grows in the understory of oaks, pines, firs, hemlocks and cedars. We do have to fight off poison oak that is on 2 lots we own across the road, as well as some blackberries coming up the cliff on the other side of property. A lot of medicinal plants are popping up, tho. And, I grew a mullein garden this year...lol. Am hoping to cover a rocky bare spot of property with mullein next year.

[Liz]

Secret ingredient......2 tbsp cranberry jam or other dark berry jam.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Lingonberry...available from Ikea.

[Liz]

Gotcha.

[Albion Wilde]

This is not my backyard, but my backyard often looks like this:

“Rats with white tails.” I've given up on hostas, hydrangeas, English hollies, arbor vitae, liriope, azalea blooms, any kind of lilies, geraniums, crysanthemums. In a pinch they will even eat marigolds, which normally they disdain. Deer repellents are expensive and time-consuming. Sometimes they even tear wire garden fencing up out of the ground with their teeth.

The worst is when they mistake the reflection of trees on the front picture windows of our townhomes for the forest behind our houses, and break into someone's living room, bleeding all over the carpets and upholstery.

So far (knock wood), I've only suffered dents to my car and my metal front door, but my neighbor and my church has had them bust in, create chaos trying to get back out via the kitchen, and die in the process of skating around in a panic on the tile floors and stainless steel appliances.

[Qiviut]

Thanks for the venison recipe! Lots of (German ancestry) hunters in the family & they will make this - I certainly will!

Since there was a link, I could put the recipe in my recipe app, too!

[Pollard]

Having goats prevents most of that. For now, they’re keeping the wild at bay which is a good thing. I will be getting rid of them at some point though.

[MomwithHope]

They left our hostas alone this year. Only ate one collard greens plant so we were lucky. Two wildlife/garden events this year. It was our first spring with newly hatched mason bees and we saw them most every day. Hubby was running the weedwhacker and dropped it to shoot this short of a Mason bee pollinating a Rosa rugosa.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_iBR9nbS-oQ
And a tree frog chose to spend the day napping on top of a Costa Rican red pepper. So peaceful stuff. Any destructive varmints were dealt with early on in the season.

[MomwithHope]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_iBR9nbS-oQ

Mason bee

[MomwithHope]

Forgot another treat this year - Looks like he is giving hubby the stink eye.

[Albion Wilde]

Aw! great photography and videography! That little bee sounds like a riding mower!

As for your delightful tree frog pic, I will say that living near the woods, the source the the frequent deer territorial disputes, is totlally mitigated by the creek running through the woods and the sound of tree frogs at night. They are nature’s orchestra tuning up. Many a time I’ve had to sidestep them in the garden, or stop the mower to pick one up and move him back into the woods—their instinct is to keep still and try to look like a rock, but I don’t want to mow over them, no matter how high the blade is set! Almost 80, and still playing with frogs. (I certainly kissed a few frogs back in the day—different species.)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Ashamed they do not make “Golden Eagle” or “Sitting Wolf” size Decals to scare those deer away from your windows!

https://www.duncraft.com/Window-Strike-Solutions

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Nov. 15, 2023—The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released a new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM), updating this valuable tool for gardeners and researchers for the first time since 2012.

USDA’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The new map—jointly developed by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Oregon State University’s (OSU) PRISM Climate Group—is more accurate and contains greater detail than prior versions.

It is available online at:

https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

In addition to the map updates, the Plant Hardiness Zone Map website was expanded in 2023 to include a “Tips for Growers” section, which provides information about USDA ARS research programs of interest to gardeners and others who grow and breed plants.

The 2023 map is based on 30-year averages of the lowest annual winter temperatures at specific locations, is divided into 10-degree Fahrenheit zones and further divided into 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zones. Like the 2012 map, the 2023 web version offers a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based interactive format and is specifically designed to be user-friendly.

Notably, the 2023 map delivers to users several new, significant features and advances. The 2023 map incorporates data from 13,412 weather stations compared to the 7,983 that were used for the 2012 map.

https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2023/usda-unveils-updated-plant-hardiness-zone-map/

[Albion Wilde]

Great idea — but we have HOA nazis. They once tried to make me take my American flag down. They failed on that; but have taken down people’s holiday lawn flags.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Those recipes both look great. Would also work well with the Elk and Bear I still have on hand.

From his blind today, Beau saw a Fox Squirrel and some birds. And then he took a nap in the sunshine. :)

[MomwithHope]

It was a weedwhacker in the background. We have many tree frogs and a creek running through our woods. Not too many other frogs.

[Albion Wilde]

It was a weedwhacker in the background.

Oh, that makes sense. I thought if it was the bee, it was an unusual volume of audio for presumably a phone camera.