Posted on 05/28/2022 5:07:06 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Beautiful flowers for a worthy memorial. I took advantage of cooler temperatures, low humidity, and a nice breeze to reorganize my garden pots. In doing so, I noticed more termites outside. Used Seven Dust, salt and oil of peppermint to deter them. Of course, notified the landlord about the termites.) My garden area looks better and there is still more work to do. That is ok as I love gardening.
I’m shedding tears while reading this story. And have always loved “In Flanders Field.”
It’s one of the most touching poems, ever!
It’s one of a handful that I’ve memorized through the years. This line, in particular, makes me feel in AWE of all our Forefathers and Foremothers sacrificed for us.
Are we up to the task? I fear we have failed them in so many ways. :(
“To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.”
I’ve been SO BUSY I can’t even describe it! I’ve been up extra early on these ridiculously HOT and windy days to get done what I’ve been able to. So, as of late, while I’m still a bit behind, I have:
Gotten the mowing done (twice!)
Spread fresh mulch (12 bags!) on my Rose Garden raised beds next to the greenhouse & replaced two roses that failed
Planted Cherry-type tomatoes and my SINGLE Jalapeno Pepper in 5-gallon nursery pots
Planted various flowers, Kale (Prism and Dinosaur), Sweet Peas (flower), Zucchini (EZ Pick Gold and some green substitute for the EZ Pick Green), planted ALL my peppers (with Mom’s help yesterday, too numerous to name this season, but Shishito leads the pack), and I got 8 tomato plants in today before I couldn’t take the heat and wind anymore.
Mom and I were laughing while we were planting the peppers, yesterday. We’ve never planted peppers in a friggin’ TORNADO before, LOL! Everyone is fine - a good watering and a thick layer of straw - I’ll stake them when they’re a bit bigger.
Harvested my first lettuces and spinach for salads - MUCH more to come
Mulched around the foundation of the house by the porch (2 more bags to go, there) and since I’m NOT raising PUPPIES this spring/summer I can have PORCH POTS! YAY! They are a sage green which matches the house (about 7 gallon size) and I went CRAZY for COLOR this season: Sweet Potato Vine, a ‘Spike” in the middle, Torinia, Moss Rose, Celosia in eyeball-burning colors, etc. Pictures when they fill in.
Got my Pole Beans in (Saychelles, green) but still need to do rows of Bush Beans, Golden Rod (yellow) and Velour (purple).
Now that my bulbs have petered out, I filled in those raised beds (the two Beau & Mick added for me last fall) with purple cabbages (to eat) purple Petunias, the biggest yellow and orange Marigolds I could find, and a marigold that I just love and started from seed called, ‘Fireball’. Those beds are an experiment this season to see how much I need to fill in around the bulbs, once they are done.
In The Big Garden, Potatoes are in (Kennebeck, Red Norland and German Butterball) and Sweet Corn and my Gladiolus. Beau tilled two rows for me and I will be adding Brussels Sprouts (much to his dismay, LOL!) and the squashes (Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato and Delicata) and I still have PLENTY Of room, so I’m thinking about what else I can toss in there. Two rows of cutting flowers are going in, too - mostly Zinnia because they are just WONDERFUL flowers all the way around.
So, that’s what I’ve been up to, along with wrangling dogs and the three 8 month old pups we’re raising for Amanda. Beau (who is retired) has temporarily gone back to work for a previous employer, but he’s a great help to me after hours and takes care of the weed whacking and anything else that’s beyond my capability, which isn’t much, d@mmit, LOL!
Oh, and I added a ‘Fanal’ Astilbe to the shade garden, and I couldn’t find the smaller version of Russian Sage, so I added a perennial Salvia to a bare spot in my raised bed around the greenhouse.
Also, there is a Bumble Bee living in my greenhouse! Not sure if he’s a Bumble-He or Bumble-She, but so far just the one. It was literally waiting for me to open the greenhouse doors this morning. Kinda cute, but it might turn ugly. :(
And with this THIRD hot=spell temps in the greenhouse have been 95 and ABOVE, so I’ve been watering a lot. Cooler next week, but the plan is to have everything OUT of there and in the ground this upcoming week. Between rain.
Seventy years ago my mother had a tool called a Foley’s Food Mill. It had about 10” diameter round walls, an inverted cone with holes started from the bottom wall and rose to the center. A rod with a handle went down a hole in the center and when you turned a handle a bar stretched down the side of the cone and pulled a flat blade around the cone. You put boiled apple or squash in front of the blade, turned the handle and the mashed food pressed through the holes in the cone and landed in the large bowl or pan the Mill was sitting in. Then we would flavor and can the applesauce in Mason jars in the pressure cooker.
We could also mash small fruit and berries in the Mill. We sterilized small jars, put the mashed fruit to boil and added flavor and pectin, then carefully put fruit in the jars being careful to not get food on the inside of the glass near the top of the jar. We left 1/2” of clean glass above the fruit and poured melted parafin on top of the fruit to leave around 1/4”+ covering all the fruit and up against the glass, and were careful not to move the jars until the parafin was hardened. Kept fine all winter.
I decided to see if Foley Food Mill was still available. It is, and here is the entire first Google page link which has various models, and recipies for applesauce and tomato sauce:
Any of you folks have recipes or useful tips for Hackberries?
I have a very large Hackberry tree kn my land. It has lots if not yet ripe hackberries (green in color) which apparently turn purple when ripe.
The flesh hasba citrus/lime like aroma right now but the flesh definitelybis bitter at this stage.
From what I have read the native Americans would cool em down to a mash and supplement their diet with them and they used it to regulate menstrual cycles or induce abortions.
My guess would be the abortion stuff was during lean times or if they were going into winter but what do I know.
Anyway.....since it is there, and I am not a a “menstruating person” I would love to hear if anyone has a use for these (wine?)
Thanks
Never have heard of them, so of course I had to go look!
Hackberries: Nature’s Grape-Nuts for Winter Survival
https://thegrownetwork.com/hackberries-winter-survival/
So how do you eat them? You’ve got a few options. You can eat the entire thing raw. Just crush it up with your teeth. (Or crush the seeds up with a mortar and pestle, or in a blender with a little water. That would be smartest and easiest.) You could also just scrape off the sweet pulp and spit out the seed, though you’ll be eating a whole lot of hackberries before you get full that way.
The seeds can be crushed and soaked in water (skin on or off) to make a nut milk, similarly to how you make homemade almond milk. Put the crushed seeds in a cup and pour in enough water to cover them. Let it sit overnight. Then strain the liquid through a cloth to catch the bits of seed. Be sure to squeeze the pulp to get out all of the liquid. When I’ve tried this, the results were good, but not as flavorful as almond milk. I expect that the results would improve as you refine your technique.
My favorite hackberry concoction is “Fake-Nuts,” or homemade Grape-Nuts cereal using hackberries. I usually eat the skin and pulp first and just wash the seeds off to get rid of any mouth germs before serving them to my kids. If that sounds gross, just leave the skins on. It will add extra sweetness.
Put the seeds in a blender with a little water and pulse them until you’re reasonably sure that you’ve broken them all up. Then pour them into a skillet with a little oil, and simmer them on the stovetop until the water boils away and you’ve got an oatmeal-like consistency. The heat helps to weaken the shells, making them much easier to chew, similar to Grape-Nuts cereal. But be aware that you occasionally get a stubborn piece, so don’t go crazy.
This concoction is fair on its own, though rather bland unless you’ve left the skins on. I like to add a little maple syrup and perhaps a splash of milk or cream to complement the texture. It makes a good, warming breakfast on a cold winter morning.
I harvested most of the basil that I had going in the greenhouse. I chopped it a bit and packed it in mason jars with olive oil. Doing that was less work than drying it, and I have a feeling that it will better preserve the flavor. Was the first time I've done it that way, so we'll see. I left enough stump on what I harvested for the plants to recover and make another crop. I seeded another 24 starter cells as insurance against the first batch croaking on me. Also seeded some okra in starter cells. I normally go straight into the dirt with okra seed, but it's kind of finicky about germinating so I thought I would try it in the greenhouse and see how that works.
The summer squash has come up and is looking good. The winter squash, gourds, and cukes seem to be doing well and are already starting to bloom. Pole beans are close to a foot tall now. Green salad and radishes were late going in but they really jumped over the last couple weeks. Peppers and cabbages are doing well. I'll stick some mustard and collard seeds in the ground this evening if by some stroke of luck the rain dissipates before it gets here.
I picked up some straw bales on Friday, and got the tomatoes mulched over the weekend. One of the romas was looking fairly well drowned, but it seems to be a bit happier this morning, but I think the best thing to do would be pull it up and replace it. I've got a spare brandywine in a pot that would do nicely.
Nephew came over on Sunday and helped me finish weeding the garlic rows. The potato row could stand the same treatment. Everything else is in pretty good shape for the time being.
The catalpa tree in our front yard looks like it's been shedding popcorn.
The garden is BEAUTIFUL! Great set-up!
We have Catalpa trees, too. They haven’t started blooming yet, but soon. They are messy, but their beauty makes them worth it. Each bloom looks like a small Orchid, to me.
I don’t know how widespread this problem is, but an online friend in Wyoming says that ALL the wheat fields in her area have been plowed under instead of being harvested. She says that, according to the farmer she talked to, it’s because the fields were so heavily contaminated with feral rye, that they’re not worth the cost of harvesting.
I’m pretty sure 2 of the wheat fields in my area had similar contamination last year. It’s really obvious when the wheat is a dwarf variety, which most are these days. It’ll be interesting to see what’s planted in those fields this year.
Given the probable worldwide shortage of grain this year, they should be harvesting this mixed grain and sell it as premixed rye bread flower.
I have a question about grasses and grass seed.
We have several bare spots on the lawn and are looking to reseed.
What kinds of grass are out there that would do well in a northern, Zone 5 climate in full sun or part shade? It can be pretty dry sometimes and we don’t have the ability to water a lot.
What are fescues, ryegrasses, etc and how are they different from each other, and are there any know low growing and slow growing grasses so we don’t have to mow as often.
As an aside, we are starting to have problems with geese on the lawn. We have found droppings and torn up patches of grass all over the place. Why they aren’t up by the pond is beyond me…..
I thought about that. But they probably couldn’t get the same price for it, and with fuel prices what they are, that might have been too much to be worth harvesting.
Madison Parks Turfgrass Mix. THIS is the BEST grass seed mix, ever. We use it all over the place. We are also in Zone 4/5.
https://lacrosseseed.com/la-crosse-seed-turf/turf/turf-mixes/madison-parks-turfgrass-mix-prod3302
You may not be able to find this exact product, so here is the make-up of the types of grass seed in this mix:
50% Kentucky Bluegrass
25% Perennial Ryegrass
25% Creeping Red Fescue
Ideal for establishing premium lawns or upgrading existing turf
• Establishes quickly & permanently
• Improved varieties for better color, shade tolerance & disease resistance
This premium, top performance mix of superior turfgrass varieties thrives in full sun or light shade.
It’s not CHEAP, but it is the best we’ve ever used. Beau has used it on construction sites for decades. It truly IS a seed mix they use on our parks and public places, so it can take a beating. It’s very reliable.
Awesome Catalpa!
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