The Garden Thread - January, 2026

January 1, 2026 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.

If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.

This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

It is impossible to hijack the Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go - and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.

NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Augie, hope you get the treatment you need on your back!

I have an old weightlifting belt that I put on when I have problems and it usually helps.

[Liz]

Broccoli Pasta looks good, we will probably do this! Thanks!

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y/v/w.......a really nice deliciously easy recipe.

[Liz]

Italian Mushroom Soup / w/ Italian Sausage
Hearty soup has the added sophistication of white wine and herbs.

Ing 1 lb mild italian sausage 1 med onion diced 1/2 tsp ea dried sage dried thyme 3 gar/cl minced 4 tbsp butter 1 tbs ol/oil 24 oz mushrooms (can use 16 oz baby bellas-8 oz. shitake) 4 tbs flour 1 c white wine 32 oz strong chicken broth 1/2 c h/cream

Method Heat pot to medium, add sausage. Break into small pieces w/ wooden spatula. Once it begins to brown, add onion. Cook 5 min til onions are translucent, sausage browns. Add sage, thyme, garlic, cook a min. Set aside. In same pot, melt 1 tbl butter; add 1 tbl olive oil. Brown mushrooms in three 8 oz batches, do not crowd pan. Cook each batch about 6 min, stirring to brown. Set aside as they brown. Add 1 tbl butter before adding second and third batches. Re-add mushrooms and sausage mixture and 1 tbl butter. Sprinkle flour over, stir to evenly coat. Cook/stir a min. Add white wine; simmer/evaporate. Add chicken broth and cream. Cook til warm and thickened. Serve garnished.

[Pollard]

At least there won’t be any freezing rain mixed in or right before the snow. I drove to work one morning and found out there was ice under that snow. Fishtailed my way up a 4 mile county road. Stopped at the top to decide whether to continue or turn around but turning around would have meant trying to get up a steeper hill. Then a county plow/salt truck went by so I followed him to town.

I’ll be ordering tires Friday/payday for the new(to me) truck. Tires on it aren’t bald but getting close to the wear indicators. It’s 2wd so I’ll be putting some concrete blocks in the back of the bed tomorrow. Pallets to keep them to the back. Has dual tanks but the rear one leaks according to previous owner so I don’t get that 19 gallons of weight back there. New tank, full fuel pump assembly and then find out if the selector valve works. Someday. Meanwhile, I’m not touching that selector switch.

Looks like 3 inches total snow where I’m at with most of it being Saturday day and night. I might take the long way out Sunday morning and avoid that 4 mile county road since it’s towards the end of their list for plowing/salting. Too lumpy for effective plowing anyway. Long way is a few miles of gravel with no big hills and then state hwy that MODOT takes care of.

Battery is 6 years old but it cranked the engine right up on a 9 degree morning so 1 degree shouldn’t be much different. Been meaning to look at the brand/model of it.

Crawled under and fixed the exhaust yesterday. The cat and everything else had come off of the Y pipe. Open Y pipe was kinda loud. Was that way when I bought it. Had to flare the end of the cat around the bottom with some Vise Grips and file a burr off the top of the Y pipe to get them to start going together and used a chain and binder to pull them together more. Couple of screws to keep them together and will weld them up sometime when it’s not so windy. Nice tight, hole free cab, XLT Lariat, so I guess it came with plenty of sound deadening because I can hardly hear the engine now.

[Paul R.]

NWS has us over 7” of snow forecast now, go 50 miles south and it’s 10”, and the track keeps shifting north. Friday night / Saturday morning look roughest: Snow, gusty winds, and 6 deg. F. That’s about 20 deg. below average for us, for a low, then Monday and Tuesday mornings we drop a bit lower, but w/ light winds. Taking care of the chickens is not gonna be fun\, and our old cat (discussion in my post 374, above) is going to be a real pain.

[Paul R.]

I’m going to put the automatic charger on our Chevy Tahoe for a few hours Friday evening just to be on the safe side, maybe put the automatic lower current charger on our Outback. Daughter-san is supposed to drive up Friday - she’d better start early to beat the snow...

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Pollard F-150 XLT Lariat; Nice upgrade! Hope you get a lot of use from it. (I suppose you could probably put a camper on the back and live out of it if you had to!)

I have a Battery from O'Reilly automotive that lasted 6 or 7 years. Was not cheap, but it cost lest than Delco.

I see some snow right now in the area SE of Rolla. Not much snow here, but we will get cold.

Something on Ford Engines. Hope yours is a good one.

3 WORST and 4 BEST Ford Engines You Can Buy

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Joel Salatin is a favorite, as is Wendell Berry! Great article; Thanks!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

That Broccoli Pasta looks like a winner. So easy with simple ingredients.

My ‘Pasta Bake with Meatballs’ the other night turned out really good. The meatballs were (frozen) extras leftover from Christmas - I made that Meatballs & Jelly/Chili Sauce Appetizer for a family gathering - and the Pasta Sauce was homemade this past summer by my neighbor. Local Parm & Mozz from Local Cows. :)

I was going to go on a Grocery Run because it’ll be the warmest day today at 23 degrees, but it also snowed overnight (about 2”) so I’m going to stay home and make soup today and play with my new bread maker some more. :) The only thing we’re low on is milk, but I have powdered on hand, as well as shelf-stable so we’ll probably survive. Down to two sticks of butter - which could be a problem, LOL!

I really need to get in the habit of a super-stock up before the first snow flies. I am SO in ‘Hibernation Mode’ right now, it’s ridiculous!

Soup I’m making, today:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/232277/creamy-chicken-gnocchi-soup/

[Liz]

Mmmmmm.....love your soup recipe....lots of veggies.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I can hardly wait until I’m old and incontinent, LOL!

Dolly appears to be on the mend from her UTI, but she has woken me up around midnight 2 nights in a row for a potty break. At least she’s doing that! She has her last potty break around 7pm - then she goes to bed - smart girl!

Neither of us has the heart to put her back out in the Puppy Pen kennel in the barn in this kind of weather, so she may end up in our biggest indoor kennel with a blanket on one end, and newspapers on the other if there are other future problems.

Growin’ old ain’t for Sissies!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Placed an order with Seed Savers, today:

Sunflower, Mongolian Giant
Flower, Calendula Mixture
Pepper, Wisconsin Lakes
Pepper, Chervena Chushka
Flower, Tip Top Nasturtium
Flower, SSE Zinnia Mix
Bean, Lina Sisco’s Bird Egg
Lettuce, Tango
Lettuce, Yugoslavian Red

http://www.seedsavers.org (I worked for them for eight of the happiest years of my life!)

Mostly old favorites, but the Mongolian Giant Sunflower is new to me, as is Lina Sisco’s Bird Egg. It is a bush drying bean - VERY pretty, and I will over plant in the two beds where most of my spring bulbs are planted and they can both grow and dry right there. No muss, no fuss! (Making life easier for myself in the garden is the GOAL this season!)

I also discovered a new name for the next female puppy I raise - ‘Tarahumara’ which is a Sunflower. We already have a female Plott Hound named ‘Arikara’ - another Sunflower - who answers to ‘Ricky’ so ‘Tarahumara’ could answer to ‘Tara.’ :)

The unique names are good selling points and also look SO COOL on their registration papers. ;)

My late Basset Hound, ‘Rufus’ had fancy papers. His Mom was ‘Sophie’ and I forget who had Dad was, but his registered name ended up being, ‘Sophie’s Choice Rufus.’

[MomwithHope]

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[Pollard]

They raised us up from 3 to 6 inches and temp Fri night/Sat morning low from 1 to 3 degrees. I’ve had to put a battery charger on prior vehicles for single digit temps. I would put it on an hour before I had to leave so it would be a nice hot battery, 13+ volts. Seemed to work better than hooking it up the night before because then it would charge but drop down to maintain mode and be the standard 12.7 full charge.

[Paul R.]

Heh, we are up to 12” now, and lows at least one, maybe 2 nights, down to “0” deg. F. Likely 5 days without exceeding the metric “0”. :-(

I’ll be calling Rural King this morning to see if they have a big stock of cracked corn (energy food for our chickens.) I wasn’t planning on going in until Friday morning, but, if RK is getting low on cracked corn and the 40 lb. bags of bird seed (not a bad deal @ $10.99), I’ll likely head in today.

I’d better tell wifey to fill her car with gas too, even though prices have jumped up again. :-(

[Liz]

Spinach Salad / Hot Bacon Dressing
Added bacon crumbles, hd-cooked eggs make for a light lunch.

SALAD: Spinach to fill salad bowl 6 black olives, 1/4 c cooked bacon crumbles
3 sliced mushrooms 3 thin red onion slices 1/4 c croutons 2 hd cooked eggs.

DRESSING: sliced bacon, 2 tbl ea sugar, ketchup 1 tbl ea chp onion, red wine vinegar, Worc.

Method--Cook bacon crisp; plate. To bacon drippings, add sugar, ketchup, onion,
vinegar and Worc. Btb, reduce slightly. Add bacon; pour over salad; serve at once.

[FamiliarFace]

Thanks for that recipe! Looks yummy! I love gnocchi but only have a few recipes that I use, so this will be a new one.

[FamiliarFace]

That looks amazing, Liz! Thx!

[Liz]

That Italian Mushroom Soup looks amazing, Liz! Thx!

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y/v/w.......a really great recipe

[Diana in Wisconsin]

It makes a HUGE pot of soup, so use your largest soup kettle. AND it gets BETTER every time it’s re-heated. We had it with Popovers last night for supper. The Popovers weren’t as fluffy as I would’ve liked. I think I’ve only gotten them PERFECT just once so far in a lifetime of Popover making!