Dreaming about my Garden

Look what arrived in the mail...




Be still my heart...Organic Gardening magazine. Not only will I enjoy the beautiful pictures and reading the articles, I spent some time this morning ordering advertized seed catalogs. I promise to recycle those catalogs when I've finished! (Catalogs are a must-have in rural Kansas).



Receiving this magazine has got my mind working on next summer's garden. Are you starting to think about your garden? I'm convinced that's what these bitterly cold, windswept days are for. I plan to curl up in front of the fire and leaf through garden catalogs to help me make my final plans for spring.




Our soil is less than desirable...rock, hard clay. However, a huge, old organic gardening book tells me that clay soil is full of nutrients, it's just a matter of loosening things up with sand, compost and other additives. We began the process last year. Our first garden produced some teeny, tiny plants. Now I'm interested to see if our soil quality and therefore plant health (size) will improve this season.

For now, I'll brush thoughts of soil aside and concentrate on fruits and vegetables. Which ones to add? Which ones to leave behind? Any new interesting varieties? Must-have tools? (I would like a kneeling pad!). Mmmm...I'm already thinking of the first salad and BLT.

Comfort Food Season - A recipe for that last Garden Zucchini

I love comfort food! That sentence has many, many, many meanings. Your comfort food is probably different from mine. It's most certainly in the mind of the beholder. I suppose the concept can be taken too far. Having a special treat every once in a while to say "job well done", "I'm glad that's over" or "that cranberry-spice scone sounds soooo good" is ok. I sure hope so 'cause that's the conversation I had with myself yesterday before I ate the scone from Bluestem Coffee House following my test. To use food to comfort ourselves daily or fill a void may not be wise. I suppose what we select is important, too. A pound of fudge, five candy bars or whole bag of chips... probably not-so-good. Anyway, back to loving comfort food...

You may have noticed a trend in my cooking...lots of pasta, red sauce and fresh ingredients (where possible). It's because these foods are comforting to me. Strange, I know. They come warm out of the skillet or the oven (in the case of the dish below), they taste great, they're filling and they're healthy. I can't help it...knowing I'm responsible for feeding the four men in my house leads me to spend a lot of time trying to find healthy, tasty foods.


Some of my garden plants this summer were teeny, tiny compared with normal growth. My zucchini plant was one and it didn't produce any harvestable veggies until the very end of the season. After sauteing a couple and a few chilly nights, it was time for some comfort food!

Pasta Bake with Zuccini

1 16 oz. box of Ziti, Mostociolli or Penne (I only use about 3/4 a box)

1 lb. ground beef

Red Sauce (in a hurry, Newman's Own Basil and Tomato is delish)

4-6 oz. Mozzarella Cheese

1/4 cup Parmesian Cheese

A Zucchini, chopped (size based on how well your family likes zucchini, my theory is smaller is less noticeable...)

Start your pasta a-cookin'. As you can see I throw in whatever I've got.

While the pasta is cooking, brown the ground beef, pour off the grease and add your tomato sauce. Spice her up if you like. Add your zucchini for a minute or two, just to soften. The zucchini will finish cooking in the oven.

Mix the sauce together with your noodles.

Dump the whole she-bang into a casserole dish.

Shread some mozzeralla over the top and sprinkle with Parmesian. Cover with foil and pop in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until slightly bubbly and serve. Yummmmm-O.

Now that's comfort food!

I Just Love My Landscaping

While planning our new house, my mind often wandered to landscaping. Visions of the Missouri Botanical Gardens in my home city floated in my mind...then I would come crashing back to reality. Reducing our utility bills with shrubs and trees probably should have come to mind, as this side benefit becomes more important all the time. My thoughts, however, were of blending the sharp edges of the house into the countryside and of shifting an open field into a beautiful, shady retreat.

White Hydrangea

Last fall, we worked as a family tackling our first project, the front landscaping, with two willing participants and three forced-labor children. The first job, unloading a truckload of composted manure...a shovelful at a time, was not terribly popular.

Moonbeam Coreopsis

Next up, spreading a truckload of mulch, which we purchased at Hardwoods, Inc. in Belvue, Kansas. We have a very old truck that we took over and had them fill for a couple of nickels. Well, a few more than a couple, but it was very inexpensive. Again, we all grabbed shovels and blanketed the area with fragrant cidar mulch.

Pink Blushing Knockout Rose

The final step was, of course, my favorite part, digging the holes for the plants that had been delivered by Master Landscaping of Manhattan. Jill at Master Landscaping drew our design taking our ideas and giving them a lovely polish.

Little Princess Spirea (in front), Royal Star Magnolia (on the end)

When we built the house, we decided a sprinkler system was more important than a refrigerator or windows. Even so we still wavered back and forth because of the expense. I'm pleased to say we have all three. So after planting, the hubby re-adjusted the sprinkler system to water the new plantings and we sat back to watch. (sat back...ha ha ha...more accurately, we were freed to work on something else).

The front landscape has many purposes...

Prairie Fire Crabapple with Veronica all around

Not only beauty, but a park for the animals...

an extra run space for our basketball playing boys.

... and for us, landscaping is a relaxation opportunity...strolling to take in the bursting blooms, pulling a few weeds and breathing in the fresh air.

Homegrown Tomatoes

Oh, my! It's been a fun week in the garden. Between rain storms, I headed to the garden

...and this is what I found.

This beautiful, BeefSteak tomato made incredible tasting BLTs.

The rest became frozen tomato sauce. I used an EASY method my Dad taught me.

Wash the tomatoes, remove the core, cut into quarters and drop into a big pot. We keep the skins for the fiber and nutrients...and because it's much easier! If you prefer you may blanch the tomatoes and remove the skins first. You may also remove the seeds, too. Not this girl, too much fuss.

Now bring the pile of tomatoes in the pot slowly to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat to allow the now nearly-liquified mixture to simmer. Simmer to evaborate off extra water and stir occasionally to check the thickness. This may take several hours depending on the quanitity and water content. When desired thickness is reached, remove from heat and let cool. Ladle into blender and puree. Ladle into freezer bags, mark the date and throw in the freezer.

It's wonderful sauce for pizzas, spaghetti and soups. It will last about 6 months, so if you have more than 6 months worth, you will need to take the canning plunge. I haven't tried canning yet, but hear it's not hard. My pile made 4 pint bags of sauce, which will last us less than a month in the fall, so I haven't yet felt compelled to can. I am, however, toying with the idea because I could then have diced tomatoes.

If you have any experience canning, I would love to hear about it.

Garden Update

I just couldn't let you get away for the weekend without a garden update!!! You've probably been wondering, waiting with baited breath, dying to know...ha ha ha hee hee hee. I hope to not bore you, 'cause it's been so busy in the garden this week, like finding treasure every single day!

My youngest came along with me to the garden yesterday, at first to help pull some weeds, then he noticed some very red tomatoes. Off he went to the house and he came back with two very large bowls. He meant business.




It was fun to be in the garden with him, because he was very excited. He showed me the cherry and roma tomatoes he was picking several times as though they were jewels. I know that feeling! He was even a bit annoyed that I stopped the action for this picture.



He looked in all the good hiding places.

He also picked our last batch of green beans. We've had them at dinner four times in the last week or so.

Meanwhile, Mom worked on the weeds:

I had definitely neglected this particular bed, because look what I pulled up with the weeds.

Now the bed is ready for planting. It still has carrots, green onions and leeks growing...they need some company, I think.

Time to make Pesto with this basil. I hope I haven't waited too late as they are just showing flower buds. I learned from Susie this weekend that you can cut them back for regrowing several times in one season! All is not lost if it is too late as we have already enjoyed Ensalada Caprese several times.

Look at this beauty - Peaches and Cream. I was so thrilled to open this ear and see the beautiful corn inside. Stunned may be a better description of the feeling...no worms and lovely kernels. If an amateur like me can do it, so can you!

We boiled the corn up for dinner and it was spectacular!

Have a great weekend!

Harvesting Green Beans

Since it's a first year garden at our new house, I planted a little of everything this year. Why not experiment a bit to find out what grows well AND disappears at the dinner table?

The green beans snuck up on me...

I thought I should take a look the other day and was surprised to see a batch ready to be picked, right that minute!

I'm afraid I was forced to relieve my first garden assistant of her duties. She was a real pain in the ....y'know. Immediately following our sojourns to the garden, she would need a bath, dry, fluff and curl. Way too much work! So I hired a new assistant, our trusty Lab, Bailey. She sat in the path while I enjoyed picking green beans. The panting was a little annoying, but hey, one should not be picky.

She looked the green beans over carefully.

"I prefer Zucchini".

Well, I never. Solo may be the answer.

We steamed those beans up, added a little butter and they disappeared. Don't you love seeing kids eat vegetables?

Ensalada Caprese

We picked the first tomato yesterday, an Early Girl. She received the royal treatment, a pairing with fresh basil (also from the garden) and mozzarella with a drizzling of extra virgin olive oil.










My youngest son took a look and said "fancy food." My husband and I grinned and explained that he would NOT like it. He eyeballed the cheese for a second and took off. Whew, that was a close one.

I would have loved to have fresh mozzarella, but it's a bit of a drive to get it, so we made due with just regular... It didn't seem to matter...

Cultivating Weeds?

There's a bit of a weed problem along the garden paths. Pulling all those weeds has been on the to-do list but just somehow has never made it to the top.

When I toured Sharen's garden she mentioned using Round Up on weeds in her garden...in her garden!!! She said just be careful to only spray the weed and you will be fine. My Dad worked for Monsanto Co., the maker of Round Up, for many years, so I was more than willing to give this a try.

This is only 24 hours later!!! All the vegetables seem to be just fine. Round Up, where have you been all my summer?

While I was out there, I spied this teeny, tiny watermelon. The little sign is 1" x 2" as a comparison. I am hoping it will grow, but some things in my garden are just teeny, tiny this year... more on that later.




The Roma tomatoes are not teeny, tiny, however. Aren't they lookin' good? We're eating cherry tomatoes now and will have some other varieties soon. Can't wait!

Homegrown Spuds

We headed to the garden to harvest potatoes - Yukon Gold Potatoes.

"We" became my husband, Bart, as he was having so much fun digging up the potatoes. I pulled some weeds instead. Too bad you can't harvest weeds and do something fabulous with them!




What to do with freshly dug potatoes? How about a surprisingly easy Shrimp Boil that looked something like the picture above. Oh, was it good! A messy meal where you appreciate all of the flavors.


Shrimp Boil
1 lb. uncooked shrimp
1 lb. smoked sausage (I used turkey keilbasa), 3/4 inch diagonal-sliced pieces
4 or 5 ears of corn, halfed
Equivalent of one large potato per person, quartered
1 onion, halved then quartered
1 teas. garlic powder or 1 clove minced
1 teas. dried Parsley or 1 tablespoon fresh chopped

Bring water to boil in large pot. Cut potatoes into 1 inch pieces and boil until almost tender. Add shrimp, sausage, corn, onion, garlic and parsley. Cook until shrimp is fully pink (about 4 min.). Be careful to not overcook the shrimp as it will become tough.

Fortunately, we had a nice, little haul of potatoes. Hmmm...need to get thinking of some other messy, yummy meals.

Anticipating Blackberry Pie

I have a thing for blackberries and especially blackberry pies, blackberry cobblers, blackberry scones or blackberries over ice cream. If all goes well, we will have blackberry pie in two to three weeks.

The blackberry plants are loaded with berries.

We bought these plants from Stark Brothers Nursery in Louisiana, Missouri, just north of my hometown of St. Louis. We received the bare root plants in the mail and they were incredibly healthy. We planted the berry plants three years ago and, to be honest, have hardly lifted a finger since except to pick.



On our property, we also have a stately, ginormous Mulberry tree.

It's the "As-old-as-your-greatgrandma" variety. It's the overseer and wisdom-giver to a number of smaller Mulberry trees surrounding it.

I hadn't eaten mulberries before living here. They are very sweet, yet watery tasting with an impossible to remove inner stem. Could this be why you don't hear about Mulberry pie as apoused to the coveted Blackberry pie? When I make Blackberry pie, I'm my mother-in-law's favorite daughter-in-law! She too covets Blackberry pie. Let's not dwell on the fact that I am her ONLY daughter-in-law.

The countdown is on! I'm dreaming of Blackberry pie.

Honey, I Shrunk the Carrots

These teeny-weeny carrots were planted more than a month ago. Maybe, just maybe, this is normal growth, but I suspect our clay soil is stunting them a bit! Those are potato plants towering over them. We replaced the unbelieveably compacted clay soil in this location with "garden grade"...whatever that is. Our neighbors called us "cheaters" although their corn only grew to 2 feet last year!

I'm not heartbroken over the carrots as they have these itsy, bitsy leeks and some peewee green onions to keep them company. Does anyone have a magnifying glass?

I've been reading up on improving clay soil. One recommendation is to mix in 4 inches of organic matter each year and another recommends adding sand with frequent cultivation. Follow these measures and they say you will see improvement in 3 to 4 years. What??? Gasp, choke, spit...I'm NOT that patient! I'm gonna need to stick to cheating...clearly I'll still need to augment the soil as even the cheating soil contains some clay, but I'm ok with that.

The tomatoes seem to be doing fine. I've wrestled them into some cages and am hoping to keep 'em tame.

The corn looks swell and will certainly be "knee high by the 4th of July".

These green bean plants also look great! We're still eating lettuce and spinach...yummo! Next may be some tomatoes!