My Brother asked me for this Recipe

I start by sauteing a couple of cloves of garlic,
some celery and a couple of carrots. I add carrots to any tomato dishes like this because it takes the sharpness of the tomatoes down a notch or two. Then I add herbs from the garden,
in season, and spices to those ingredients.

Except that it is not a recipe. It is sort of a framework for soups, stews, and other sauce or liquid based foods.

Today I chopped sweet basil, orange mint, top onions and
oregano into the mix. In summer more herbs are available;
in winter jarred ones, such as below, are the best I can do. At this time in the process
you can change direction from the tomato based soup or sauce, and head toward a traditional meat and vegetable stew, by adding other vegetables
and directing your efforts toward gravy rather than tomato sauce.

I chopped some of these into the sauce, 
just because I have them. 
They add a little bit of fresh, summery flavor
but you can get along without them

I put grated parmesan both in the sauce itself and into the meatballs
Don't be afraid of it; it adds a lot of flavor. The jars contain sauce I make in summer, from roasted tomatoes, herbs and seasonings. I freeze it for use in winter.
The first year I tried it I used the glass pints, but now we have freezer safe plastic quart sized deli containers

Some of both of these go into the meatballs
Along with a little milk, an egg, or even a bit of mayo to moisten

My favorite meats for meatballs
I have also used straight venison, beef, or added lamb
or bulk sausage to them. Depends on
what is in the freezer

Fennel seed goes in anything with Italian sausage 
but not in the meatballs.

We took his family some Italian Sausage soup I made from it last week. This time I am making meatballs in sauce. The boss can't eat much in the way of carbs, so we will not be having them with spaghetti.  

Simmering now.
I like to simmer it for a good while but you can serve it as soon
as the meatballs temp
165 or so

Cheat code
I usually add a jar of this, along with whatever water
it takes to rinse it out good.
It extends the homemade stuff and smooths out the edges.
You don't really need it though.

Lion's Ear

BFFF (Big fat fluffy fellow)

 I'm a sucker for odd plants. Big plants. Hard to grow plants. Almost all plants. 

I found this one over at Sunny Crest early this past summer. it was along the back edge of the greenhouse where we choose our tomato plants each year, looking gangly and kinda scraggly, but utterly different from anything I'd ever seen.

It was labeled Lion's Ear. 

Seemed like a decent buy at around five bucks, so it came home with us.

Turns out it is a South African member of the mint family and is reportedly popular with hummingbirds. 

What a time I had getting it going. It is a BIG plant and it was rooted in a tiny pot. It was so root bound there was barely room for dirt. I planted it near the arbor where it would have some support for its lengthy stems and watered it and watered it and watered it, every single day. This btw was before the summer monsoons started and it rained seven times a day for weeks.

Anyhow, it struggled hard for a while and I just about gave up on it, but then as summer slowed to a crawl it took off. It is now taller than the arbor by at least a foot and still growing. However, the hummers pretty much ignored it until migration got serious. Now it is the hit of the neighborhood, with Ruby-throated Hummingbirds stabbing their beaks into the fuzzy flower tubes like knights jousting for nectar. It must be good stuff for them, as they look like tiny flying bowling balls, they are so fat. (Check out the waistline of the little guy above! He's gonna need suspenders to keep his pants up.)

I really liked it and will grow it again next year if I can get it. Worth every bit of the effort it took.

For the Win

Slightly broken storage tote planted to green beans,
and an accidental canna, which must have been in the dirt

 

Container gardening.....

Food on the Farm

Yellow tomato sauce to freeze for winter

Red ditto

Bizzy Lizzie

Birdin' and Jammin'

When the weather radar shows big blue sunbursts of migratory birds taking off early in the morning, right within fifty miles of your home, it's a good time to go birding.

It has been amazing around here this week! I didn't think I was going to crack 80 species this year...so many common, counted-every-year birds have been absent. 

Swamp Sparrow, species #81 for the year

However, now that migration is really moving the yards are full of birds, just full. Picked up three new ones in the past two days, Black-throated Green Warbler, Prairie Warbler, and Swamp Sparrow, to crack 80 and even hit 81. I sure would like to see a record this year so i go out every morning at least for a few minutes.

And, of course, it is also the season of putting by. Three batches of grape jelly the other day and Liz is busy freezing squash and tomato sauce and such. Big pumpkins are forming up in the top garden, the last flowers are blazing. We use fresh herbs with a lavish hand. they are so good and soon will be so gone. I keep a few indoors, but it is a job to keep them growing.

Frost soon, alas. 

Circles

So many years ago...the shop is closed now I guess...but I used to buy herb plants and bring them home. They have been moved so many times to so many different gardens over the years, perhaps the best traveled mint in town. There used to be many more kinds, but alas, they have perished from winters and oats and such.

I lost the Apple Mint last winter, so cold, so cold....and the Thyme, but that is always chancy.



When it was decided to drop the big Honey Locust...which hasn't happened yet...I moved the tiny remaining Orange Mint plant and a Chocolate Mint Liz bought last year to new beds near the house.

They liked their new beds and have flourished. And in the interests of potential income next spring I have been cutting and rooting and potting. They take to it like bunnies, multiplying happily on windowsills and upstairs in the big windows there.

I have discovered that the plastic tool trays out of old tool boxes from garage sales are perfect for small plant pots. Nice handles, and you can fill them with water and keep thirsty plants comfy. Quite a few plants fit in each.

Today I picked a bunch more of all three mints...I have a tiny Peppermint too...and put more to root, and more in pots, and more upstairs. To root them in water, one must strip off the lower leaves. These get washed and dried on a paper plate for cooking later...or at least the Orange Mint does...great seasoning for meats and sauces.

 I ordered a package of Apple Mint seeds on Amazon today, with rewards I get for taking surveys....feels like a circle to me.

You May be a Farm Girl if

BTW, this is Liz's arm

You run over to the milk house windowsill at the barn to get a roll of Vetrap to doctor on your arm, upon which you have poison ivy, or wild parsley poisoning, or some other natural, outdoor, chemical, nasty burn.

You are certainly a farm girl if it doesn't bother you that it is calf scours yellow.

And, yes, Virginia, there are beans. Beans for dinner last night. Another big bowl in the fridge waiting to be put up today. One half row almost ready, the picked over rows putting out a few already, and at least three more rows in the upper garden not in bloom yet and needing weeding, but growing. 

I am seeing beans in my sleep.

Upper Garden Done

Becky and I finished it today. Everything is planted, except possibly some pumpkins or gourds in some new ground. (Dear friend, Numberwise, we kept you in mind as we filled the rows. Extra pretty much everything if it grows, which is always an issue, especially in a wet year like this.)

A sad day for us though.....

After two weeks of having our boy living at home and working just a few miles away, he is back in our nation's capital, far away from hearth and home....or heart and home, as it should be. It was nice while it lasted, although I wasn't crazy about the job he was on...right out in the middle of that mean old snake of a river that runs past the place. They don't call it the Mighty Mohawk for nothing. My dear  brother is still there for a while...hey, Mappy, watch your step out there! With all this rain it is extra high and mighty.

This morning brought adventures in guinea hen chasing. Liz had them in a coop with a broody hen, sitting on turkey, guinea, and hen eggs. Suddenly they decided that beating her up and breaking the eggs was the thing to do.

So we had a capture committee meeting and put them in the same house as the peahen, although not in her coop. They had better behave!

The boss is baling some hay, not the best as it has been rained on a bit, but I have never seen a year where we weren't grateful for every bale we put up. I am sure not looking forward to unloading it, but it's got to go in. Gonna rain again tomorrow.

Waiting for the Garden

Beans are in bloom. 

Squash and carrots are up. 

Peas are getting big.

So are the varmints.

Transition and Transformation

Out with the old

From a weed patch full of nettles and cow parsley to a squash garden in just a few steps.

This actually was a small garden bed where I grew beans and sometimes tomatoes and root crops. However, with the recent rainy years, it grew overgrown and was abandoned.

The boss fixed it for me yesterday while he still had the rock bucket on the skid steer.

He took out the weeds and all the roots and replaced them with well-rotted cow manure, which looks just like dark, rich, earth.


Planting it to squash first thing today.

The robins moved right in. 

The Supervisor

For Jonna, Cathy, Linda

And all of you winter-weary good folks out there. The geraniums are already showing signs of damping off. Darned things anyhow; they are so hard to grow.

However, these hardy little herbs are confident that spring and summer will get here and give them room to grow and in the meantime they are thriving in the mini-greenhouse in the living room.

They give me hope.

Black Friday Shopping

http://pwconserve.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/insects-are-our-friends-red-flat-bark-beetle/

Gonna be big this year. Heck, I'm already up and at it. 

Well, actually I'm waiting for Liz to help me with this gargantuan project. 

Oh, the hours freezing on some sidewalk in front of some mega-store. Oh, the jostling, and the crowds and the rudeness. Oh, the tents, perched in doorways. Oh, the hype and hoopla.

Oh, the greed.

Oh, wait. We got an online coupon for 15% off from Pinetree Garden Seeds so we are going to sit here in the (relatively, there are dogs, and cats and men and all) peaceful kitchen and order us up some herbs to try making some herb boxes to sell this spring.

And some cluster grande tomatoes. You know those ones they sell in the market? Four or five to a stem, nice and red and round, yes those. We grow them most years and we are out of seed.

And zucchetta. We are out of zucchetta seed. Can't have that.

All you will hear is the clicking of the keyboard and the discussion of what we can't live without right now and what will have to wait for our spring order.

And the slurping of coffee. If we are not careful, you might hear that.

Found this guy on the porch the other day. No worries, not letting him near the ice cream
He was an amazingly pretty color

It appears that this sale is open to all, so if you need some seeds, hit the website. We have had real good luck with them over a number of years. Lots of interesting oddities, heirloom seeds, and mixes, such as the lettuce mixes, which are phenomenal. And no, they are not paying me...they don't even know me.