The Bloomery

Just a few pics. of the yard in bloom. I finally got my Italian Purple Artichoke seedlings in the ground - They are adorable little things! The tomato, and pepper seedlings are thriving. I need to get some pics. of those when I have some time. People always look at me funny when I tell them that I like to get my tomatoes in the ground by the end of February. Well, here in Zone 9 with the aid of artificial lighting which allows the seedling a six week indoor head start, protective cloches and the right type of seeds, tomatoes can absolutely be augmented to go in to the ground and do well even in the Winter month of February. I must admit though, I did get a slightly late start this year and didn't get them in to the ground until March this year.

Here's my little volunteer sunflower that sprouted right after the holidays and is now in full bloom.

African Daisies in lilac and eggplant are so drought tolerant and easy to grow - They reward me for neglecting them year after year.

My gardening plans are rather ambitious this year - I have added another 250 square feet of garden beds to my existing 700 square feet or so. This gives me almost 1,000 sq. ft. of garden which will supply our household with most of our fresh organic, heirloom produce over the next 9 months or so.

Butterscotch Apple Sweet Rolls

I subscribe to the King Arthur monthly bakers magazine The Baking Sheet and in this month's publication there was a particularly tasty sounding recipe for Butterscotch Apple Sweet Rolls. I decided to make these last night.

The recipe starts off with a slightly sweet, rich, egg based yeast dough which is proofed and rolled in the same fashion as cinnamon rolls. 1 1/2 pounds of tart apples are cooked down in butter brown sugar and cinnamon. Once the dough has had its' final rise, it's rolled in to a 16x11 inch rectangle, slathered with the cooled butter-apple mixture and rolled in to a cylinder. It's cut in to 12 good sized disks, each one placed cut side down in a 9x13 buttered baking pan. These bake and get quite gooey and carmely in the process. While still hot out of the oven, a simple powdered sugar and cream glaze is slathered on top.

Even though it was a bit over the top, I decided to also make 2 quarts of vanilla bean ice cream in my ice cream maker. A friend had sent me a pound of fresh organic Tahitian vanilla beans and since they don't keep very well, I decided to make use of a portion. We served the apple rolls hot, gooey and glazed with a scoop of the vanilla bean ice cream atop, a la mode style if you will. I wish I had a picture to post but alas, the poor things did not make it through the night.

Happy Monday

It's only 10:30 but I can't wait to get home to see my kiddies and tend the garden. I'm installing drip irrigation to my beds sometime this week. I'm so excited because drip systems really help to ward off many of the diseases that can plague vegetable gardens. keeping the soil moist and the foliage dry is key to staving off mosaic virus, wilts, mold, fungus and many other insidious summer garden culprits. Furthermore and just as important, drip systems conserve water and save time.

I'll also be planting my artichokes, lemon verbena, anahiem pepper, bell pepper and marjoram seedlings this weekend. I was planning to do it last weekend but there was too much happening *sigh*.

The weekend before last, I helped my neighbor Lisa plant a vegetable garden. She had been longing for one but didn't have a clue about where to start. We went to the garden supply store together and purchased some FoxFarm organic soil. I LOVE fox farm products, they are simply amazing and I have nothing but great results from using their products. Any how, we also picked up some steer manure. Fox farm organic soil incorporates bat guano and earthworm castings right in to their mix. It's not cheap but it's the best as far as store-bought soil goes. So we double dug the soil and mixed in the steer manure and a few bags of Fox Farm. She's got a serious snail/slug problem resulting from massive bushes in her yard so we had to use Sluggo - It's not my favorite method but it's relatively harmless when compared to others products. I went and surveyed her garden this morning before heading to work. It's pretty and functional as any jardin potager should be. We completely encircled the garden with marigolds and I was delighted to see a sea of little lettuce seedlings just beginning to poke through. As I was standing there a neighbor who lives a few doors down, drove by and asked me if I could help her do the same in her yard... I need to find a way to clone myself.

This weekend...

the kids have two birthday parties to attend, t-ball practice and little league practice. One thing that I am really beginning to learn about parenting is that in some cases, more is less. Simpler scheduling can be better and promote less stress in children and parents. The more we allow our kids to cram their already brimming schedules, the more stress, chaos and general lack of serious devotion seems to occur. Sometimes we cram their schedules for them regardless of how willing they are to assume said schedule.

It is my humble opinion that kids can focus and achieve a better equilibrium when their choices are pared down. As much as the word is out that kids need way more physical activity than they're getting, there is such as thing as going too far. It is my belief that kids need down time just like we adults do. This is not to be confused with time spent watching TV or playing video games. I see down time as space in their hectic schedule to process the events of the school day, and reconcile their emotions. Reading books, coloring, crafts, gardening, artwork and writing all constitute down time in my mind. Taking a nap to recharge the battery fits in to my definition - we all need a nap from time to time.

I suppose what I'm objecting to is a schedule that looks something like this:

1. Wake up
2. Eat breakfast
3. go to school - 6 hours - 1st grade up
4. come home from school
5. go to practice A, B, or C or a combination thereof depending on the day
6. come home from practice and eat dinner
7. homework - it takes at least an hour per child these days
8. get ready for bed
9. do it all over again

It doesn't leave much in the way of down time. I think the average kid has virtually no time for reflection or time to just be a kid. Once you start socializing with other parents who have kids of similar age to yours, there seems to be this strange cult like mentality to cram as much "activity" in to your child's life as possible. Your success in effectively "cramming" is measured by other parents in the following way: Jane says, "Susie is horseback riding, taking gymnastics and acting lessons, Peter is playing soccer, goes to Junior Science Camp after that and is on a swim team that meets on the weekends... So what do your kids do?" This whipping out of the measuring stick is standard operating procedure. For those of you who have kids old enough to participate in extra curricular activities, you know. For those who are planning to have kids some day, you will find out. It all adds up to the fact that our society doesn't see value in taking breaks let alone stopping to smell the proverbial flowers. We horde our children's time the way that we horde just about everything else.

My Big Fat Seed Planting Party!

This weekend, as part of my busy agenda, I'm hosting a seed swapping/planting party for some friends and neighbors. I have way too many seeds even for my ambitious gardening goals and would like to share the wealth. I must have over 200 types of seeds in my collection. Most come from Heirloom Seeds, a few from Stokes a handful from Park Seeds and the rest from Gary Ibsen of The Tomato Festival in Carmel. Gary is an heirloom tomato god amongst men. Aside from the 20 or so varieties I have purchased from him in the past, he was kind enough to have sent me 18 hard if not impossible to find heirloom tomato seed packets from his collection just this week. We made a little barter, his seeds for my oil and balsamic vinegar. Gary's collection, all of which is grown organically, includes over 600 types of heirloom (non hybridized) tomatoes.

Pictured above is a small swatch, part of a much larger jungle of swiss chard which popped up over night in my winter vegetable garden. I love swiss chard for this reason and many others. It's a fantastic vegetable because it loves abuse, grows anywhere, tastes amazing and is uber good for the body. The yellow flowers are a broccoli plant going to seed. This relatively warm weather has sent many of my cold weather vegetables in to flower.

Cheese!

Garden Pics.

Lemon Scented Geranium in Bloom



Purple Tulip in Creeping Rosemary

Doughnuts

The kids and I made doughnuts this weekend. Good stuff! This picture shows them fresh and hot after being fried in grape seed oil. We dunked them in vanilla glaze while still hot. The results were akin to what you might get at Krispy Creme except much tastier and slightly better for you. Krispy Creme uses hydrogenated shortening to fry their doughnuts.
The boys love the opportunity to roll any extra dough resulting from a baking/cooking project. Unfortunately, in all of their excitement they over exercised the gluten in this yeast dough causing their doughnuts to be dense and unpalatable once out of the fryer. They now understand why we let dough take a rest.
I'm standing off to the side explaining that even though they're having a blast, the resulting "doughnuts" after taking this abuse will be like little fried rocks. They obviously don't care espeically since out of sight of the camera sits a platter holding over two dozen hot glazed doughnuts.