Cocktail Hour

I have an acme juicer. With it I make juice. What you see there is a very, very good friend enjoying a juicetini, for lack of a better description.

It's made with vodka, beet, carrot and fennel juice. I just added 2 or 3 jiggers of rose syrup to mine and it might be a tad too rosey but I think it's nice.

Next one I mix for 2, or three gets some.

New year.

I've been at this blog for a few months and added a free google thing that tracks lots of stuff. From that I've figured out that I have few regulars. Two from Texas that I think are friends. Somebody from outside Philly, probably somebody, perhaps a few in Pittsburgh itself, though that's harder for me to figure because I visit this page a lot myself, especially when I am editing. There's also someone in the North Hills of Pittsburgh that checks in once in a while too.

That's not much, but not bad for something I haven't properly promoted. Overall I think I have had about 100 unique visitors, well maybe 200, tops.

Yesterday I had 2 visitors who searched on 'amethyst artichokes'. I figure that they are wondering about their order from Pleasant Valley like I am. I'm sorry to say I gave them no reason to come back. I think they were from California.

I'd love it if somebody outed theirself a little by leaving an inocuous comment but it's not required. I suppose if I had 100s of followers I'd be less curious about you individually. We'll see where this is a year from now.

The plain photo above is a front yard plot freshly planted with violas and cabbage. I had cleared it of numerous weeds as well as a weed tree, tree of paradise, to be exact. I had yet to spread any compost. Looks pretty plain doesn't it? It was quite an improvement over what was there though.

Between the holidays

Here's some kale that I think survived the last good freeze. Seems like a few die each time it gets below 10˚F. I took the liberty if saturating the images.

So I have a few Russian kale survivors and a few lacinato kale survivors.

Doesn't that Russian kale look luscious? OK, I admit it's not that vibrant looking but the light has been so gray I couldn't resist.

It is growing on the driveway in a pocket that gets extra warmth I guess. I hope people walking by appreciate it's greenness. My street gets lots of foot traffic and people often stop to complement my crazy garden. I really try to give them something to smile about.

This lacinato kale is not as visible from the street. The leaves bent down are frost bit and dying. If I were thrifty I suppose I'd use them before they are inedible but I'm not.

I have definitely oversaturated this picture but what the heck?

I took a few pictures that show that my cilantro amazingly has survived several frosts but it's so small it's not worth picking, or posting.

And finally I have a picture of Sally the fat cat. She gave us an awful scare by turning yellow because she had gotten picky about her food and lost weight to rapidly, stressing her liver.

This meant a 3 day stay at the vet followed by us having to force-feed her for a week til she stabilized. Here she is strutting her stuff on the driveway.

Summer Garden

Sally sits on the stepping stone. She sits and stares as the carrots and radicchio sit before her.











Raindrops drip off the rosa bianca eggplant.













The porchmelon chose to grow on the porch wall. This is a good thing because otherwise I would have had to make some kind of sling.






This is a close up of an artichoke bloom. It's larger than lifesize but not by as much as you'd think.









Here is sungold cherry tomatoes co-mingling with scarlet runner beans.








I rather miss this.

Indoor Things

When you move things inside, you've got to look them over. I moved this small bay laurel tree inside a month or so ago and noticed just a couple weeks ago that it was just coated with scale.

Scale is the leech of the plant world. They attach themselves anywhere that they can suck the life out of your plant. In this instance they were on the stems and leaves.

If it is feasible, a q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol is effective at removing them. The photo here shows my partially de-scaled bay laurel. This was a couple weeks ago.
Yesterday I found MORE scale on it, not as bad as the last time but I needed to descale it again. I am glad at this point that my tree is still quite small. I think I'm going to find a few more in a couple weeks. I sorta like KILLING these nasty creatures.

Next we have Abe the cat hanging out in his spot. I geririgged a shelf over a radiator so he could sit by the window in a warm spot. The plant hanger next to him has catnip growing in it, but it's always been anemic. The vines climbing up it are he shou wu. Behind him is some wheatgrass. I planted that because he had been eating my lemongrass and he does now seem to prefer the wheat. I do however need to trim it every once in a while, thus the dish there with freshly trimmed grass on top of various dead leaves I've pulled from other plants.

And finally my forced hyacinths. I just took them out of the refrigerator and after a week in the dark of the basement, I'll hang them in a window. I understand that it's a good idea to make a gradual transition from cold and dark to warm and light with hyacinths. Sometimes the blooms bust out of the bulb, splitting it, before the leaves come out. I've never had this experience, but I hear it's not pretty.

I found a picture of a prematurely blooming forced hyacinth. It's lovely but preferable to have the blooms a few inches above the bulb with well formed leaves below. Actually last year I did have one or 2 hyacyinths that did this. I was less careful last year to do a gradual transition. Maybe I won't have this problem this year.

Wintering my Artichokes

I hope to enjoy these plants for a while. The snow and freeze did not kill my plants but it's only December. It generally gets down 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit and even lower some winters. I think last winter was -5, but I'm trying to block that memory. Most artichokes might die below 15 so today I dug up 3 of my plants and put them in my cold room.

The remaining 4th, I covered with a large pot. The festive artichoke leaves surrounding the pot I trimmed from the plants. You'll notice that despite the several days of 20 degree weather that they are still looking alive. Today has been a balmy cloudy 50 degreeish day, typical of Pittsburgh. I am hoping that as these leaves look dead that they will mulch the air gaps that this pot did not seal. My understanding is that in challenging climates, heavy mulching keeps many artichokes alive in winters worse than here. This is my guinea pig plant.

If it survives it will probably be happier than the others because I haven't really disturbed its soil.

Summer Artichoke

I'm kinda obsessed with artichokes. Here it is almost winter and after looking at what's outside I decided I oughta look back at this past year because I took lots of pictures. So here's an artichoke that I think was eaten. You might noticed 2 smaller ones in the background.

I ordered 3 bareroot 'amethyst artichoke' plants. I would have preferred to wait until spring for that but I haven't seen many available. The pictures I have seen online of purple artichokes are so beautiful. I guess I tend to be drawn to cooler colors in general.

At any rate, when I get my plants, I'll have no choice but to store them for planting in the spring. I guess that there isn't much of an artichoke market in the north, at least not yet.

Stealing a picture from a friend

Well it's Thanksgiving and I do believe we should all contemplate what we should be thankful for even if this holiday is a very romanticized version of the pilgrims dinner.

I'm not in my garden her but at the farmer's market with my favorite produce guy Rick James. Normally this market is on Saturdays, but every Wednesday before Thanksgiving they sell turkeys and I buy one, this year an 18 and a 1/2 pound one. This turkey came from a local farm, Kennedy Farms . I get the majority of meat I eat from them.

I hope that everyone out there has a good holiday and that you attempt to eat food from your local farmers and small businesses. A lot of this holiday to me is about all the great food sources that the new world brought to the rest of the world.

Snowy Garden, sorta

First I've got a fine artichoke plant. This sprung back a little after the snow melted but eventually should die back more. I really think artichokes are beautiful plants. I will encourage people to grow these more around here.

One thing about artichokes is that there aren't many varieties available in the US. When I was trying to figure out what I could grow here I found that if I googled carciofo, which is the Italian word for artichoke that I found a lot of varieties. In the US there pretty much is just one grown and the seeds and plants were either the globe or a variety close to that. I'd love to find some of the longer, smaller and violets varieties. I bet that in the next few years this will change.

Another beauty, in my eyes is the leek. My god, look at that! I get so excited. I guess I'm weird but I love it.

This leek could end up in my turkey stuffing. I tend to use all of the leek. Some people just use the stem saying that the green leaves are bitter, but i haven't found this to be true.

Finally I show some roman chamomile after the snow melted. This is not the kind you use for tea, rather it is used for chamomile oil. I planted it as a ground cover thinking it would slowly cover the bare spots but it's been a monster expanding at a weedlike rate.

I've been intrigued by an Elizabethan custom of growing it on turf benches. Turf benches are made, I believe by layering sod. Roman chamomile was planted on top so that when you sat upon, it sweetened your bottom. Maybe next year I'll try this. It certainly grows fast enough.

Turkey Leek Fennel Wild Rice Soup

So the other week at my local farmer's market they had an extra turkey. I know it's early but I LOVE turkey so I got it, about 11 pounds maybe. I did the standard stuffing, but with some home grown leeks.

Here we have a gratuitous picture of leeks mixed with some other stuff from before the frost. I love leeks. I fell in love with them when I started my kitchen garde research and found Creative Vegetable Gardening: Accenting Your Vegetables With Flowers by Joy Larkcom. One place referenced by Larkcom and others is Villandry. Villandry is a chateau built during the Renaissance that was restored last century including a fabulous potager. Leeks and cabbages are pretty prominent in the squares.

I won't go in depth about it just now, but my aspirations are kinda like it. Visit their website, the design is just amazing if you haven't heard of it. So the leeks there were part of a square design I had that I let go a bit.

Anyhow, when I make turkey, I try to when the 1st meal is over to clean all the meaat off the bones. Then I put the bones in a huge pot of water with all the good stuff you need to make soupstock. Usually for poultry that includes celery and celery seed but in this case I threw in some fennel stalks with a bunch of fennel seeds left on. There's also as you may see some carrots and some parsley(not really visible. Anyway, I hope that that's a good self-portrait. This is simmered overnight which makes the house smell great.

The soup is delicious. If anyone shows an interest I might post my recipe.

Kitchen Bulbs

Here's my kitchen window display.later 2 then even later 3. OK, the window
First there is one bulb, later 2 then even later 3. OK, the window I am having a really hard time editing this. I want to post these pictures sequentially and to have my words go a certain way but I can't see what is going on until after I publish it.

I want quite simply to have the picture with 0ne bulb 1st, 2 second and 3 third.

Right, so where are they? I can't see in this weird window that is almost twice as wide as it is when finally published that gives me just 2 inches or maybe 15 lines of typing to look at and not even a complete image.

What the eF guys? Well anyway, notice how quickly these paperwhites grow. The roots don't take long to fill out. I am guessing that these probably won't last up to Xmas but they'll probably bloom Thanksgiving.

These pictures also give you a tiny glimpse of my backyard and the burning bush shedding its leaves. I'll show more of it later but only in a way that allows a fantasy idea, no messes back there, nope, not for you to see!

I think instead of starting a new post later, I'll just add more pictures here with links from whatever current post I do. I'm sure there's people out there who'd like to see my paperwhites bloom.

Hmm, this last photo is a little blurry but there they are. A bud is opening. Also the tallest one fell over so I ended up tethering it to the strings with some breadbag ties.

I will have some blooms by Thanksgiving. I posted the 4th photo on the 25th.

Artichoke Blooms

These photos are not admittedly not current. They are from late summer. I think that they are 2 different blooms photographed the same day. The 1st flower is just starting to open, the 2nd is in full flower.

I did eat a couple artichokes but I wanted to see them flower and they are really big and pretty. Butterflies love them. I watched monarchs dip their proboscis into one repeatedly, quite deeply, kinda sexy actually. We all know about the birds and the bees right?

Speaking of bees, I managed to get this picture of a bumblebee in a similar state of ecstasy. Really, these pollinators just look overjoyed when they find some sweet flowers.

You don't see artichokes growing around Pittsburgh very much. They don't usually winter here so I will most likely have to dig them up in a little bit before it gets too cold. I have 4 plants in my front yard right now and only 2 have actually bloomed. I got them from Mountain Valley Growers. They were most likely offsets from a mother plant because artichokes usually do not bloom their 1st year. The other 2 plants came from home depot where they were mislabeled asparagus. I m assuming that those were from seed. If I save them they should bloom next year.

I think they are well worth it and I'd love to see more of these around. Aren't they beautiful?

The plant itself gets huge and takes up 4 feet of space. I overplanted these guys like everything else but I don't think they suffered for it. I think next year I'll give them more room. I'll probably mail one or 2 of these plants to my sister down south who actually has the space and the warmth to grow these properly.

Fall Veggies

This is the only radicchio to survive the repeated ground hog attacks. It seems to be forming a nice head now.

It is pretty yes? We'll see how I end up eating it. I must look at recipes. Any ideas out there?

I have had it with something or other that was pretty good, but it is a veggie that I still have had little experience with.

Next we have some giant red mustard. This stuff has some spicy kick when raw, but cooked is very nice indeed. The other night we had some turkey sausage with mustard greens. delicious!

The dead twigs overhanging it is the mother plant. I started with one and though I ate a good bit of it, I let it go to seed. There were hundreds of seedlings which I still am thinning. I highly recommend red mustard.

Finally we have a black radish. You cant tell from the picture but this is as big as a softball. I googled recipes for this thing and the most appealing to me is peel, slice them thin, salt a bit poor some beer. Eat slice, take sip.

Supposedly they are good for your thyroid. They also tend to taste better when they've been sitting around for a while, not harvested right away.

I still have some other things to eat out there such as parsley, kale and cilantro. I have some fennel that sprouted new shoots that I hope will become big bulbs.

Bulbs, bulbs, bulbs

In a previous post (see lightbulbs) I showed my idea using hyacinths, here you see the same concept with paperwhite narcissus. It is again, the plastic packaging used for fluorescent lightbulbs. I discovered that there is a tiny vent hole that should but plugged up if you do this. I used a waterproof clear glue.

Paperwhites require no chill time so perhaps I should have experi- mented with them 1st but anyway, here's one. I intend to add a new bulb each week so that in theory they will bloom over a more extended time period.

In the background is a burning bush shedding it's leaves.

Next is my right foot and left hand. I'm wearing lime green gardening gloves that I got at Tuesday Morning for 6 bucks. I guess that they are some remaindered brand.

My preferred gloves are actually Atlas Nitrile Gloves which retail for about 7 dollars as I am typing this. There are currently very few places locally that sell them. Michaels Bros Nursery does. I have seen nitrile gloves sold at auto parts stores, but only in men's sizes. I personally have small hands. Online they are available at Nichols Garden Nursery.

Why are they THE gardening glove? They just are.

On my right foot is a gardening clog I got at Target or pretty cheap. They aren't my favorite. My favorite are Muck Boots. Muck Boots are nice because they are breathable and waterproof which is important especially when it's hot but they aren't cheap. I bought a few pairs of cheap clogs just so I can rotate them and also for just working in my own yard.

I decided to plant some bulbs because they are deeply discounted now. I have a small strip of green on the street which I have for the past year been encouraging with any low growing plant other than grass and annoying weeds. The result is mostly clover with a little yarrow(I think). I think my neighbors will enjoy seeing flowers poking out there next spring so I planted crocuses in small clumps and because I love danger, there's also some ice follies narcissus. Hopefully they won't get trampled.