Thursday, 12 November 2020
at home
With a great deal of rain falling and in the forecast, we would be home for a few days.
Allan had the wise thought that it was time to take down the Great Wall of China….
…..and so we did.
We had some small beets for dinner, and I felt like quite the homesteader for having grown them and for pickling some beet stems for a snack item.
It is easy with vinegar, a bit of sugar, a bit of salt and some pepper boiled on the stove and poured over the stems. The results were delicious earlier in the autumn, but this time the stems were too tough to chew up and swallow, probably being too late in the season.
A recipe for happiness: We have found that after a liberal sprinkling of dried catnip on the rug, the cats commune in a blissed out, stoned fashion.
The floor is carpeted with packing paper and boxes and bags for cat amusement.
Our Universal Yums box came today, featuring the snacks of Italy. Last month’s box had proved that Russians make excellent snacks. Italy’s also look promising.
I have neglected to write about three books that I recently read. First…
I am happy that I purchased this book.
It is a beautiful thing to behold.
Among much that was of interest, I learned that Irish gardener Helen Dillon has made a television show called Garden Heaven on Irish channel RTA. I will be searching video sites for it this winter. [I had no luck in finding anything about it online.] If I were so blessed as to live in Ireland, I would be signing up for this:
That would be a piece of garden heaven.
If you do read the first edition, you will find an error at the end of page 126, where a sentence is incomplete. I messaged the publisher and got the end!
….of daring to be different.
I will look differently from now on at our native plant, meianthemum, which I have considered a bit of a scourge in my Bogsy Wood garden.
Allan had discovered that Ciscoe Morris has a new book and had ordered it from the library.
It’s funny, of course, and informative. Among many things, I learned that thinning fruit from a tree is ineffective unless done when the fruit is smaller than a nickel.
This passage about hornets….
…..reminded me of the day at work when I almost stood up under this nest.
As I bent over weeding, a hornet repeatedly bumped me in the head. Something told me to stay bent over as I moved away and I did not see the nest until I stood up several yards away and looked back. I am grateful to that hornet for warning me.
We also coexist with some house spiders. The ones that are not huge and don’t jump.
Of course, reading the books added to my must have plant list.
Per Jimi:
Aralia echinocaulis
Eryngium eburneum
Epimedium ‘Wildside Ruby’, fargesii ‘Pink Constellations’, ‘Windfire’
Aralia Californica moist shady woods
Schefflera kornasii, macrophylla, rhododendrifolia. Easy to prop from cuttings.
Allium ‘Purple Rain’ cross between purple sensation and christophii
Baptisia ‘ Dutch Chocolate’
Canna musifolia and ‘Bird of Paradise’
Cosmos peucedanifolius perennial pink
Daucus carota ‘Purple Kisses’
Eryngium guatemalense
Eryngium pandanifolium ‘Physic Purple’. Tall, moist soil
Lophosoria quadripinnata 10 ft tall fern chile
Lychnis coronaria ‘Gardeners’ World’
Sinopodophyllum hexandrum var emodi ‘majus’. Woodland plant
Actaea cordipholia ‘Blackfing’ (“Christopher Lloyd always said you can’t have too many spikes in the garden.”)
Per Ciscoe
Sedums:
Autumn charm
Maestro
Postmans pride
Black jack
Today, I finished the second memoir by Margaret Roach. Or the third, if you count A Way to Garden as partly a memoir.
I liked it very much. Some takeaways….
I like this because I have a bad case of imposter syndrome:
This reminds me of my mother’s shovel, a short-handled thing with a blade so rounded and blunt that it seemed useless to us, but she loved it.
When mom’s shovel broke, Allan fixed it for her and it lasted her lifetime. I am not sure if I still have it as a fence topper. I hope so.
We are not morning people, but on the rare occasion that we are up early, we don’t start any noisy project till at least ten.
It is just like this around here when we all prepare for a storm:
I am impressed with the author for staying at home. I’d pictured her as someone who traveled back and forth to a pied a terre in New York and who traveled to give talks or visit gardens.
I was pleased that she has azolla in her pond (and doesn’t seem worried about it) and thrilled to find her recipe for her freezer stock made from assorted vegetable bits, not to mention some more tips about growing veg that will prove quite useful. I learned that the real name of Tiger Eyes sumac is ‘Bailtiger’ and that she loves golden foliage and tries to control the direction that garden visitors go touring so that they will see her garden in the right way. I was envious again that she is friends with Glenn Withey and Charles Price and of her acreage, but not her winter snow.
Although about a week of work remains to be done this year, I’m looking forward to a few more days of reading weather. I have only this one blog
I always love to see what you’re reading, Skylar. Will definitely look into these three selections!
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The Backyard Parables sounds like a great book, which I’ll look for. Glad you only have another week of work. I’m also looking forward to your reading excerpts. The cats are truly wonderful. I’ve not had time to comment on some previous posts but they are fun to read about. And I;m curious….Why the decision to remove your great wall of china? Not that you can’t or shouldn’t.
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Because of wind, wind could blow the china plates around as they are loosely attached.
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All three books look good, but the last one, in particular, really interested me. I liked Margaret Roach’s “voice.” Wow! A whole part of a sentence missing. Glad you were able to get the missing piece. Also, looks as though little fairy is going to be quite the literary cat. 😉
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She’s turned out to be the favorite of all.
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I have three baptisias – and the nicest by far is the “Dutch Chocolate”. It holds it’s shape really well. I have had it for seven years – make sure you give it plenty of space, or can move plants out from around it easily, as it grows.
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I will put it on my list!
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I am envious that you are still getting beets. Ours were over ages ago.
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We had the last of them two days ago. I’ve never grown them before. They were a delight.
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My favourite veg.
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Pickled beet greens? I do just the opposite. I grow beets mainly for pickling, but cook the greens like chard, without pickling.
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We do eat the greens like chard also. But the long stems seemed like they were going to waste. I hear you can chop the stems fine and include them with the greens. But the last time I pickled them, they were too chewy to swallow!
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Yes, that is what I do. If I get enough, I cook them separately, and cook the petioles a bit more.
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