The Easter Parade

Let's hear it for the trees. This is their season. In my backyard the tulip magnolia is giving off an intoxicating fragrance. If only we had a scratch and sniff capability here.Then, of course, there is the princess of all the trees ... the cherry blossoms. I arrived a little before sunrise, but I was not alone. Here was a bride and her photographer setting up a sunrise photo shoot.The air was still enough to provide a crisp reflection in the tidal basinThen there is the classic shot with the Monument in the distanceand, of course the broad sweep with reflectionand the early sun on blossom and woodWhile Washington is most associated with cherry trees, I think the real stateliness of the city is in its find stand of American elms. These were planted by Governor Shepherd in the years after the Civil War. Why these trees escaped Dutch elm disease is a mystery to me. Anyone with information, please comment. So I wanted to give this elm tree its due. These dogs attracted lots of photographic attention. But already the cherry blossoms are falling like snowflakesbut this crab apple is not far behind ready to take its place in the Easter Parade of Trees

Be Counted

Just a few words about the Census. As I picked up my form today to fill it out I could not help but think about the census records I have immersed myself in while doing family research. I think of Harmon P. Marble, census enumerator, who, on the 20th of June, 1900 knocked on my great grandparents' door in Humboldt, NE where my 9 year old grandfather lived and made note of all the people living in that house.At its core the Census is an exercise in democracy. It is the way we have to apportion our representation in Congress. But underneath it are the stories of all of us who have lived here and been counted.Today ... for this the TWENTY-THIRD CENSUS OF THE UNITED STATES ... I am the enumerator.

If you haven't already done so, please, send in your census today.

Return to Gardening Thoughts

After weeks of being in winter wonderlands in New England and Colorado, I returned home to all sorts of signs of spring. First there were the amaryllis that have been reluctantly making their way into the world since mid-December.
The next signs of spring could be found in the yardAnd then finally, right here on my kitchen counter ... the compost bucket has emerged from winter hibernation.Ever hopeful, I have started my artichoke seeds. This year I am growing Emerald and Green Globe. I scored the seed cases with a knife and then set them in wet paper towels on a heating mat for two days. I planted them yesterday in warmed starting mix. I planted a dozen of each variety and will consider myslef lucky if 6 of each make it into the garden.

Winter

Being pulled in opposite directions

I am sure it is built into the species, but when snow starts falling, I start scanning for things to put on the stove ... beef stews, pots of soup.  BUT I am leaving town soon so I have to curb my urge to cook through the storm.  I need to use up what will go bad while I am away.   

First candidate is the box of honeybells in the guest bedroom.  I extracted as much juice as I could hold in the freezer, and went hunting for a recipe ...  VOILA  Citrus Scented Quinoa.  I will give you the recipe as I found it, however I left lots of things out of it.  I did not make the balsamic syrup. Also, I did not add the white wine and lime juice.  But I did use the three cups orange juice with pulp and I tossed in the raisins while it was still warm. And I added a chopped red pepper that would have gone bad.  I also did not add the tomatoes and greens and cukes.  Another day ... another storm

Citrus-Scented Quinoa and Raisin Salad Recipe

Ingredients:
***Balsamic Syrup***
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
***Salad***
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons minced onion
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
8 ounces quinoa
3 cups fresh orange juice
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
1 cup white wine
1/4 cup natural raisins
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup toasted almonds
2 teaspoons minced fresh basil
Salt and pepper
1 cup seeded and diced cucumber
1 cup diced ripe plum tomatoes
1 1/2 cup mixed baby greens

Directions:

For balsamic syrup, combine vinegar and sugar in heavy saucepan and simmer on low until reduced by half. Cool and pour into a plastic squeeze bottle; chill.

For salad, saute garlic and onion in half the olive oil over low heat in a hot skillet for 1 minute. Add quinoa and saute 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly.

Stir in orange juice, lime juice, thyme and wine; simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes; then, chill thoroughly.

Then, combine chilled quinoa mixture, raisins, almonds, basil and remaining olive oil in large mixing bowl; season lightly with salt and pepper and mix well.

For each serving, set a ring mold 4-inches in diameter by 6-inches high on serving plate. Layer ingredients into the mold starting with quinoa salad, then diced cucumber, follow with diced tomatoes, and top off with mixed greens.

Remove mold and drizzle plate with balsamic syrup. Repeat until all plates are prepared.

Things that go POP in the night

Around 1:00 am I heard a big popping sound in the backyard accompanied by a bright flash of light ... and then the electricity went out. Tree limbs crashing into transformers was my first thought. So I called the power company. I awoke to a 50 degree house and still no electricity, but God Bless Dominion Power, by 9:00 am while buried beneath comforters, I heard the heat come on. Somehow I had not imagined the need to "shelter in place" without electricity.

Then I read Fernando's blog this morning and realized that maybe what I saw and heard was Thundersnow. 

"shelter in place"

I have just returned from the grocery store where I snagged THE LAST PACKAGE of ground beef. "Oh am I taking too many?" she asked as she loaded 10 packages into her cart. "It is for my Superbowl Party that probably won't happen."

What is this mania that has taken over Harris Teeter before 7:30 AM on a Friday morning? It is THE WASHINGTON SNOWSTORM. And when you pair that with Superbowl weekend, the only worse scenario I can imagine is if the Redskins were playing in it.

I have been eying this storm for nearly a week as it gathers moisture from as far away as Hawaii. Having been raised in New England, I am pretty low key when it comes to snowstorms, but the absence of sufficient snow removal equipment in the DC area makes this upcoming storm a problem for us, for we were planning to drive north for a ski vacation in Maine tomorrow.

But with email alerts from our local jurisdiction that use the admonition "be prepared to shelter in place for 3-5 days" or the AccuWeather overlay on DC describing accumulation as EXCESSIVE, there is little chance we will get out of here before late Saturday night.I suppose we COULD get out of Dodge this morning, but then we wouldn't be here to shovel the roof off and we need to do that in a snow like this to avoid ice jams and leaking.

So in anticipation of an unplowed street, we are toying with the idea of packing the car this morning and moving it to a street that is more regularly plowed.

Let me end this entry with a little shameless plug for my new favorite DC Area weather blogger, Fernando. Check out his blog Potential Vorticity for the latest meteorological updates.

Not much happening

Well here it is the last day of January. I feel I cannot let an entire month pass without a post. Only thing close to being garden worthy are these paperwhites
and this sad picture of snow and sleet in my sister-in-law Anne's tropical garden.

Merry Christmas to all ...

The December DC Dump

Let it snow ...

Let it snow

Let it snow !!!!

The Christmas Cactus

Every Christmas I marvel at this cactus. It came to me a as a gift from a friend and colleague at least a decade ago. I have re potted it twice. When it starts to bloom I give it cactus food. But the rest of the year ... well, neglect would be a kind word to describe how I treat it. In May I put it on a shaded back deck to face the trials of a Washington summer with nothing but the rain God chooses to bestow upon it. In November, when I return, I rescue it just before the frosts and without the least bit of prompting from me, it starts its Christmas show.

An artichoke on my tree !!!

Locking

Years ago Kurt Vonnegut wrote an observation of the seasons that divided the year into six rather than four seasons. Winter was a season of two months -- January and February. It was flanked on either side by the two new seasons. November and December became the season called "Locking" and March and April became the season called "UNlocking." The idea is that nature needs a time of shutting down before the onslaught of winter and a time of opening up slowly before the fruition of summer. It actually makes good sense when you think of it. It places Fall squarely in September and October where it belongs and Summer in July and August.

So true to Vonnegut's new scheme I have been going around "locking" things up in the garden. I have made a new iteration of deer fencing for my young apple trees. I also set up the wall-o-water around my rosemary to help it over winter. I do that by trimming it back and placing a plaster bucket over it and slipping the wall-o-water over the bucket while I fill its sleeves.This form of overwintering has worked for rosemary, so I tried it last year on my artichokes and it failed. But last winter was particularly harsh, so I am trying it again though admittedly with a less hardy variety of artichoke. These are Green Globe. And I adjusted my game a little. I let them grow into the light frosts of November December. Then I cut them back to 12 inches of leavesand then I mounded them with grass clippingsand finally added the wall-o-waters.I harvested the last of the rutabaga, carrots, greens and Brussels sprouts. I will leave the parsnips in the ground for spring dug parsnip chowder when I return.And last, but not least, I removed the dead asparagus ferns to the brush pile.

Late November Gifts

I have returned to the garden for a few days to shut things down for the winter. Much of my energy has been spent reorganizing the shed. But these next few days I will settle into garden care. High on the list is the prep of the artichokes. Maybe THIS will be the year when the combination of a milder winter and the right covering will lead to successful overwintering. Meanwhile the garden continues to give. Here are some potatoes, carrots and Swiss chard.

Thought for Food

Check this out.

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/?emc=eta1

Judgement at Nuremberg

While wandering through the outdoor market in Nurmeberg, Germany last weekend I spied these unusual cabbages and JUDGED them to be the most unusual I had ever seen.

Then my eyes fell on these lovely pinkish tinged hard necks and I JUDGED them to be worthy of import. Move over, Place Monge ... make way for Nuremberg Red.

A Garden Pause

I celebrated my last night on the Vineyard with a little tomato that had ripened on the windowsill. I seasoned some olive oil with a special balsamic vinegar brought by a friend, sprinkled some salt and pepper, and decorated with the very last basil I had.Forgive the photography ... the cameras were all packed and I was using my phone.

I will return to put things totally to bed in early December. But for now I need to say goodbye to this season. It is hard to let go this year. I guess it is the disappointment of the tomato crop and the harvest that never really peaked. I never had too much of anything really, and maybe one needs a little harvest fatigue in order to feel OK about taking a rest from it all.

If someone told me I could come to southern Florida and plant 80 tomato plants right now, I would consider it. I just did not get enough this season.

I am off for a few weeks for a tour of Eastern Europe. I MAY get to post on the travel blog ... we'll see.

Today's Poem

Today's poem was right up my alley

The First Artichoke

by Diane Lockward

Though everyone said no one could grow
artichokes in New Jersey, my father
planted the seeds and they grew one magnificent
artichoke, late-season, long after the squash,
tomatoes, and zucchini.

It was the derelict in my father's garden,
little Buddha of a vegetable, pinecone gone awry.
It was as strange as a bony-plated armadillo.

My mother prepared the artichoke as if preparing
a miracle. She snipped the bronzy winter-kissed tips
mashed breadcrumbs, oregano, parmesan, garlic,
and lemon, stuffed the mush between the leaves,
baked, then placed the artichoke on the table.
This, she said, was food we could eat with our fingers.

When I hesitated, my father spoke of beautiful Cynara,
who'd loved her mother more than she'd loved Zeus.
In anger, the god transformed her
into an artichoke. And in 1949 Marilyn Monroe
had been crowned California's first Artichoke Queen.

I peeled off a leaf like my father did,
dipped it in melted butter, and with my teeth
scraped and sucked the nut-flavored slimy stuff.
We piled up the inedible parts, skeletons
of leaves and purple prickles.

Piece by piece, the artichoke came apart,
the way we would in 1959, the year the flowerbuds
of the artichokes in my father's garden bloomed
without him, their blossoms seven inches wide
and violet-blue as bruises.

But first we had that miracle on our table.
We peeled and peeled, a vegetable striptease,
and worked our way deeper and deeper,
down to the small filet of delectable heart.

"The First Artichoke" by Diane Lockward

More Vegetable Love

They met during the sweet potato harvest ... he spied her across the curing rack

It was love at first sight

So they went to the preacher

And lived happily ever after

Garden Update

No, I am not trying for some kind of absentee record ... cannot explain my absence from here ... but since the last post the garden clean-up has gone quite well. Perhaps the most stark contrast is this before and after of a tomato bed.
So bed by bed things are neat and tidy ... the pathways are another story. I may break down and just let it go to grass and keep it trimmed with a trimmer next season. I need to save my weeding muscles for tasks more closely linked to crop production.

And while in my heart of hearts I do not believe it, there IS more to a garden than a successful, lingering tomato crop, I am still getting green beans, Swiss chard, spinach and potatoes. Meanwhile, butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts and rutabaga lie in waiting. So there is still reason to revel in the garden and its production.

On Monday I prepared one of my garlic beds with plenty of composted lamb manure. I laid it out in a 6x8 inch grid and on Tuesday I planted six varieties of hardneck. A total of 112 cloves. The second bed is still housing sweet potatoes, but I shall harvest them this weekend. I took a peek in there last weekend and it looks to be an adequate crop. So I recommend to New England gardeners who are trying to make maximum use of garden space to consider interplanting sweet potato slips in a garlic bed on Memorial Day. You can harvest the garlic without disturbing the sweet potato vines and you can have your bed back by Columbus Day in time to plant next year's garlic. ( I KNOW I should rotate, but I have never had disease, and I like using these beds because they are outside the garden fence and garlic is deer resistant ... although sweet potato vines are not and I did use some Bobbex on them in the early summer when they were getting started.)