I’m Not Getting Voted Off This Homestead

daphne on April 5, 2010

The last attempt I made to live off the land didn’t go very well.   Half pint and pa never bagged a bear, and what with all the churning and mending to be done I utterly failed at the task of putting up enough food to feed my family.  It was barely November and I had to hitch the old (station) wagon up to the grocery store trading post.

No amount of chopping wood would have saved me from being voted out of the Frontier House.

I don’t know how those pioneer ladies did it.  They were a tough breed.

Kind of like my own pioneer babe–

Don’t let the Holly Hobby dress and sweet smile fool you.  This nine year old is brimming with teenage ‘tude that would serve her nicely should I follow through with my decision to free-range her out on the open frontier.  And since you were wondering, yes I did wear this dress to school as a suburban child of the seventies.  There is simply no denying it, when it comes to fashion I’ve always been ahead of my time.

But never mind that, food failure was so last year.  My family is on target to make it through this year, this entire year, completely independent from grocery stores.  That’s us, totally self-sufficient…at least as far as jam is concerned.

Oh shush.  Don’t tell me I can’t keep a family on jam alone.  I can do whatever I want.

I made jam, didn’t I?  See–

When we polished off the last of the jars I made back in June, I simply defrosted what was left of our strawberry puree from the picking last fall.   Then I added just a pinch of sugar.

Or perhaps it was a wagon-load of sugar.  I’m not exactly sure.  Then a dollop of magic–

And Voila!  Jam!

2009/2010 will be known far and wide as the year we made it on jam alone.  Impressive, yes, but for 2010/11 I’ve set my sights a little higher.

Welcome to my lofty goal of the year:  tomatoes.  These guys may not look like much but just you wait.  These little guys have been tapped to nourish my family throughout the year to come.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Aquariums are for Posers

daphne on March 29, 2010

Spring Break 2010; we certainly had no intentions of sitting idly by and letting other party people have all the fun.  So we said farewell to the gray skies and sloppy snow and hopped a plane or twelve to Boston.  We had grand plans of visiting museums and cultural centers galore whilst local kids worked away at school.  The incredible Boston aquarium featured prominently on the to-do list.

My children had other plans.

Arguably, an aquarium has fish and water, but hadn’t we just flown thousands of miles?  Why come all this way and stop just short of the real deal?

Icy rain, micey-shmain, get thee to the beach.  And so we did.

We piled on hats and scarves and braved the brisk breeze.  I even convinced some of our party peeps to strike an impressive Spring Break pose.   I call it, “Who Us? Nope. We’re Not Cold!”

The rain subsided and the wind even let up for a second or two and I was forced to admit that my children had made a brilliant choice.  The beach was gorgeous and at just a half hour drive from the city I deemed it perfect, and decided to move in to one of the cozy mansions hugging the coast.

So I sold the children on the spot.

With these deep dreamy eyes and that impossible head of hair my nephew Miles commanded the big bucks–

I sold him to the first pirates that happened by.  Sure we’ll miss him, but he feels great just picturing his auntie in her sweet new seaside digs.  Here the girls are craning their necks for a glimpse of the ship laden with bags of gold for their own bounty.

Alas the ship never showed and so I was forced to pack up my un-purchased children and return home.  Despite plummeting temperatures and the snow that keeps on coming, our snug little incubator of a dining room is showing signs of springtime success.

Our briccoli (that’s broccoli when sign-making is outsourced to local first graders) has sprouted.  And you know what they say — where briccoli is sprouting, swiss chard won’t be far behind.

What? You haven’t heard that saying?  Trust me; it’s all the rage with the pirates.

It’s Super Cali Fragil Istic, or so

daphne on March 22, 2010

Last week while Colorado was being slammed with yet another blizzard, I was off in sunny Atlanta battling a stomach bug visiting friends battling stomach bugs with friends.  News that my laid-back un-anxious husband had rushed our youngest to the emergency room with a high fever did nothing to help settle my stomach.

It was not exactly a jolly holiday with Mary.

But by the time I returned my daughter’s fever was under control and the snow, which remained firmly frozen over last year’s garden plot,

was melted completely away from the newly selected southern spot.  So I took a teaspoon of sugar to help the medicine go down, then I hit the dirt.

I planted snap peas, spinach. lettuce and onions in the lusciously warm soil outside.  Then I started the broccoli, chard, tomatoes and eggplant in a cozy nook in our dining room.

Maybe Dave had harbored ideas of lounging around, maybe he even wanted to go fly a kite, but instead he hunkered down to constructing the frame for our new plot.

Meanwhile the girls declared it officially picnic weather.  They swept the snow to the ground and snacked in the sun.

It would be hours before we trekked down to Denver to see the musical Mary Poppins (what? you didn’t catch the theme?)

Yet the feel of fresh dirt was warm in my hands.  Soon, so soon, we’d have fresh vegetables.

The girls laughed as they danced from snow pile to swing set.

My handsome hard-working husband hammered happily.

I’m a lucky lady.

It was a perfect day.

And I felt positively supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Stupid March

daphne on March 14, 2010

This was yesterday.

The sun was shining on my hard-working husband as he measured out the twine. It’s all going according to plan…that is, our grand plan for square foot gardening in our brand new sun drenched garden plot.

Isn’t that a sight for hyper-organize, Type-A eyes?   All orderly and grid-like and ready for methodical planting that will result in plentiful vegetables for our happy homestead.

Here, in our new southern backyard locale, the sun warms the soil for long stretches of time; this is where the magic will occur. Here, tomatoes will swell to globes of obscene size and cucumbers will twirl up a hand-wrought trellis and squash will at last feel free to fornicate do what it takes to make little squashies.

I sat in the dirt and let the sun drip its Vitamin D all over my pale self while overseeing the work over at Fairy Village.  They were receiving a much anticipated upgrade over by the dwindling snow bank–

All was good.

The birds were singing.

Even the garlic poked up a tentative scape to greet the Spring.

The children were frolicking and the garden was brimming with promise.

I was warm.

I was happy.

Today, it is snowing.

Stupid March.

It’s Planting Time, Right?

daphne on February 16, 2010

Whooo-hooo!  It’s party planting time.

I know that you’re digging out from feet of snow and shivering huddled around a cup of coffee while your runny-nosed, snow-bound children run ragged through a house that hasn’t been aired out in months, but come on.  I’m ready to get down and dirty dig in some dirt.

My garden is on board. Right, garden?

P2100970

Hmm, garden seems to be hibernating.  What am I supposed to do with all this pent up excitement? Thanks for nothing, Pioneer Lady for posting this gorgeous tutorial on building raised vegetable beds and getting me all revved up for gardening.

And thanks alot Gardener’s supply.  You and your incredible and fantastic online garden planner that lets me select veggies and decide whether or not the cucumbers will twine up the same trellis as the snap peas.  Just what do you think you’re doing?

The anticipation is fabulous.  I can almost smell the sun-warmed squash.

So what that it’s not planting time.  This is crazy fun.

Time out.

Crazy fun? Um, hello?

We need to talk.

Perhaps you’re forgetting who you’re talking to.   I am the party girl who raucously rang in her 21st birthday on a Mardi Gras day much like today.

There was drinking and dancing and parades and partying on the streets of New Orleans.

That was crazy fun.  And it was not all that long ago.

Or maybe it was all that long ago.

And I guess it was far, far away.

But how did this happen?

How did I go from shimmying to shoveling?

From drinking to digging?

From partying to planting?

Oy.  I am staring at 40 and getting all hot and bothered about garden planners.  Somebody send help.

Somebody?

Anybody?

Help.

Noooooo! Not My Squash

daphne on September 8, 2009

The same deluge that’s been teasing out the ragweed and the thistles in miserable numbers has been working wonders on our garden.  Instead of popping out with one of two nuggets of goodness, vines are bursting forth in clusters of fruitfulness.  I should be pleased. I should be grateful.  But I’m sulking.

Sure, the tomatoes are tantalizing

And yes, the raspberries are remarkable,

And I suppose we are enjoying the piles of purple potatoes,

But it’s not enough.  Remember Big Bertha?  That feminine nugget on which I pinned all my butternut hopes and dreams?

She is no more.  She was my lone female, and now she’s gone before the bees even had a chance to do their business.  It’s not good.  There comes a time in every woman’s life where she has to draw the line.  She has to say Enough is Enough.  That time, my friends, has come.

Incensed, I marched inside and called the extension program over at Colorado State University and left a message about the peculiar gender trends taking place in my back yard.  Surely there is a PhD student out there just waiting to tackle my plight, restore balance to my backyard, and write an award-winning thesis to boot.

Surprisingly, no student was readily available, so I spoke instead to a master gardener.  Now perhaps under other circumstances she’s a decent human being.  But good intentioned or not, she had the audacity to suggest that perhaps my soil was nitrogen-heavy.  Or phosphorous-light.   She doesn’t even know us and here she casually insinuating that my garden has a chemical imbalance?  Pah-lease.  At least she didn’t second the opinion of her colleague, the scientist who gently offered that some squash, not necessarily mine, but some do show hermaphroditic tendencies when they get toward their terminus.  Really? You want to go there, do you?

It was hard to hear at first, but I am nothing if not a caring and nurturing mother gardener.  And so I will ship off a sample of my sweet innocent, albeit potentially imbalanced, soil.  I’ll send it out there into the science world to be judged.  I will do whatever my baby needs to be make it in this cold, dark, mean world.  Especially if that means my garden is happy.

Because if my garden is happy, then I am happy.  Mmmm, I am just about as hungry happy as a clam with a mouthful of my favorite butternut squash pasta. Have you tried this ambrosia of a dinner yet?  It is time. It’s delicious. It’s easy.  It’s wonderful.  And if the squash gods aren’t shining down on you, it’s ok.   Someone, somewhere is having success growing the gourds.  Pick one up at the farm stand.  It’s even, gulp, worth a trip to the market.

Peachy Keen

daphne on August 27, 2009

I haven’t asked them directly, but I think there’s a chance that my parents–and I say this with deep respect–don’t like peaches.  Perhaps my memories are tainted by that fateful rhubarb incident, but I don’t know.  Inundated as I’ve been lately with the juicy orbs, not one childhood image of a peach comes to mind.  Sticky pools gather at the elbows of my own ecstatic peach-eating children.  We have been contentedly working our way through recipes thick with the tantalizing fruit, yet not one rings a personal bell.

Without peaches to pave the way down memory lane, I’ve got a bit of lost time to recover.  And so I baked this incredible cake.

It’s so wholesome looking I had no problem calling it lunch and serving it to my friend Leslie.  I spruced up a recipe from Gourmet magazine called Stone Fruit Tea Cake, which sounds rather British and unappealing, don’t you agree old chap?  I call mine Shortbread Cake with Peaches and Berries, which is much better and as long as the children aren’t around, it does make the perfect lunch.

Leslie, on loan to me from pioneer days, stopped by to teach me how to can peaches yesterday, a full day before Gourmet magazine’s Can Do approach to canning landed in my inbox.  I am cutting edge, in a pioneering sort of way of course.

My initial thought was that a pot that big should hold nothing but succulent lobsters, but then I remembered that we were fresh off the covered wagon and putting up our reserves for the harsh winter ahead, so I pushed away thoughts of tasty crustaceans and pulled out the peaches.  I gave them a quick boiling bath followed by a dunk in icy water.  They practically slipped right out of their skins.

We then sliced them, and soaked them in a citric acid bath (more soothing than it sounds) to prevent browning.

Next we added the slices and syrup to the jars, and while they steamed away stovetop,

we strolled through the gardens (still feeling a little British from our lunch I suppose) where I selected a much healthier snack for my unsuspecting children–fresh chard, tomatoes and sage.  I swear they’ll be thrilled (as long as I don’t let on about my own choice for lunch.)

We also dropped in on the squash vines.

So lush, so healthy looking, and yet still sporting only one tiny female.  As I watch squash in other gardens already ripening to the size of mini coopers, I worry that mine is not destined to become much of a meal.  Sad, but true, I have gourd envy.

The sound of the timer called us back to the homestead, where we pulled the 12 jars from their bath, stacked them up nice and pretty, and gloated.

We’ve got another CSA delivery today; is it selfish to hope for more peaches?  After all, we are down to a sole uncanned peach, and I am already craving more of Dave’s Outrageously Good Salsa, with ripe peaches and tomatoes straight from the vine.  Not to mention that lunch time today holds no promise of cake. How am I going to lure friends over for lunch without a cake?

In conclusion, let me paraphrase my winsome teenage self–this fruit is totally awesome.  It’s psychedelic.  It’s peachy keen, man.   There are many, many ways to enjoy a peach, so what do you say Mom? Dad?

You lived the 60s.  Give Peach a chance.

Footloose and Sneezy-free

daphne on August 22, 2009

Thank you to all for the plethora of suggestions on how to beat the seasonal snotties.  I take it you were not impressed with my plan of barring the doors and windows and never venturing forth into polite company again?

Worries over me becoming a hermit are groundless.  Why just today I strolled out through the door and into my garden.  I made it almost 5 minutes before the allergens launched their merciless attack.  And despite the onslaught I lasted another half hour past that, long enough to photograph the progress of the garden.  Because, yippee, we are making progress.

Not only have the cucumbers finally gone co-ed, but they’ve been (getting) busy.  They are not big, they are not ready, but they are going to be tasty. . .if they reach their teens before the first frost. (Note, objects taken at extreme close-up may actually be just a tiny fraction of apparent size.)

Not quite as far along socially are the squash vines.  Still, credit where credit is due–they too are showing signs of leaving bachelorhood behind.  Here, without further ado, is our first female flower.

Allow me to introduce you to Big Bertha, our beautiful butternut babe-to-be.  I am expecting big things from her, assuming some studly male steps up and does his duty.

I am impressed by the perseverance of the rainbow chard.  I had given it up as gone to the bugs when we returned home to find the leaves holey and frail; but when I trimmed them back new growth sprung forth.  Looks like the cucumbers may have someone to play with after all (you know, on my salad plate.)

The raspberries are numerous and ripening fast–

Ahh, and the tomatoes.  The tomatoes are hanging heavy.  Really heavy.

Is it wrong to think that it might be time for my produce to get a bra?


Welcome to the Jungle

daphne on August 10, 2009

We put in some time in the garden this weekend, and I think I finally understand those people who think slapping bugs and pulling weeds is relaxing.  It was delightful. I sat myself down in the wet dirt and wrestled with the overgrown jungle in our backyard.  There was no traffic concerning me.  I didn’t have to worry about finding a smoke-free room with two beds somewhere on the safe side of some random town.  After weeks out on the open road it was terrific to be hemmed in by strawberries plants in the midst of staging a coup to overtake the yard and towering 6 foot high raspberry bushes.

Also standing strong was the rhubarb.  Back in June, as we were getting ready to leave town, I judged it done and planted squash right on top.  But clearly I was premature in writing off the rhubarb–

Before I get all puffed up about the glorious successes in our garden, I admit one major disappointment.  Though the vines of the pumpkin, the squash and the cucumbers are gorgeous thick twists heavy with flowers, I worry that when push comes to grow, they will not produce.  NO FEMALE FLOWERS.  AGAIN. Now, I like hanging with guys as much as the next sorority girl, but I’m begging for a nice nerdy science guy out there somewhere willing to explain why inside the house I make all girls, but outside the house it’s one bachelor party after another.  Please?

At least I have some producers to appease me while I ponder the infinite questions of vegetable sex.  Our tomatoes did just fine without us.

Even the rainbow chard that I thought would never show poked it’s head up.  In our absence the bugs had a feast, but at least I can feel good knowing that the little critters received a healthy dose of vitamin-rich antioxidants.

We got potatoes! These truly were the easiest things to grow.  I stuck one rotten looking spud in the ground, cruised around the nation for a couple of months, and Wham! Bam!  French Fries Ma’am!

And finally, after 7 weeks of gifting our CSA share to the happy, healthy Redfern family, we finally got our hands on some local, farm-fresh veggies

We started with the eggplant. According to Dave, a self-acclaimed afficienado, the eggplant parmesan I made that night was the best he’s ever eaten.  I take full credit, gracefully.  Though real credit is probably due to the fact that the eggplant was the freshest we’ve ever had.  Freshly-picked eggplant–ours was picked 24 hours beforehand–is much sweeter and holds far less water.  The less water in the eggplant, the less of a bitter aftertaste.)

My, What Big Spinach You’ve Got Granny

daphne on July 9, 2009

There is a chance, I suppose, that since I’ve deserted it our sweet little garden has runneth over, but I’m not holding my breath.  I’m visiting my mother, and she has shown me how a real garden behaves.  It’s not that my cute little berry patch back in Colorado isn’t special; it is.  But next to this macho New York garden with its prime beach-front location and vines reaching for the stars, mine seems a bit underwhelming.

Look closely.  Can you find my girls? That’s them being consumed by greenery as they munch their way through grandma’s garden.  My what big spinach you’ve got granny…now how about you get it to spit out the children?

It’s not just the size of her prolific garden, or the fact that it’s situated on a piece of real estate that makes broccoli everywhere envious.  Something about those leafy greens put a spell on our children.  It was all we could do to tear the six cousins out of the garden and convince them to jump in the bay.  The beach? Maybe later; hey, who wants more salad?

The snap peas are sweet and crisp, a favorite along with the cucumbers.  But surprisingly, these kids can’t keep their picking fingers off the fennel (they call it licorice, and save it for “salad dessert.”)  They also chomp with glee through the spinach and chard.  Ok, so for those keeping score, it’s North Carolina for earth-friendly, grass-fed protein, and New York for getting kids and their vegetables together in harmony.

Cousin Emily adored the mint leaves.  And I think Evan owes his Spider Man powers to the hundreds of blades of lemon grass he chewed.

My mother remains modest about her remarkable gardening success.  She suggests only that we place lo-jacks on the children to allow us to pull them to safety when it’s time to give them their ice cream.

You do remember ice cream, don’t you kids?