Category Archives: The Garden

Back to Boston

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I went back to Boston this weekend for my friend Lindsey’s bachelorette party and bridal shower.  I don’t have any pictures of the shower, but I do have several shots of the bachelorette party, where there were many kinds of shots taken.

I would like to clarify that there were no guns involved.

Here is Miss Lindsey modeling her Minnie Mouse veil.  She’s going to Disney on her honeymoon.

Here she is practicing acting like a mature, married woman.

And this is how I snuck all of the food and decorations into the hotel.  They didn’t suspect a thing.  Ha.

I think it’s safe to say that no one went hungry.

Everyone survived the evening, so all in all, I think it was a success and Lindsey seemed to enjoy herself as the second photo in this post confirms.

Even though it was a short trip, I did get to spend some time at home with my parents.   Almost one month had passed since I moved to Tennessee and what a difference that month made in the yard.  All of the trees were filled out and my garden had grown up considerably from my first pass through the yard at the end of March.

The rock wall bed is looking very green and fluffy (to use official horticultural terms), but no colorful blooms yet…

But don’t worry, there are a few things blooming back by the hammock!

(I’m sure you were worried sick).

I was nervous about my bleeding hearts coming back this year.  They kind of looked a little bit dead as they lay helplessly on the ground last summer.  They sure had me fooled!  Little tricksters…

PEONIES! I’m sad I will miss these in bloom.  They’re so pretty and fuchsia-y.  I might add that they are doing a good job of holding themselves up.

Here’s a look back at the big rock wall from the edge of the patio.  This bed on the left is a little behind.  It has lilies and black-eyed susans that need some warmer weather to give them a boost.  I should send them some 90 degree days from Nashville because I have some to spare.

Blue fescue!  My dad thinks it’s hilarious that I have these balls of grass in my garden.  Over the past few years, he has on several occasions asked me if I realize that there is already a lot of blue fescue in the lawn.   I tell him that this is different and thus warrants being in the garden.   I was usually saying this while digging up little clumps of grass that showed up in my garden uninvited.

Another bleeding heart that had me concerned last summer.  Purty.

Here’s a look at the peninsula opposite the main rock wall.  Still looking a little patchy, but it’s early..

Here’s the view from the driveway.  See that big tree on the right with the sunlight shining on it?  Well, the top of it croaked during hurricane Irene last summer.  Somehow, when it fell, it only killed one of my plants because my little rock wall to the left broke its fall.  This was good news that there were almost no plant casualties; however, the great news is that my shade garden has become a sun garden!

I realize it doesn’t look so sunny in this photo, but it was taken late in the afternoon.

Azaleas in the front yahhhd.  I need more of this color in my life.

And here’s a look at my bountiful garden at my apartment in Tennessee.  Very similar to the garden in Boston, don’t you think?

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Strawberry Shortcake for Breakfast

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Several years back, Grandmother and Aunt Anna introduced me to strawberry freezer jam, which I of course ate on a warm biscuit for breakfast just as I normally do with other homemade jams.  It didn’t take me long to realize that this was basically strawberry shortcake in breakfast form.

Let me show you how to get some of this in your life.

First, we make the jam.

You will need fruit pectin to make the jam nice and thick.  You may need more than one package, depending on how many pints of jam you would like to make.  The instructions for how to make this jam as well as the ingredients and their quantities can be found in this box or here online, but I will take you through the steps with pictures because I think you’re swell.

You will also need some clean mason jars with lids.  I forgot to take a picture of these, but I’m sure you know what they look like if you’re interested in making jam.

Next, you must procure some strawberries.  But not just any strawberries.

It is absolutely CRITICAL that you start with fresh and perfectly ripe berries.  If you do a little drive-by test with your nose, you should be able to smell their sweetness.  It also doesn’t hurt to take a bite of one of the berries to confirm that on the inside they are not tough and white and tart, but instead juicy and red and sweet.

You don’t actually need this many berries unless you want to make over a dozen pints of jam, which you very well might once you taste this jam on a biscuit.  Grandmother and I got a little ahead of ourselves on the quantity of berries we purchased and probably only used ¼ of this box for 4 pints of jam.  We did, however, manage to eat the leftover berries for dessert in the form of strawberry shortcake just to mix things up. Ha.

Once you have determined that these berries are indeed perfectly ripe and sweet, please wash them.

Then, hull the strawberries to remove the greenery.

Measure out 2 full cups of strawberries.  Really pack them in so you maximize the strawberry-ness.

This is the fun part (other than the most fun part: eating the jam):  Mash the strawberries until completely broken down.   I suppose there are several ways to do this, but a potato masher is my weapon of choice.

Once the berries are mashed up well, add an absurd amount of sugar (4 cups).

Mix the sugar into the berries until dissolved and give them some alone time for 10 minutes.  Stir the mixture every now and then and make sure they are behaving.

Meanwhile, pour the package of pectin into a small pot and add ¾ cup of water.

Bring to a boil over high heat and stir the heck out of it so it doesn’t stick and burn or lump up.  Once the mixture starts to boil, continue cooking for 1 minute and you’d best not stop stirring.

Then carefully pour the hot, thickened pectin into the strawberry mixture after its 10 minutes is up.

(Its dissolving 10 minutes, that is. Its 15 minutes of fame, however, has only just begun).

Stir this mixture for a few minutes until everything is dissolved together.

Next, please save your heart some ache and use a funnel when pouring the jam into the jars.  This will drastically reduce the amount of jam that spills onto your counter, your paper towel usage, and, of course, the amount of jam that tragically will never make it to a biscuit.

Using, a ladle, pour the jam into the jars, leaving at least at least a half an inch below the rim of the jar as the jam may expand in the freezer.   Though it is tempting, filling the jars to the top with jam may lead to a misfortune similar to that warned against in the previous paragraph regarding the funnel.

Once you have successfully ladled all of the jam into the jars using a funnel, place the lids on the jars and allow allow them to sit on the counter for 24 hours before putting them in the freezer.

These keep for up to 1 year, which means you can enjoy this piece of heaven on a biscuit in the dead of winter.

Speaking of biscuits, let’s make some so we can eat what is effectively strawberry shortcake for breakfast.

(I suppose you could eat this any time of day, but I think it’s more fun to feel like you are getting away with eating dessert for breakfast.  But that’s just me.)

These are Grandmother’s wonderful biscuits.  They are small in diameter and relatively flat, which maximizes the surface area that develops a nice crust and minimizes any fluffy nonsense that gets in the way of the jam to biscuit ratio.

For the record, I have nothing against fluffy biscuits.  I actually prefer them with sausage gravy because they sop up all of the savory wonderfulness sausage gravy has to offer.  So, I guess it’s a texture thing.

ANYWAY, you would probably like me to stop blabbering on and tell you how to make the perfect strawberry freezer jam companion biscuit.

I’d be delighted.

First, measure out 1 cup of flour and dump it in a mixing bowl.

Then, please tell everyone to avert their eyes as you add 3 tablespoons of vegetable shortening (Crisco) to the bowl.

After you’ve extracted the shortening from the measuring spoon using CLEAN fingers, use your Crisco-ed finger to grease the flat cast iron skillet.  This was my great-grandmother’s and it’s the only skillet I’ve ever seen Grandmother use to bake biscuits in the 23 years that I’ve been enjoying them.

Translation: This skillet is very old and results in delicious biscuits without fail.  Try to find yourself one immediately.

Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.

Add about 1/3 cup of milk and stir the ingredients together until combined.  It’s best to add most of the milk and hold a little bit back until you can gauge the moisture level of the dough.  You want it to be moistened, but not overly sticky or wet.

Using your hands, knead the dough 4 or 5 times and add more milk if necessary. Don’t overwork it, but knead the dough until it looks right.  It looks right when it looks like this.

The turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and press it down until it’s about ½” thick.  Or, if you’re real fancy, use a rolling pin.

Then, use a SMALL biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits.  (See tangent above for rationale).

Place the cut out biscuit dough on the greased skillet and pop it in the oven on 425 until biscuits begin to turn golden brown, about 10 minutes.

These actually rose more than normal, but they still tasted good.

This is what the biscuit and jam (and butter if you’re absurd like me) looks like assembled and partially eaten.   I had to take a bite to show you what it looked like on the inside.  That, and I was so excited I forgot to take a picture until I had taken a bite.

That’s what strawberry shortcake for breakfast can do to you.  Or, FOR you, depending on if you are a biscuit half-eaten or half-left-to-eat kind of person.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

My Garden

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These are some of my flowers in past years at my parents’ house.  I considered it my contribution to the household to plant and take care of the flowers.

I got really into gardening when I was in college and decided I needed a perennial flower garden a few years back.  I dug out a bunch of the rocks in the soil around the edge of my parents’ yard (New England has very rocky soil).  My dad and my sister helped.   I then used the rocks to build a low rock wall (pictured below), which I then backfilled with better dirt for my flower bed.   My sister helped with this as well.  It was the last time she participated in any gardening activities.  She discovered that she does not like manual labor involving dirt and rocks.

A year after I built the rock wall, I convinced my dad to help me put in a patio.  He did a lot of the heavy duty prep work, like using his John Deere to level the dirt and remove large rocks and dead tree roots.  I helped with spreading and leveling the sand and then I laid the stone pavers.

Thank you for helping me/doing the hard part, daddy!

And then the John Deere and I got to work planting new plants and transplanting plants from other places in the yard.

I did some transplanting from the front yard….

…and from the backyard….

…and then I bought some new plants and planted them.

And then I did some more planting and there was still a lot of empty space, but the plants needed room to grow and I would fill in new plants over time.

Apparently, I wore very strange attire one day when I did some planting.  I don’t know what to say about this ensemble except that it was very hot outside and I was trying to keep my feet (but evidently not the other 90% of my body) free of dirt. I must have been delirious from heat exhaustion at this point to strike such a pose, in such an outfit, in such a setting…with a shovel and without a tan.

Moving on…

This is what my garden looked like last summer, the third summer of the perennial garden/patio’s existence.  Two years ago, my dad and I transferred 4 cubic yards of good dirt one lawn tractor load at a time from the driveway, where the truck dumped it, to my garden at the edge of the yard.   This definitely improved the growing conditions for my plants.  It also improved my appreciation for every poor soul in the landscaping business.

But my plants were happy.

I’ve always loved to play in the dirt and I’ve spent every birthday for the last 5 years planting something in my parents’ yard.  This year for my birthday, perhaps I will plant something at my grandparents’ house or maybe I’ll see if the landscaping crew at my apartment complex will let me volunteer for a day.  I’m not sure how well that will go over, but it’s worth a shot.

I added this rock wall (behind the hammock) 2 years ago from even more rocks that we uncovered when mending the soil.

I was constantly moving things around, into the sun or into the shade.  I would sit in my hammock with a book, but after about 30 seconds I would be staring at my garden, thinking about my next move or project.  It was such a therapy for me.   I can’t wait to see how much the garden has grown this year when I go back to Boston to visit my parents.

So this year I’ll be gardening on a very different scale.  I will be confined to container gardening for my flowers, but I am determined to make the most of it.

Thankfully, my papa has agreed to let me help with his vegetable garden so I will at least have a decent amount of square footage to play in when I visit my grandparents in Kentucky.

More to come on the container gardening on my 50 square foot deck.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump

The Garden: Progress Report #1

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For years and years, probably his whole life, my papa has had a big vegetable garden.  As he has gotten older and less able to do all of the physical work required to have a successful garden, he has reduced the number of things that he grows down to the bare essentials.  This year, he mentioned that he “might not fool with a garden” at all. I protested heavily.

Being the good papa that he is, and after some negotiating on my part, he agreed to go ahead and put out a garden this year since I will be driving up every few weeks to help him now that I live relatively close by.

I’m not really sure how much help I will be given that I am looking forward to this as a learning opportunity, but I suppose at the very least I can contribute manual labor.  I can’t wait to get my hands on the tiller.  Watch out.

Last weekend, I went up to Burkesville to visit and Papa, Lauren and I checked out the early stages of the garden.  Papa had already put out a few hardy things and he gave us a little tour.

This is the garden plot.

These are Texas super onions.

These are sweet candy onions.

And these are multipl-I-yan un-yuns.   My papa calls these “old-timey” onions because the original onions that these started from are very old.  If you save one of these onions (or several), let it dry and store it in a cold, dry place for the winter, the next year, you can plant it again and it literally multiplies into several onions.  You can do this again and again every year.  Thus, you never have to buy new seed.  It’s pretty amazing. Or, at least, I think it is.

There’s currently a shortage of rain in southern Kentucky (some might call it a drought) so the ground is harder than normal.  Hence, my papa had to use a pick to harvest some onions for supper.  It was pretty intense.

My family really likes onions.

We do, however, grow other vegetables as well.

This is lettuce, looking a little thirsty.

And these are brussel sprouts, which my papa planted upon my request.  My granny was displeased about these being added to the garden because apparently they get worms in them.  I’m not really sure what to do about that but I’m sure my papa will have a solution.  Did I mention my papa was an Ag teacher?

Also, that blue Croc is my cousin Lauren’s shoe.  I had a full picture of her standing in the garden but she threatened my life if I included it in this post because she did not feel that she had on her best look.

These little boogers are beets.  I will not be eating these.

This is the barn next to the garden.  I like barns.  I can’t wait to have my own one day.  I am pretty sure it will be black like this one.

On a side note, I would like to confess at this time that I have eaten Chik-fil-A three times in the past week because they are everywhere in Nashville and they were nowhere in Boston.  I’m just making up for lost time.

Hopefully once my papa’s garden is producing food, there will be less Chik-fil-A and more butter beans and hot peppers in my life.   But I do love me some Chik-fil-A.

More to come as we plant beans and peppers and tomatoes and other stuff after the threat of frost has passed.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump

Butter Beans

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Whenever I visit my grandparents in Kentucky, there is always a lot of food involved.  Delicious.  Country.  Food.

My favorite kind of food that my grandmothers prepare is homegrown beans.  I love love love them, especially topped with fresh diced onion and jalapeno pepper, which also come from my papa’s garden.   If there are beans and cornbread on the table, there’s really no point in preparing anything else for me because all I’m interested in are those two items.

This past weekend, my granny made me some butter beans, which are speckled lima beans.  And as my whole family knows, I love me some butter beans.

Last Christmas, we were all working our way around the kitchen to fill up our plates with food and when I got to the butter beans, I said “I love me some butter beans.”  I didn’t realize that my whole family had heard me trying on my country accent for size, but they all started to crack up, especially my Aunt Vickie.  We still laugh about it now every time we have beans.

My love for butter beans runs so deep that I even tried to grow them in Boston last summer.

This is what they look like dried (as seed):

And this is what they look like as they begin to grow as shown in a picture of my garden last summer:

Now, as I mentioned, these I tried to grow in Boston, in a yard that had about 10 square feet of full day sun, imported soil, and a growing season about a month too short.  They are pretty pitiful.  In Kentucky, however, my papa’s bean plants grow to be about 8 feet tall and are so dense that they form a canopy between rows.

My yield was about 47 beans last summer.

My papa’s yield was probably 2047 beans last summer.

My solution to my gardening challenges?

Move South.

I have since moved to Nashville, TN and am driving up to Kentucky every few weeks to help my papa with his garden.   No joke.  I’m very serious about butter beans.

I have high hopes for the butter bean crop this year.

I love me some butter beans.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump

Fresh Air and “Flairs”

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Last week marked not only the official beginning of spring, but also record-breaking temperatures for this time of year in Boston.  We got up to 88 degrees one day and it was glorious.  I wasted no time opening all of the windows and doors in the house to air the place out.  Man, I love me some fresh air.

Inspired by all of the flowers (or “flairs” as my granny calls them), bushes and trees that seemed to be bursting with blooms overnight, I decided to take my new camera for a spin in my parents’ yard.

I had to get about 40 out of focus pictures out of my system before I was able to capture any of nature’s glory in an identifiable manner.

Bear with me.

Ahhh, here we go.  This is a flower.  A hyacinth, to be exact.

I LOVE hyacinths.  They smell so lovely and have very unusual and articulated flowers.  I’ve planted dozens of hyacinth bulbs in years past, but the deer and ground squirrels (grrrrr) seem to have discovered that these bulbs make a delicious winter snack.  Thus, my rows of blooming bulbs are now quite patchy.  Harumph.

Moving on.

Hello, mint.  Are we going to be friends this year?

Come on, little phlox blooms!

This is my attempt at an artsy photo with the old, dried hydrangea bloom looking nice and crunchy on its last leg before the new growth obscured in the background bursts forth with life.  Deep stuff.

I’ll stop now.

This is what a baby hydrangea bud looks like up close and creepy.  It resembles a vicious Venus flytrap the way I have captured it, but I promise it will turn into a beautiful blue mophead soon.

Let me apply some bronzer to this drab photo and see if that helps.

Well, she’s no beauty queen, but it’s an improvement.

Guess what this is?

YES! Another bizarre photo of a hydrangea bush.  At least this one has some nice light.

And this is a birdhouse flower.  Very unusual, no?

(Just ignore me.  I’ve been cooped up in my house too long.)

This birdhouse, although it looks like a tear-down, is apparently quite charming inside.  It has been home to a black-capped chickadee family for the past few years.  Each year, the mama bird works tirelessly, bringing small twigs one by one into the house to build her nest.  Then, a few weeks later, she makes endless trips fetching worms for her little chirping babies.  If you stick your head right up close to the birdhouse, you can see their little open beaks and hear their faint high-pitched screams for more food.

As captured in the picture below (from last year), when I leave the deck door open, my cats sit right up next to the screen, mesmerized by the sound of the baby birds and the sight of the mama bird.

There’s a lot of chop-licking as well.

Good thing my cats aren’t allowed outside.

This is a new birdhouse that I purchased in Vermont at the end of last summer.  It’s made of reclaimed barn materials (if you hadn’t already deduced as much) and, though it is hard to see in this picture, it actually has a slight lean just like an old, weathered barn.  I knew I had to have it the instant I laid eyes on it.

I would like to crawl into this picture and bask in the warm glow of the sunlight, especially because it seems that spring is now over in Boston.  Somehow we have skipped the rest of spring and summer and gone straight back to winter as the temperature has barely grazed the high 40’s the past few days.

Good news:  I am soon moving to the South.

Bye-bye wacky Boston weather.  It’s been real.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump