August 3rd

Eggplant, one of Ginny's heirloom tomatoes, some garlic and the last of the onionsl

Stopped by the garden on the way home from brunch at the Johnson's house. The gladiolas, Stella d'oro day lilies  and  the coneflowers that I transplanted looked pretty limp. I had not watered because I was sure rain was on its way. However, no rain; Ed and I gathered some tomatoes and admired the melons, which seems to grow in girth every time I see them, even if its only a five minute from one glance to the next. The eggplants look marvelous but I did not have a knife to cut the stem, which is so thick that I am afraid to try to snap it and accidently uproot the entire plant.

Last night we had a good rain and I am eager to see if the cool weather and the rain have revived the transplants. Hope so.

Today I focused on my backyard and weeded for several hours. Collected several large bags/containers of debris. It was pretty weedy out there. I tried to tie up the volunteer tomato plants behind the azalea  bushes but ended up just uprooting them. I hope that removing the debris will reduce the number of mosquitoes. It looks a lot better without all those pesky violets. Tomorrow, I'd like to move some hostas and those green snake plant look-alike plants. They have flourished in the shady backyard. Unfortunately, the holly bush by the fence is getting so big that the hosta and the green spikey plants are getting buried.   I trimmed up the holly but need to move about 6 plants while the weather is still cool. Rain on the horizon on Tuesday.

I want to visit the Nottoway garden tomorrow and continue to clean up the beds, harvest the tomatoes and the eggplant, and plant some more seeds in addition to the radish and green beans. However, Anne Marie is coming up for a visit and I need to get the Subi from the repair shop and get to DMV to have Corolla  title lien released since it needs to be in AMDW's name.

Next week, I really need to buy some mulch and get some more cardboard to freshen up the garden paths.  

August 2, 2013

Italian Almond Tart : recipe from Williams Sonoma

The best laid plans often go astray. Meant to go to the Nottoway garden but ran out of time. However made a delicious Italian Almond Tart. Recipe is as follows:

pie crust


     Mix 1 1/2 cups of flour with 1/2  cup of butter  and 1/4 cup of sugar & 1/4 tsp salt   

     combine until looks like "rough cornmeal"
     add a mixture of 1 egg yolk . 1/2 TBSP of Vanilla, and 2 TBPS icy cold water -
     chill 30 minutes and roll out to 9 inch tart pan.
     Bake with pie weights about 20 minutes until not "wet".
Filling: With electric mixer
      - cream 1/2  cup butter
         add can of almond paste mix until smooth.
         add 1/3 cup of sugar  and two eggs- 1 at a time.
         Stir in 1/3 cup of flour.
 Put it together
     Spread 1/3 cup of raspberry jam in bottom of baked pie shell,
     add butter mixture
     sprinkle with sliced almonds.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.

We like it for dessert or for a breakfast sweet.

August 1, 2013

Potatoes harvested this morning

The original potatoes that these potatoes grew from had started to sprout this spring. Rather than throwing them into the compost heap, I planted them at Nottoway. This is the second year in a row I have managed to salvage potatoes from death row.

  It is lots of fun digging up potatoes; as Anne Marie said its like an Easter egg hunt with potatoes. When I dig up potatoes, I always feel as if there are lots of little potatoes lurking under ground that I missed. I think I need to "Hill" the potatoes so that they are easier to find. Next year!

I spent about two hours at Nottoway this morning. I cleaned up some of the beds by harvesting the potatoes and onions.

 After cleaning up some of the beds, I transplanted some Stella D'Oro lilies from home to the outside corner of the  Nottoway garden. At home, as soon as the Stella D'Oros bloom, the deer chow down on the flowers. Am tired of feeding the deer. I also transplanted some coneflowers from home. The walk I took with Anne Marie on Tuesday made me feel like a "Martha" -all work and no fun- because I realized I didn't have one flowering plant in the garden. So today, I added some plants that should provide some pink and yellow to the plot. I put them on the outside perimeter so people could enjoy them.

I also planted some Kentucky Wonder green beans in the outside beds so they could use the fence and the sunflowers to climb. I also planted some red Giant radishes in three rows in the large bed on the left. They should be ready in thirty days so I guess I'll plant some more next Thursday, and the following Thursday etc so that I'll have radishes ready to harvest for the month of September. Also planted a  few giant sunflower seeds along the fence line. The package said it  flowers in 90 days which would be the end of  October. Hopefully, these seeds will be productive- I'd like to harvest the seeds for the birds this winter. The sunflowers I planted in the spring were all decapitated. A little mysterious that only one from the spring  actually set seeds.



July 30, 2013

Grape tomatoes

Anne Marie and I visited the garden today and harvested some onions and garlic with a few tomatoes and potatoes thrown in for good measure. We then toured Nottoway and one of the other "garden plotters" gave her a beautiful heavy butternut squash. We enjoyed the ramble but it was a bit buggy so we cut the walk short in order to have time  for a nap before returning to Richmond. It was wonderful to have her visiting us. Young Beverly remains full of beans and runs around the house as if possessed or being chased by an evil fantasy animal. 

forest of eggplants

Used some of the previously harvest potatoes for a delicious roasted potato, fennel, green bean and asparagus dish for last night's feast. The grated parmesan on the roasted veg made  it taste absolutely yummy. We had corn salad with the corn from the Eastern Shore that the Johnsons brought over on Sunday, my favorite broccoli salad, the Silver Palate's summer tomatoes and Pasta dish along with grilled flank steak and finished off with an apple tart made with puff pastry and fresh whipped cream.
The weather was so mild that we ate outside and had a marvelous time with Anne Marie, Tom and Colleen, Alex from Melbourne, and Lindsay. I really enjoyed making the meal and having everyone here. Missed Carly but we used her stand in - Lindsay.
nne Marie used the little Canon camera for the following Veggie Glamour shots. She is right, the closer one gets to the veg, the better they look.



potatoes



Eggplant





mystery melon: a volunteer

 

Recipes

Roasted Vegetables "Back to Basics" page 171 Garten

Heat oven 425 degrees,

toss  the following in  1/3 cup olive oil with kosher salt and fresh black pepper

1 pound of small potatoes cut in half or wedges

2 small fennel bulbs  cut into 6 wedges

and roast for 25 to 30 minutes until potatoes are tender, toss once while cooking

toss in  1 pound of green beans and a bunch small green asparagus cut in 3 inch pieces and roast another 10 to 15 minutes until green veg are tender. sprinkle on 1/4 cup of grated parmesan and roast another minute or two until melted. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

Fresh Corn Salad "Back to Basics" page 160 Garten

In a large pot of boiling water add 5 ears of shucked corn and cook for three minutes. Add corn to an ice cold water bath to stop the cooking.  When cooled, cut kennels and toss with 1/2 cup of finely chopped red onion, 3 tablespoons (each) of cider vinegar and olive oil, add salt and fresh pepper. and toss. right before serving add 1/2 cup of freshly chopped basil.

Broccoli Salad- from Susan Lubbers

Combine chopped broccoli (chop it fairly finely- but not minced) with golden raisins and toasted pine nuts. For dressing combine equal amounts of plain yogurt and mayo and a little sugar and salt and pepper. The trick is to coat the broccoli not smother it with the dressing so the amount of broccoli one uses dictates the amount of dressing. I usually mix half the dressing I make and then add more in increments so its not too "wet". Chill for a few hours.

Silver Palate Summer Tomato Pasta

   

 





July 27, 2013

 



 Picked on Friday.  

first fruits 2013

July 26, 2013

Before visiting the garden, Ginny and I went to Unity in Fairfax to see a demonstration of mandala making. There are several monks from Tibet building a sand mandala in the sanctuary.   Very interesting. The colors are incredibly bright almost garish especially green. I enjoyed reading some of the Dalai Lama sayings. One of them " The Paradox of Our Age" is as follows:

" The Paradox of Our Age"

 

We have bigger houses but smaller families;

more conveniences, but less time:

We have more degrees, but less sense;

more knowledge, but less judgment;

more experts, but more problems;

more medicines, but less healthiness;

We've been all the way  to the moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet

the new neighbor.

We built more computers to hold more

information to produce more copies than ever,

but have less communication;

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods

but slow digestion;

Tall man but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It's a time when there is much in the window,

but nothing in the room.

 

 

The Nottoway garden doesn't look like much but contains past work and future expectations. Perhaps that is what draws me back. I do love working in the garden.  

  

partially completed mandala

pots of colored sand

metal tubes; monks scoop up sand and then rub a metal file over the tube to place the sand on the mandala

Tuesday July17, 2013

It has been some time since I posted to the Nottoway blog. Sadly this reflects the amount of time I have devoted to the garden in 2013.
Last Fall, when I cleaned up the garden I planted a bunch of "stuff" to winter over; mostly  onions but also some garlic. While I have enjoyed the onion, I feel a little bad  because many of them were pulled before their time. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the onion caper, I put in 120 onions sets  that I bought from Southern States in Manassas. Way too many onion sets for a plot 20 by 15 feet. Three different varieties and all delicious. I still have about 40 onions left in the garden after my harvest yesterday. Interestingly enough, the onions stalks are huge in relation to the size of the onion--- the onions are about four feet tall  but with a diameter smaller than the size of my fist!
After dropping Ed off at the Metro at 7:30 am yesterday, I went directly to Nottoway and worked until 10:45.It was HOT.
 I cleaned up the beds- 3 cubic feet plus of weeds and onion and potato debris; pulled about a dozen onions and several pounds of red potatoes as well as a few yellow potatoes. I tied up the tomatoes and tried to reorient the volunteer squash plant that surrounds the bed to the right of the walkway from the gate door. It is unbelievably big and dramatic.
At least now the walkways are clear. Poor Ginny, her side of the garden looks well tended. I have not been a very good gardening buddy this year.  The tomatoes, and eggplants  growing at Nottoway are from seedlings I purchased in Ocean City NJ over Memorial Day holiday. The New Jersey seedlings and the potatoes which sprouted in my laundry room as well as a few sunflowers are the only new things I put into the garden this year. Part of the lack of effort results from being busy with two weddings this spring Jenni Ryan and Pat Jenkins as well as the Cap to Cap  weekend bike ride in Richmond with the entire family...Ed rode 50 miles while Tom did the 100 mile one. Between the ride, the weddings, Carly's graduation, helping her get ready for China, the trip to OC NJ and two weeks in Ireland, I have not had the  time to work in the garden like I did last year. Also, since our neighbors, the Crotty's have taken down a number of large trees, our back yard now sunny enough for plantings. I have put in peppers, beans and tomatoes on Verdict Dr. The deer have really enjoyed eating them so I'll not do that again next year.   
Right now I am in White Plains for a week but when I get back I am going to harvest the balance of the large bed and plant string beans. I plan to ask Ginny if I can cut some bamboo poles from her backyard and use them as a support. Last year, I used the metal wire plant supports for the beans and was happy with them but the area was smaller. Also, this year I have used the metal wire supports for the tomatoes.  Either I have to buy more metal supports or get some bamboo ones.
Next week I promise myself to take some photos for the blog.