Friday Favorite: Weeding
Weeding is a garden chore that I don’t mind, there’s something very relaxing about it. I guess it’s the repetitious nature of it, it allows me the freedom to let my mind wander. Once again, it’s the season for weeding. I spent a half hour outside yesterday evening trying to rid an area of quack grass.
For me, it’s a wonderful way to spend an evening.
What’s your favorite garden chore?
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Friday Favorite: Starting from Seed
There’s nothing I love more than starting my own plants from seed. Partly, I do it to save money. When you have a garden as large as I do, you could easily go bankrupt trying to buy plants. Starting from seed is a great way to get a lot of plants for minimal monetary investment. I also like starting from seed because you can find really interesting varieties.
Take this asparagus for example, it’s ‘Precoce D’Argenteuil’, an old French heirloom which is prized for it’s tastiness. I also started ‘Mary Washington’ asparagus seeds this year as well. (source: Baker Creek)
Not only can you find rare and unique varities, it’s so much fun to watch the life cycle of a plant starting from seed. These tiny asparagus spears make me smile. Even though I know it will be 3 years before I can harvest anything from these plants, when I finally do I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing exactly what these plants have seen throughout their lifecycle.
What’s your favorite seedling to see in spring?
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Friday Favorite: Edible Houseplants
Earlier this week I picked up Growing Tasty Tropical Plants from the library. I have a few edible houseplants, namely herbs and a few citrus trees. My variegated citrus from Monticello has a few lemons on it (sorry, forgot to take photos of them yesterday). When you live in an area with long, cold winters, houseplants can be a saving grace, particularly edible ones.
This book is very dangerous for someone like me. After just flipping through it, I already have a wishlist of tropical plants I “need” to add to my collection. At least with an edible plant you feel like you’re getting something more out of your houseplants. I did start seeds for pink bananas yesterday, they should be interesting. I’ll keep you posted on how those grow.
I can’t wait to add a few more interesting edibles to my houseplants list. I’m thinking avocados and papaya might be the first things I’ll buy, a black pepper plant sounds pretty interesting too!
Do you have any edible houseplants?
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Friday Unfavorite: Plastic Plant Tags
I must admit, I’m a huge scrooge when it comes to plastic plant tags. I dislike them very much, in fact dislike might be a little tame when it comes to expressing how I really feel about them.
Whenever I purchase a plant, the tag is put in a bowl in the garage, it is NEVER put in the garden. There’s nothing I dislike more than seeing those little tags peeking out of the soil. I know there are people who like to use them to keep track of plants, I am not one of those people.
I actually wonder why people do put these tags in the garden, after only a season or two they’re often faded and falling apart or completely missing. The ones I keep in a bowl in the garage are still in great shape and provide a great reference every now and then.
Back in Ohio, I found tags from the previous owners up until the time we left (10 years later). The funny thing is that I never saw any of the plants I found tags for. Perhaps they blew into my yard from neighboring garden, or the previous gardeners didn’t have very green thumbs.
It looks like I’m back to finding relics of the previous gardens here. Yesterday was beautiful, I spent time in the afternoon picking up trash. I found quite a collection of plastic plant tags, all for annuals that have graced these gardens in previous years. No doubt I’ll spend the 10 years unearthing them from their tombs here.
What do you do with the plastic tags that come with the plants you purchase?
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Friday Favorite: Young’s Lobster Pound
I’ve declared my love of seafood before here and here. It was also one of the reasons we ended up in midcoast Maine instead of Vermont.
Generally, I buy my seafood from a lady at the Belfast Farmers Market, but when the market is closed or I don’t get in to town on Saturday, we go to Young’s Lobster Pound.
Usually, I get a different kind of seafood each week. Sometimes we go with scallops, other times we get fish, and every now and then lobster.
This week clams were on the menu. The weather has been cold and wet, with lots of snow and rain. A big pot of clam chowder sounded perfect when I was thinking about what kind of seafood I wanted to buy.
I settled on the recipe from Simply Recipes, it sounded perfect. There were a few changes made, I added garlic and lots of butter and omitted the flour. All-in-all, it’s a pretty good version. I like my chowder on the thinner side, sometimes it’s a little too much like gravy when you order it at a restaurant.
Now that we live close enough to the ocean to enjoy fresh seafood, we try to eat it as often as possible. It certainly is nice to have the option of having a wide variety of things from the sea on our plates!
Do you have a favorite food that isn’t readily available in your area?
