Gardening: (2016– )

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Host's note: this conversation is continued from Gardening: 2016 (midyear).

 

 

After the banana plant produces fruit the "mother" plant dies. So do not remove any new shoots, which will provide fruit the next time around. Producing this much fruit completely depletes the plant and the new shoots grow dramatically after the death of the "mother" plant. Kind of a creepy metaphor, don't you think?

 

I see in your photo that there are 3 new shoots. Each of them will produce a fruiting plant but you should probably remove at least one of the small ones, probably both, leaving the largest shoot. It can get pretty crowded if all three are left.

 

Our altitude here in Pátzcuaro is too high for fruiting bananas but we can grow the "ornamental" kind. The same thing happens with this variety, and though there's a flower beloved by bees there's no actual fruit. I'm not a fan of bananas--never have been--but I love the plant.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

[Okanagancook]

Here are my shell beans before and after shelling.  They are beautiful.  Some of the smaller ones I will try planting next year.

I cooked all three cups that I harvested and made a bean and tomato salad with basil infused oil.  They are really, really good.  Too bad they don't stay red when cooked.

[Okanagancook]

Ok, I hope you guys are satisfied! 

I picked most of them.  Left the smaller ones and as soon as I can find some newspaper they are going downstairs in the wine cellar to ripen then I will dry them.

We also harvested our buttercup squash, all 13 of them.  I already gave away 12.  Next year I will be murdering anything that grows out of the compost.

[shain]

@Nancy in Pátzcuaro Thanks for the tips, this is exactly how I've learnt one should handle bananas. By now, there is a thourth tiny shoot. As I said, I'll remove some of them by spring. I also really like banana related ornamentals, such as Bird of Paradise and Ravenala.

[Shelby]

3 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Here are my shell beans before and after shelling.  They are beautiful.  Some of the smaller ones I will try planting next year.

I cooked all three cups that I harvested and made a bean and tomato salad with basil infused oil.  They are really, really good.  Too bad they don't stay red when cooked.

Boy they are pretty.   I still see a tinge of red....ok ok pink...in there.

3 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Ok, I hope you guys are satisfied! 

I picked most of them.  Left the smaller ones and as soon as I can find some newspaper they are going downstairs in the wine cellar to ripen then I will dry them.

We also harvested our buttercup squash, all 13 of them.  I already gave away 12.  Next year I will be murdering anything that grows out of the compost.

Phew!  I feel better.  As a tomato-less person I was having palpitations over you tossing them lol. 

[ElainaA]

7 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Here are my shell beans before and after shelling.  They are beautiful.  Some of the smaller ones I will try planting next year.

I cooked all three cups that I harvested and made a bean and tomato salad with basil infused oil.  They are really, really good.  Too bad they don't stay red when cooked.

 

I always feel sad that the beans (fresh or dried) lose all their color when cooked. Black beans are the exception. But they all taste really good.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I wanted to share a quote from author Anne Lamott from her book "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life". It's about gardening and why we do it. It struck a chord with me, as a former serious gardener who now just dabbles a little.

 

“The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity.
The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things.
The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe.
It’s part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food.
It’s a competitive display mechanism, like having a prize bull, this greed for the best tomatoes and English tea roses.
It’s about winning; about providing society with superior things; and about proving that you have taste, and good values, and you work hard.
And what a wonderful relief, every so often, to know who the enemy is.
Because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time.
And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth, and growth, and beauty, and danger, and triumph.
And then everything dies anyway, right?
But you just keep doing it.” 
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

 

Lest you get the impression that I am some lofty intellectual peering down at lesser beings from my ivory tower, this quote was first brought to my attention by binge watching the latest season of "Orange is the New Black".    It's uncredited, but I thought it was beautiful, and researched more about it. I think the quote is particularly apropos this time of year. It also brought to mind Shelby's 

trials with the weather and marauding raccoons this year in particular. We all know she'll be back at it next spring and are wishing her better luck against "the enemy".

[dcarch]

"The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things."

The garden is also used to impress your friends and neighbors how wealthy you are.

"The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe. "

Then it is no longer a garden. It becomes a farm. (IMHO). In some communities, it is illegal to plant tomatoes in the front of the house.

 

dcarch

[DianaB]

4 minutes ago, dcarch said:

"The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things."

The garden is also used to impress your friends and neighbors how wealthy you are.

"The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe. "

Then it is no longer a garden. It becomes a farm. (IMHO). In some communities, it is illegal to plant tomatoes in the front of the house.

 

dcarch

 

How strange, the bit about illegal tomatoes.  Is there a reason?  

 

Soon after moving to this house 26 years ago our then neighbour, an elderly very 'correct' lady (also very kind once she accepted that we weren't planning to cause what she considered damage to the house, once her parent's home) saw me gardening at the front of the house.  She asked what I was doing.  I responded, sowing carrot seeds.  I got a horrified look followed by "we don't grow vegetables in our front gardens in this village".  I think of her everytime I plant anything edible at the front.

[ElainaA]

@Thanks for the Crepes  I love that quote! And I especially identify with "the enemy is everything". I think of gardening as, at best, a prolonged adversarial discussion with nature. Often, a war. 

[Okanagancook]

TFTC, beautiful quote.  Thank you..

i love my garden.  It gets the morning sun so my favourite place with my morning cuppa- tea is the garden chair over looking the garden.  I watch the 'magic' unfold as spring turns to summer and the plants respond to sun, warmth, fertilizer and of course water.  Fall is good and bad.  The good being the harvesting of root veggies, the final picking of tomatoes, red and green.  The bad that it's over for the year.  Luckily here I will be back at planting the garlic mid-October and in early March my peas, radish and carrots.  So not too long to wait without a garden.  The garden is like a good friend...pretty reliable, generous and forgiving for the most part.  I do not really have problems with bugs.  This year it was rats eating my ripe tomatoes.  

 

i feel like I am providing for my family while not farming.  Providing high quality vegetables as fresh as you can get while saving money.  This is evident when one visits the farmers market and notices the prices.  Deserved on behalf of the farmers who toil long and hard to bring their bounty to the market.

[Wayne]

 

@Thanks for the Crepes

Nice quote. Good points made by all however for me the garden is also a place of refuge and contemplation.

At the risk of sounding silly let's call it the Zen of Gardening (similar to the Zen of Fishing).

 

 

[ChocoMom]

I love my garden and all the produce, but those blasted deer are ruining it on all levels. Clover the calf was bad enough- the game camera caught her on multiple occasions coming out for  2am or 3am snack(.Getting her on time-stamped film put to the bed the notion that cows sleep at night.) Once we got her in the "time-out pen", things were well for a couple days.  

But then, lo and behold---the game camera captured images of deer romping through the yard.. The trail of hoof prints led right to the broken fencing.  And, with the fencing broken, who do you think managed to get into the garden and destroy even more????  Dewey----the turkey from hell.  It doesn't take her long----just a 4-6 hour rampage will leave more in ruin that one can imagine. She has plenty of food- but chooses the route of destruction.   That one's got to go, Grrrr. 

 

The garden itself has some issues. Time has not allowed me to rototill and pull weeds as I have in previous years. But, the weed cover has provided some protection against the deer and fowl invaders. In searching for a ripe tomato or two, I stumbled upon 2 orange pumpkins! So, while the tomatoes are taking their own sweet time to ripen, the pumpkins will be ready to pick soon!  This perplexes me to no end- since when to pumpkins ripen before tomatoes???   The massive haul of spaghetti squash is beginning to turn from creamy to yellow, and the beans continue to produce well.  As of last night, I am still piling yellow crooked neck squash and zucchinis into our painter's truck when he's not looking.   Imagine when the umpkins and SP- Squash are ready!!!!  

[Okanagancook]

Harvested all but one of my basil plants.  Got a whole big bowl full of leaves.  What to do?  I have plenty of pesto.  I already made basil oil.  I have frozen basil in oil from last year still......Pasta!  Like spinach only basil.

Some hand made shapes and a few piles of spaghetti.  My dehydrator was already on with plumbs in it so I put the pasta in for 3 hours and it's perfectly dry.

 

[Okanagancook]

Ok, guess what I am making.

[Bhukhhad]

4 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Harvested all but one of my basil plants.  Got a whole big bowl full of leaves.  What to do?  I have plenty of pesto.  I already made basil oil.  I have frozen basil in oil from last year still......Pasta!  Like spinach only basil.

Some hand made shapes and a few piles of spaghetti.  My dehydrator was already on with plumbs in it so I put the pasta in for 3 hours and it's perfectly dry.

 

This is amazing. Such great pasta. 

[Bhukhhad]

50 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Ok, guess what I am making.

Is it buckwheat? Or birdseed?

Edited September 14, 2016 by Bhukhhad (log)

[Okanagancook]

Thank you for the pasta praise!

good guesses but it is neither.  Thanks for playing

[Shelby]

7 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

I love my garden and all the produce, but those blasted deer are ruining it on all levels. Clover the calf was bad enough- the game camera caught her on multiple occasions coming out for  2am or 3am snack(.Getting her on time-stamped film put to the bed the notion that cows sleep at night.) Once we got her in the "time-out pen", things were well for a couple days.  

But then, lo and behold---the game camera captured images of deer romping through the yard.. The trail of hoof prints led right to the broken fencing.  And, with the fencing broken, who do you think managed to get into the garden and destroy even more????  Dewey----the turkey from hell.  It doesn't take her long----just a 4-6 hour rampage will leave more in ruin that one can imagine. She has plenty of food- but chooses the route of destruction.   That one's got to go, Grrrr. 

 

The garden itself has some issues. Time has not allowed me to rototill and pull weeds as I have in previous years. But, the weed cover has provided some protection against the deer and fowl invaders. In searching for a ripe tomato or two, I stumbled upon 2 orange pumpkins! So, while the tomatoes are taking their own sweet time to ripen, the pumpkins will be ready to pick soon!  This perplexes me to no end- since when to pumpkins ripen before tomatoes???   The massive haul of spaghetti squash is beginning to turn from creamy to yellow, and the beans continue to produce well.  As of last night, I am still piling yellow crooked neck squash and zucchinis into our painter's truck when he's not looking.   Imagine when the umpkins and SP- Squash are ready!!!!  

I'm the same way pumpkin-wise.  My tomatoes are green green green but I have about 15 pumpkins that are ready to go.  Very strange.

[Shelby]

Yeah, that pasta is amazing.  I'm having some serious envy.  

 

They look like wheat berries but that can be right.........

 

Are they grape seeds???

[ElainaA]

@Okanagancook  I love the pasta. I get such great ides from this place. I also have more basil than I know what to do with. Time to get out the pasta machine. Thanks! 

[Okanagancook]

9 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Yeah, that pasta is amazing.  I'm having some serious envy.  

 

They look like wheat berries but that can be right.........

 

Are they grape seeds???

Grape seeds was a good guess considering we have lots of vines.  But not correct.

The pasta was good but I think I put too much basil in the amount of dough I had.  The texture isn't quite right for pasta.  We just had a small sample bowl for breakfast.  I think they will be fine with a sauce.  We just had them with my cultured butter.

 

ElainaA, if you are going to make some, I blanched the basil then chopped it in the food processor until it was fairly finely chopped....not pureed as in a blender.  I think if you put two tablespoons of the blanched basil in with 2 cups worth of flour for pasta (and your eggs/egg yolk) that will give it enough flavour without the textural problems I have.  You could make a sample batch with 1 cup of flour and 1 tablespoon basil to see how you like it.  The bow ties are very easy to make.  That was my DH's idea after we worked on the garganelli for awhile he could see it taking a long, long time and seeing he has zero patience he switched to bow ties.

[Bhukhhad]

red quinoa? 

[Okanagancook]

Nope.

hint....it's a Mediterranean spice.

[sartoric]

Is it anise ? Or allspice berries drying ?