GardenSpotlight

                The language of flowers, known as “Floriography,” a term coined in the Victorian era, is an age old art form.  King Charles II brought it to Sweden from Persia in the 17 th century.  The Japanese call it “Hanakotoba.”  So what is floriography?  Quite simply, it is the association of certain flowers with specific meanings.  Flowers are infused with symbolism through their rich mythology and distinctive characteristics.  Let’s look at some flowers that may be familiar to you.                 Alstroemerias resemble miniature lilies and are often called Peruvian Lily or Lily of the Incas.  This well known flower is found in a beautiful range of colors and is popular as a cut flower in bouquets.  The alstroemeria symbolizes friendship and devotion because the leaves grow upside down and twist as they grow out from...

one of our hand-made wreaths We've been so busy making wreaths and kissing balls for the Christmas Season. It's been very cold and a bit snowy of late.  A couple days ago, I surprised my husband with a crock pot of minestrone for lunch down at the farm.   He said it really hit the spot with this cold weather and has requested more crock pot goodness!  Today I made Kale and Tomato Soup for him as I wanted to use up some left over kale, which is very sweet and tender this time of year due to the cold weather.  We've been growing kale in the greenhouses all year along with other greens.  This recipe is super easy and really only takes about 15 minutes on the stove, but I elected to saute and then add to the crock pot for obvious reasons already stated.  Of course...it's always great to come home to an already cooked meal in the evening, so our crock pot is always working.  As a matter of fact, I have two of them! Kale growing in our greenhouse ...

Romano Beans....Italian  Flat Beans....These beans are flat, broad and string-less and have a bit more flavor than regular green beans.  We grow them on the farm mostly for our family, but lately they've been a big hit at the farmers' markets we attend.  When giving customers a chance to sample, about 90% will pick the Romano bean to purchase over the other.  We've been harvesting them by hand for about two weeks now, and I finally had a chance to fix some for dinner tonight. You can steam or saute them with garlic, or add them to salads if you like.  They are tender and cook quickly when picked at the right stage.  If you are growing them in your own garden, you should harvest them regularly, at least every other day, at about 4 or 5" in length and when the bean seeds inside the pod are just starting to show some definition.  If you let them get too large where the seeds are really bulging, they can be tough. Tonight I sauteed them with garlic ...

Frisee (pronounced Free-ZAY), also called Chicory, is a salad green in the Endive family.   Unlike other endives, its leaves are long and curly rather than cylindrical shaped.   The leaves are skinny and light green, turning to a creamy white towards the center of the plant.   While slightly bitter, like Escarole, it is not as bitter as its cousins Radicchio (Italian Chicory) and Belgian endive and can be used fresh in salads or cooked.   Frisee is very high vitamins and minerals, including folate, vitamins A & K, and fiber.   Toss chopped frisee with orange segments and pomegranate seeds, or radicchio and pears for a winter salad. Top frisee with lardons (French term for small, matchstick cut pieces of pork lard… or bacon cut from the belly of the pig), vinaigrette and a poached egg. Sauté frisee until wilted and combine with chopped walnuts and goat cheese.   Frisee will keep, refrigerated in a produce bag, for one to two weeks.   Since we ...

My husband and I like to experiment with ingredients from our farm, especially over the summer when produce is abundant.  A bit more scarce now from the farm, our ingredients today came to us by way of the grocery store.  Last week Hubby made an omelet with sweet potatoes...it was great.  Today I took his lead and tweaked it a little.....

We went to my in-laws' home for Super Bowl Sunday.  It was my job to bring dessert.  After roaming the aisles of the grocery store yesterday and not seeing anything I liked, I decided I was going to attempt to make a cake.  I remembered at home I had a Hershey's Cookbook.  This was no ordinary cookbook.

Oh what fun! I just couldn't resist posting these photos of a friend's Golden Retrievers out enjoying the snow earlier. Mary-Ellen raises Golden Retrievers for show....they are beautiful, intelligent animals and the breed is fantastic with children! You can connect with Mary-Ellen via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kinderval

Just a quick post here.  So remember how I said I have more time for baking during the winter?  I decided to surprise Jenn with one of her favorite things this morning....Cinnamon Rolls.  Not sure how I like them though....they're yummy enough, but I think I would adjust the recipe based on the air in the house.  Since our air inside is drier with the wood stove on, I may add an extra egg or more oil to the recipe next time.  Jenn said hers was perfect, but I thought mine was dry.  This recipe was for my bread machine on the dough only cycle, so it could just as easily be done by hand, only you'd have to mix and knead by hand, allow to rise until doubled in bulk about an hour or so, then punch down and knead again for 1/2 a minute, let rest for 10 minutes (all rest/rising periods are covered with plastic wrap and kept away from drafts) and follow directions as below.

It's snowing a little bit today.  Fine, misty, white flakes drifting through the air.  It's cold too, though not as cold as it was the last few days.  28 degrees today....it was in the single digits the last few days.  We've got the woodstove going in the house .....it's on pretty much all the time so we don't have to use fuel oil very much.  While I miss the summer months of growing, harvesting and selling and dislike the cold, I do enjoy being home and not having to run everywhere this time of year.  I have time to visit with family that lives far away.  There's more time to spend with Jennifer in a mom & daughter kind of way...shopping, movies and of course, Jennifer's music.  Winter days are spent quietly (hopefully quietly) also catching up on bookwork, tidying the house and cooking and baking.  Things I don't get to do during our growing season.  Jennifer decided to join the school's cheer team this year, so lat...

I was at the grocery store last night picking up a few staples...onions, potatoes, etc.  I wanted to get a few items to snack on at home and for school lunches.  I'm so tired of the same old things and there are so many preservatives in everything.  There are some things that you don't think are in there too, but the manufacturers disguise them under different names.  Take MSG for example....many of us know it's not good for us and try to avoid it.  It gives me headaches, as does Aspartame.  But did you know that something can say "MSG Free" and still have MSG in it?  It may be written as "Autolyzed Yeast" or "Autolyzed Protein" or some other name...there are lots of them.  Even processed organic foods can have these things in them!  For a great informational read, check out The Elephant Journal  . So back to my shopping....I got the great idea to make my own granola bars instead of buying them at the store. I figured it had to be rela...

So last year was very hectic for my family and I.  Meanwhile, my "Aunt" started a new blog after retiring from the TV industry.  I really wanted to read her new blog, especially after hearing about all the rewards and recognition she had received for it.  Finally today I got to sit down and check it out.  OMG  I love it and I didn't know she had such a sense of humor....we don't get to see each other often enough.  So check it out and feel free to drop a comment or two.  There's lots of great recipes and hilarious humor... http://MsToodyGooShoes.blogspot.com Love you Amy!

Our daughter Jennifer cooked dinner last night. Wow!  It was wonderful!  She made steak with mashed potatoes and broccoli rabe.  OK, sounds pretty average right?  Well, I had always cooked broccoli rabe just by sautéing with garlic and olive oil.  With Jennifer's simple addition of onions, it was amazing...very flavorful and sweet!  Greens are so easy to prepare, yet we have a fair number of customers at the farmers' markets that don't know what to do with them.  They can all pretty much be sautéed with garlic and oil....we're Italian, so we cook most things with those two ingredients ;-). First, you'll want to rinse the dirt off the greens and drain them or pat dry with a paper towel.  Remove the heavier stems.  Jennifer chopped the leaves of the broccoli rabe (or rapini, as some call it) before cooking, but you can leave them whole too.  Some greens like collards and kale can easily be stripped from the stems by r...

Rain, rain, go away…..so the nursery rhyme goes.  As goes our thoughts this rainy, wet spring.  While rain is important for all kinds of things from our gardens and farms to ecosystems to hydro-electric power to drinking water, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Last year we were praying for rain for crops as the drought pressed on and temperatures soared into the 90’s in July and August.  This year we are praying the rain stops, at least for a while.  We began the month of June at a deficit of 2+ inches of rain, and now, just a few weeks later we are at a surplus of over 3 inches. Constant rain provides optimal conditions for fungal growth on plants and crops this time of year and into the summer.  In a previous article last year, we talked about solanaceous diseases (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant) such as blight and Septoria, vine crop (cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, etc.) diseases such as downy and powdery mildew, and cole crop (cauliflo...

We've seen the movies on public television about factory farming.  Maybe we've gone to a showing of a local film about farming, but do we really know what's happening with the backbone of agriculture?  How do our smaller family farms stack up against those giant corporations and what is "corporate concentration?" Simply put, corporate concentration is the amount of control that a few large corporations have over the food sector in our country.  As a matter of fact, corporate concentration in United States agriculture is quite high, affecting everything from how farmers grow our food to how its marketed to the consumer.  This trend has forced many families off their farms and even out of the farming business.  What does this mean for you, the consumer?  It leads to higher food prices and less choice at the market.  USDA data shows that the cost of food to the consumer has risen steadily over the past twenty years. ...

Extension offices and state universities are warning growers of the dangers this year of Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus (INSV) and thusly a lack of availability of Impatiens this growing season.   INSV is closely related to the Tomato Spotted wilt Virus (TSWV) and was once called I-strain and L-strain of TSWV.   INSV causes a wide variety of symptoms including wilting, stem death, stunting, etches of ring spots on the leaves and sunken spots on the leaves as well as other symptoms.   The virus has the ability to “compartmentalize” itself so that it affects only one area of the plant.   Regardless of the situation, all affected plants should be destroyed immediately as there is no cure for this virus.   Other plants affected by this virus are gloxinia, cineraria, chrysanthemums (all of which you will see now for the Easter season), begonias, tomatoes, other vegetables and grasses.   There have even been reports of the virus showing up in specimens of salv...

After reading the editor’s article from a recently published issue of The Columbia Insider regarding organic vs. conventional foods , I decided to research the recent study published by Stanford University last September which reported that there are no significant differences in nutrition between organically and conventionally raised produce .   This has been a very heated topic as I see and hear from many of my patrons at the local farmers’ markets what their beliefs are.   Some consumers are open minded and willing to learn the differences and what each farmers’ growing practices are while others only care about organic food and will not even entertain what a "non-organic" or conventional farmer has to say.   One customer last fall shouted at me that the Stanford study had been refuted and quickly walked away without letting me speak.   She must have read the article atThe Huffington Post .    I could dissect both articles, but that is beyond the scop...

Container Gardens for Indoor and Out We have been covering recently about how to develop indoor gardens for your homes.   In the greenhouse for spring sales, we plant and grow many different mixed containers.    Many times I just create as I go, placing whatever suits my mood at the time.   We sell a lot of ready-made containers, but we also have a lot of gardeners coming in to purchase plants for containers they wish to design themselves.   I am asked all the time which plants work well together, how should the containers be planted or what do I think looks good together?     It is easy to be overwhelmed when you visit your local garden center or greenhouse, so it helps to have some idea of what size planter you need, what colors you need and whether you are placing the container in a sunny location or shade.   Take a look at your home or wherever you are placing your container gardens.    In front of a larger home you can probab...

“Reggie Mourning wears a Marine Corps sweatshirt and two 9-millimeter pistol rounds on a chain around his neck. There’s an M14 round hanging from his keychain. His tour of duty with a mortar unit in Vietnam was long in the past, but never really ended. After coming home, he worked for years as a trucker with the jagged rhythms of the war zone wired into his brain — sometimes barreling cross-country, drunk and stoned, with only his dog as a companion. In 2007, sick, exhausted, on his way to becoming homeless, he made it to the substance abuse program at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center near Newark. “(New York Times, November 30, 2009) So what does this have to do with gardening?   Plenty!   Gardening is therapeutic for many, military or not.   It’s a chance to play in the dirt, get back to basics and just…be.   Not only that, but I would guess that for veterans, it provides familiarity.   The familiarity provided by taking care of   the plants as ...

Creating a cozy indoor garden for your home is easier than you think.   All it takes is a little ambition and creativity.   You’ll need to keep in mind the climatic area of the room you are working with.   How much light does it have?   How much heat is available?   These are things that will affect the selection of plants for that particular area.   A southern exposure window gives the best light, without it being too hot.   If your room is very hot and dry, then you may want to add a source of humidity, such as a humidifier or simply place shallow pans of water with pebbles under the plants.   As the water evaporates, it will add the necessary humidity into the air surrounding the plants.   The latter is also very decorative and gives you a chance to play with colors, shapes and groupings of plants.   If your room does not have enough light, there are lights made specifically for plants that you can purchase. You should be able to...

I just wanted to share a quick recipe; super simple and super delicious and back to an older, simpler way of life.  Greens and Beans: Here I used home grown rapini (broccoli rabe) that we are growing this winter in our greenhouse, but  you can use any green you like.  Kale, mustard greens, beet greens, turnip greens; they all work well here.  I just sort and wash the greens (about a pound) in cool water and shake any excess water from the leaves.  I toss them in a large saute pan and drizzle them with olive oil.  I add pressed and also chopped garlic and saute until greens are tender and then I add in my beans.  I used a can of chick peas here, but you can use cannellini beans, navy beans or something similar here.  And that is it!  Absolutely delicious and quite filling.  Hearty appetite!   Greens and Beans