From west-of-Boston gardener Currants:
It’s been chilly the last few mornings, but no frost (the bane of fruit blossoms) so far. Our pear, crab and viburnum came with the house — I have no idea what varieties they are (but the pears [photo at top], when we get them — roughly every other year — are delicious).
(Crab apple)
(Viburnum)
I’ve been doing stuff in the dirt, but thought I’d send photos of what’s going on above ground. That said, what’s in the dirt is pretty exciting. I’ve put in some newcomers: asparagus and blueberries.
(Soon to be asparagus)Oh, and black currant shoots–they’re sprouting (next year they’ll be transplanted from the garden to their forever homes, some in exchange — along with rhubarb and raspberries — for a couple heirloom apple trees).
And ramps! They were my great find at the New England Wildflower Society. I planted them in two locations as trials for this year–next spring we’ll see whether and how well they survived.
(Ramps)Otherwise, the garlic looks great (and is already delicious chopped and scrambled with eggs), and the wintered kale needs picking. The early strawberries have blossoms, as do the pear and crab apple (neither of which got pruned this year). The lilac has buds, we’re harvesting a tiny bit of asparagus from the old bed, and the perennial herbs are in full swing (chives, parsley, tarragon, sage, thyme–even the self-seeding cilantro has started appearing again). I never got around to ordering tomatoes, and since we’ll be away when I usually plant them I’m still trying to decide what to do about that.
( Great garlic! Source: Fedco in Maine)So that’s spring here, and I’m grateful that this year it’s slow and cool, mostly, or all that digging would be pretty miserable.
***********
Confession, I have been a total sloven about the garden cleanup this spring… and the mild winter didn’t mean any less detritus to rake up / cut back / root out. The daffodils in the front yard are mostly done blossoming, but the Siberian irises are finally starting to bud. The creeping phlox and iberis in the front-yard raised beds are gorgeous foams of blossom. And yesterday the first lilac blooms opened, yay! So I’ve got some incentive to get out there and put in some sweat equity.
What’s going on in your garden (planning) this week?
Ultraviolet Thunder
Cleanup started last weekend with the exchange of currency for stump grinding and limb cutting. We’re in decent shape, for us, which means probably no tickets from the city inspectors.
Big project for this year will be new fencing along lot lines on both sides of the yard. This will require negotiations with two neighbors. One has a toddler and the other a poodle so we need some barriers up.
5 hours of driving this morning and I will be home to see my big redbud in bloom. I missed it the last 2 years.
Have a good Sunday.
different-church-lady
Finally got to start pruning some of the roses. A huge amount of die-back this year — can’t figure out why, because the winter was mild compared to some others. The healthiest of the bunch apparently said “screw every one of these existing canes” and decided to start entirely fresh from the crown.
Partial collapse of the retaining wall for the raised bed in back. Creeping Charlie everywhere. Lawn mower broken. Tomato seedlings started late but they’re growing. Sedum seems very happy. Lots and lots of catching up to do.
Central Planning
I set the alarm for 7am and woke up at 4:45am. Oh well.
I was supposed to row this morning but the weather is crappy here in Rochester. I think it will be clear just about the time we were supposed to finish.
And this week kicks off two weeks of travel for work. Too much stuff to do, too little time to get it done.
raven
@different-church-lady: My wife thought her big rose bush wasn’t going to do anything this year and then, boom, it is starting to bloom!
Randy P
I’m so proud. Shooting in church in my area by a guy with a concealed carry permit and a “Stand Your Ground” defense.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3565418/Churchgoer-killed-fellow-member-congregation-row-reserving-seats-Bibles-taunting-gunman-saying-going-shoot-me.html
Linking to the Daily Mail because, unlike any local reports that I’ve been able to find, they show pictures of the victim. Two guesses on race of shooter and victim.
I didn’t realize that we had SYG here till I saw the wording of his statement and how his “person was in great danger”. Another legacy of the awful Gov Tom Corbett.
http://www.philadelphiacriminalattorney.com/stand-your-ground-laws-pennsylvania/
raven
The rain on the roses was nice.
seaboogie
I – for one – salute our less sentient pollinaticians…they have a pure motive of survival of the species. There is a big male crane fly that is rolling around my joint, and I am trying to corral him and move him outdoors so that he can find himself some sweet, sweet love….
different-church-lady
@raven: Phrasing!
different-church-lady
@raven: Where the heck you live that you already have flowers?
redshirt
@seaboogie: Are you high?
MomSense
We had four or five inches of snow last week and the temperatures have been really cold all month so Spring hasn’t quite sprung yet.
Time to start cooking now. Hopefully I’ll get a second wind before my party but right now I’m pooped.
raven
@different-church-lady: Whatevs, it was 5:45.
seaboogie
@Randy P: Yes, well – they are all Christians…Church of When Would Jesus Draw (his firearm)?
seaboogie
@redshirt: No.
raven
@different-church-lady: Athens, GA. It’s been three weeks since the Masters and the azaleas were past peak then. It was 90 the last 2 days so that helps.
satby
I have to weed whack the catio, the grass in there has really shot up. We’ve had a week of cool, cloudy weather with occasional rain so no real outside work other than that and another check to see if any asparagus has started to come up.
I planted a daffodil variety two years ago that was nice it’s first bloom year, but has naturalized incredibly well this year, and the cool weather has made it a really long lasting display. Frost really did a number on my tulips though, including the ones the girls planted. Only about 1/2 the flowers they should have.
And my 6 lilac bushes are beginning to bloom, one for the first time. A seventh is still too small.
OzarkHillbilly
Rain, rain, and more rain. I’ve got a lot of weeding to do. My peppers are desperate to get into the ground. It would be nice if I accomplished that today too. We’ll see. MY arthritis has really been flaring up this week.
On the up side, our Rose Breasted Grosbeaks returned this week, a favorite of ours. They seem to mate for life as they (nearly) always show up in pairs. This year we have 4 pair plus a couple unattached, and smaller, males. Normally we only have 2 pair. Word must be getting out. They will be here for a couple weeks eating as many sunflower seeds as I can put out, and then they will be gone, headed for wherever it is they will nest.
The Indigo Buntings have also returned. Their electric blue flashing in and out of the bushes and around the feeders never fails to excite. We will be enjoying their presence until fall.
Monday or Tuesday I was puttering around the yard and thinking I ought to put out a hummingbird feeder or 2. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz right by my head. “OK OK, I’ll get on it right now.” They are funny. When the feeders get low they will buzz me if I am outside. If not they will fly up to either the kitchen window or my desk window and hover in front of it, staring at me.
The Orioles should be showing up soon too. I’ll have to put out a feeder for them today as well.
Zinsky
I mowed my lawn for the first time yesterday (ugh!). I had to hand push it, because my John Deere riding lawn mower (D130), hasn’t been delivered yet. It took me three hours and my back is killing me this morning. Can’t wait for the rider! Our flower beds are cleaned and read to go – but still too early to plant in Minnesota yet. Some of our perennials are up already – daisies, etc. Now that the yard work is done, I hope it is a sunny day, so I can go for a bike ride today. Woo-hoo!
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
MattF
Rain today and the radar map is all “More rain for you!” So I’m just having breakfast and surfing a bit.
Bit of news: The hackers who attacked the central bank in Bangladesh were smart (via NYT):
Uh, yikes.
Currants
@satby:
Any chance you recall the name of the variety? I’ve planted an awful lot of daffy over the past 5 years and can’t say I’ve got any doing much naturalizing (which I have assumed means no human interference and I’m good at that!).
Joel
Planted wild geraniums rhizomes, bareroot woodland phlox, and bareroot jacob’s ladder in the shade garden last week. Fingers crossed.
debbie
@raven:
Beautiful roses!
I had assumed a few frosty nights had killed off the azaleas which were in bud, but they’ve all come out in the past week. How can there be such beautiful colors in this world!
Mary G
I finally got the permits and a plumber willing to do the work and had the main drain line replaced in my front yard. The 65-year-old cast iron pipe wasn’t in great shape, but what was causing all the problems was an 8-foot section of something called Orangeburg pipe. It’s made of wood fiber and coal tar and had collapsed and the parkway tree had a four inch around root running into it.
Now I have a patch of bare dirt to play with. Tomorrow I will look for a contractor to put in a concrete path to give me wheelchair access to the back yard and after that I can start conditioning the soil and planting succulents.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mary G:
Congratulations. I think.
satby
@Currants: well, either this one or this one.
I have both in my garden and both naturalize, but I think it’s the Accent variety. I also have several double daffodil varieties, but they bloom later, and the traditional early yellow ones have been done for a few weeks. I’m big on stuff I plant once and basically just ignore until it blooms. Every three or four years I dig up the clumps, separate the bulbs, and spread them around more. Rinse and repeat, and critters don’t eat them. Love daffodils!
Edited to add: I get all my bulbs from Colorblends, they always are great and have the best price per bulb, though you have to buy at least 25.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning rikyrah! How was the Communion?
satby
@Mary G: Good that got sorted out! Hope you can get a good price on a walkway.
Gelfling545
A nice thing garden-wise this year is that my weeping cherry tree bloomed early and the bloom has lasted for 10 days! 2 or 3 days is more usual given our general snow-15 minutes of spring-hot weather cycle. this long stretch of actual spring has been delightful.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: That place is dangerous. I could spend a lot of money there.
NotMax
@Mary G
Orangeburg pipe. Now that brings back memories of working on creating a huge tile field for drainage of aerated gray water some 40+ years ago. Trucked in enough #2 stone for that field to give Fred Flintstone job security for life.
HelloRochester
The Jack Frost Brunnera is loaded with beautiful blue flowers. The baptisia survived transplanting. The last wave of the five wave tulip pack we planted in the Fall is coming up – a ripe papaya colored parrot tulip.
Veggies are loving the cool wet spring. I built double four foot rounded beds covered with weeper hoses and landscape fabric with holes torched through it. Brassicas are already in and loving the combo of wet weather and warm soil. Arugula about one week away from harvest. Asparagus is on year five so I have to give most of it away. Peas are finally recovering from the late hard frost. Potatoes are poking out and ready for first mounding.
WaterGirl
@satby: I was just thinking this morning that I would like to plant a lilac bush. Any suggestions from satby and the rest of the garden crowd? I don’t want a giant one that will have the blooms so high that I can’t see them.
WaterGirl
@satby: Beautiful! Why is pink charm called pink? They look more apricot in the center. Where does the pink com in?
OT, King Arthur Flour sent me their “Simply Perfect Pancake” recipe this morning, and since I had almost no food in the house I thought what the heck. They are the most boring not-light definitely not-perfect pancakes I have ever had. Any ideas why that would be? I followed the recipe. (Oh, but I did look at the can after I put the baking powder in – best used by jan 2014, could that be it?)
realbtl
@WaterGirl: I’ve planted about a dozen here in NW Montana and, except for the short blooming time, thrive like a native plant, no watering needed- at least for me. Even the 15′ one outside my office has plenty of blooms easily reached.
rikyrah
@satby:
It was wonderful. There were 87 kids. The church was packed.
WaterGirl
@realbtl: Duh! I should have said I live in central Illinois.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WaterGirl: I don’t think I’ve ever seen baking powder go “bad” myself (I have a can that must be over 10 years old that I use for Cowboy Cookies). I’m not an expert on pancakes, but maybe you just needed to let the batter warm up a bit more before putting it in the skillet? Were the eggs really cold?
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
You can test baking soda or baking powder by dropping a teaspoonful into warm water. If it fizzes up, it’s okay; if not, it’s gone flat and lost its leavening ability.
ThresherK
@WaterGirl: You can test baking powder by seeing it bubble (or not) in tepid water. However, unless you’re doing it side by side with a brand new canister, the old stuff may bubble but won’t as much as it had ought to. Two years beyond the “best by” date is a lot of time.
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I’m pretty stern about getting all the stuff together at the same temp for my pancakes. Buttermilk needs to be warmed, melted butter has to be cooled, and eggs have to be warmed-in-the-shell in hot water, else I the butter solidifies on me.
Plus if it’s a baking powder pancake there usually is a five-minute rest after the liquid hits it to allow bubbles to get started.
Now I want to look up my King Arthur catalogs for the recipe.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Baking powder ‘should’ be replaced after 6 months. I say ‘should’ be because that is what Clabber Girl says, so it probably lasts twice that long.
ETA: tho I can’t remember the last time I had a can last that long. Usually mine are gone in 3-4 months.
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: Clabber Girl? We don’t get that brand around here.
I’m a “new can a year” sort. And I don’t trust myself to remember, so the opened date is on the can in marker.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Raining in Detroit today. Not that we need this, but okay. Our Christmas cactus and poinsettia both think it’s December. We are so unorganized around here.
I always resist pruning or shearing shrubs because it seems destructive to lop off live branches. But the cotoneasters look great and the…uh…other thing with the little white flowers… that looks good too. Spirea, maybe.
bemused
I buy dried herbs at my local food coop and date them. A friend and I were discussing our moms and moms-in-law who grew up in Depression era and their spice/herb supplies. We were laughing at how old their spice and herb tins were, barely any aroma left at all. I had to tell my mil that maybe the reason some of her baking didn’t turn out very tasty anymore was because the spices were probably a decade or more old.
No one grew fresh herbs in the Midwest in that era. They really had no idea what fresh herbs tasted like compared to dried herbs and they only stocked a few dried herbs and spices probably because there was sparse selection. Plain, meat and potato cooking was the norm.
satby
@Currants: By the way, beautiful pictures and I’m jealous of your garlic!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@ThresherK:
Yup. Cooking is chemistry. If you want reproducible results, you have to get the quantities, temperatures, and times right every time. There’s also the wild c a r d s of humidity and barometric pressure, but one hopes that those are 2nd-order effects for most things.
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
dang, I had the opposite. I made some pretty kick ass pancakes this mornin’.
OzarkHillbilly
@ThresherK: Clabber Girl is the only brand name baking powder available around here. They have a __/__/__ on the lid for the specific reason of dating when you open it. I take my baking pretty serious, always using only name brand and fresh ingredients, having gone thru my fair share of failures due to old or off brand yeast, baking powder, or whatever. It really sucks to spend a couple hours** on some bread only to have it fail to rise properly, and living as far out of town as I do, ‘popping over to the grocery store’ isn’t an option.
** I have a # of recipes that take days to complete.
Mike J
@chopper: I made challah yesterday. Going to perdu it, as the french say, in some egg custard in a few minutes.
moonbat
Yesterday I almost finished rebuilding the box for my community garden bed. Put pavers around the flower bed and began rebuilding the soil levels and mulching around the outside of the box to keep the grass out. Many wheelbarrows of soil later and I’m so sore today I don’t think I will be wandering far from the computer until GoT tonight. i just have to wait for it to stop raining so I can drill in the corner brackets and I’ll be ready for the delivery of my heirloom tomato starter plants. I think this is going to be a good year for tomatoes.
satby
@rikyrah: 67! wow, that’s baby boomer First Communion sizes. Which parish, mind my asking (if it’s a city one, I don’t really know too many outside Chicago)
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: in moderation.
chopper
@Mike J:
nice. I used to make challah every Friday but I slack on that now and buy it. but the Saturday French toast for the kids still goes on.
I found that baking some of the challah dough in a Pullman pan makes for some great French toast. I can fit more slices on the griddle.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: and all really top quality, unlike the hit or miss stuff in stores. When I had a job that was my favorite site for bulbs, I would group buy wit neighbors.
O. Felix Culpa
Attended a workshop on plants for the Santa Fe area yesterday. The house I bought was empty for several years, so the garden needs much TLC and re-visioning. I expect the soil needs a lot of work too. It tends to be very alkaline here, I’m told. A lot of learning to do and a lot of patience to exercise as my plot gets a major makeover. Should be fun.
satby
@WaterGirl: I have three primrose lilacs from here, the color is more ivory than a true yellow but pretty and still smell like lilacs.
I had two regular old fashioned lilacs on the property when I moved in and added 3 more from the $10 for 10 trees Arbor Day foundation (of the 10, six survived, two were weed whacked to death by my lawn guy, and two just died after not really thriving, so that’s a good deal).
I have ordered dwarf lilacs in the past, but I like the regular ones better, you can prune them after they flower to keep them in shape enough to reach, I don’t do that but you can. My “dwarf’ lilacs ended up being 4 regular and one true dwarf, so hybridizer fail.
satby
@WaterGirl: Oh and “pink” daffodils are almost always more of an apricot or salmon color, the hybrid growers keep getting close to a true pink but aren’t quite there yet. It’s like the holy grail of daffodil breeding.
I just like lots of colors, so I have daffs in every color available between my old house and this one.
WaterGirl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: @ThresherK:@OzarkHillbilly:
I pulled the eggs out ahead of time, but then I ended up only waiting about 15 minutes, so I’m sure they were still pretty cold.
I did do the resting thing for the batter after combining the liquid and dry ingredients.
I use Clabber Girl, or at least that’s what I got last time I bought it, which was clearly a long time ago!!! After I get the new can, I will try a side-by-side test in warm water. I will report back in next Sunday’s garden chat, for anyone who is interested.
I’m a pretty good cook, so flops are a rarity for me. It’s not unusual for me to make something the first time and know that next time I’ll add this, or leave this out, etc. But seriously, if these were the first pancakes I had ever tried, I would wonder why the hell people actually eat these things.
Edit: it’s true that I didn’t beat the eggs and milk for 3 minutes, but I have an awesome Kitchen Aid hand mixer that makes whipped cream in less than 2 minutes, so my mixture was light and frothy after a minute, so I hung in for another 30 seconds and then called it done.
rikyrah
@satby:
St. Barnabus -Southwest side in Beverly
WaterGirl
@ThresherK: Here’s the recipe:
Simply Perfect Pancakes (ha!)
JPL
@WaterGirl: A food scientist among us!
Malia is going to attend Harvard in the fall. It is not known whether or not she will associate with lesser ivies.
whoops.. she is taking a year off .. so fall of 2017
WaterGirl
@chopper: What’s your recipe?
WaterGirl
@satby: Beautiful lilac at the link! I should have said I want a lilac lilac, though.
Our nurseries around here often lie about what’s dwarf and what’s not. Sadly, when you come back in a couple of years and tell them that your whatever is clearly not dwarf, they say “sorry” in the same tone a 10-year old would use when forced to apologize to a sibling. I usually try to say “I’m sorry” because otherwise it’s easy for sorry to sound like anything but sorry. There’s “tough shit” sorry, which is the tone at the garden center. There’s “fuck you” sorry, which I suspect we have all heard. What a flexible word.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Science rules!
rikyrah
Malia’s going to Harvard…
YEAH
JPL
@O. Felix Culpa: It takes time to landscape. It took me a few mistakes to get it where I wanted it to be. Although, I have a large lot, it only takes me thirty minutes to mow.
Have fun!
The Lodger
@rikyrah: She probably already knows how to fight fiercely, though.
dexwood
@O. Felix Culpa:
Santa Fe, NM? Plants of the Southwest. A great resource for native, drought tolerant plants and advice.
Punchy
About to plant a boatload of sunflower seeds. Hoping to get at least one 14-footer this year….
O. Felix Culpa
@JPL: Thanks! There’s no lawn, so no mowing, but lavish weeds right now. They will provide work enough, along with figuring out what to plant where.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
I just throw it together. if I feel like it I separate the eggs and fold in the whites.
O. Felix Culpa
@dexwood: I’ve heard good things about them and plan to visit soon. Thanks for the reference! The landscape keeps reminding me that I’m not in Chicago anymore, although we’re having snow flurries right now.
dexwood
@O. Felix Culpa:
Gardening/landscaping in NM is a challenge, but interesting. You will have your failed projects, but the successes are sweet. Talking to old timers in your area definitely helps.
laura
@Central Planning: if you have early waking “issues” and facing work related travel -which wrecks my sleep every time – consider adding this podcast to your mobile device:
Sleep with Me.
It’s droney, somnulant, and combines two story threads so impossible to follow.
I haven’t gotten through a single half hour post. The sandman gets me every time.
I almost hope I get to use it some nights…
O. Felix Culpa
@dexwood: I’m looking forward to the learning curve!
satby
@rikyrah: Seriously? That was my parish growing up! My son bought my Chicago house in Beverly, so we’re still tied to the neighborhood, though not churchgoers at all. But that’s the parish we would belong to.
WaterGirl
@chopper: If you had a great recipe, I might have tried again. As it is, I guess I’m done with trying to make pancakes.
satby
@WaterGirl: Yeah, that’s why I don’t bother paying a premium for dwarf plants any more, most of the time they aren’t.
Though Springhill first sent me a small shrub that I waited 18 months to see bloom, and instead of a primrose lilac, it was a privet hedge shrub. And they apologized almost two years later when I sent pictures and sent out a new primrose lilac to replace it.Which 5 years later is doing very well as long as I keep my yard guy away from it.
WaterGirl
@satby: I am impressed that Springhill did that. It’s such a drag when you guy something and it turns out to be something else completely. One of the pepper plants I bought last year turned out to be something really absurd, though I can’t recall what it was exactly.
I can’t say too much about your yard guy because in my twenties I mowed the lawn once in a shared house (just to be nice, I had a different chore at the house) and I thought my roommate was going to kill me. I mowed over the asparagus patch! What an idiot, I knew nothing about plants and gardening back then. Knowing what I know now, and loving fresh asparagus as I do, I would have killed young me, too.
raven
I was changing the oil in my truck when a mom with a near hysterical 4 year boy walked down the street. I coaxed him into watching me and it ended up a half hours lesson in the finer points of drain plugs and pans, filters, funnels and 5qt jugs of 10w30. Can’t think of a better way to spend 30 minutes short of fishing with a kid!
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Rained overnight here, so now it’s pleasant 70s instead of the 80s we had most of last week. Also, the damned pollen is taking five,which is much appreciated.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@raven: Distraction by instruction. Nice.
HelloRochester
@WaterGirl: Korean lilac are usually smaller. And there’s dwarf Korean lilac. For shrubs, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to pay the premium for a Monrovia plant. They’re super healthy and the best of the best stock.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I’m no gardener, but when I see a long line of white peonies with a lone pink plant in the middle, I imagine an angry homeowner. I kind of like the break in variety, but if you’re going for a specific effect, it has to be maddening.
WaterGirl
@HelloRochester: Hmmm, those appear to be trees. Are they trees, not shrubs? Or shrubs that have been pruned to look like a tree.
I got a boomerang lilac last year. I didn’t do my research and have been very disappointed wth that one.
I am learning a lot from the replies. I know I want a shrub and not a tree. I know I want a lilac color, not white or yellow (satby). I didn’t think to say it, but I also want one that will smell like an old-fashioned lilac bush from when I was a kid. I don’t care for the smell or the looks of Japanese lilac trees. I just googled old-fashioned lilac bush and a zillion links came up. I am feeling overwhelmed. Now I know how coffee drinkers feel when they say “I just want a cup of coffee”.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Yeah, I bought 10 perennial flowers last year that I thought were going to be the gorgeous pink color on the label. They turned out to be nothing like the photo at all. Turns out that the voles at all 10 of them over the winter. Bastards! I was unhappy about that, but I hadn’t really liked the color, so I can’t complain too much.
Sometimes I like an eclectic mix in my garden, but in some places I like to have a specific color range and it’s not always flattering to have some bold orange flower come up in a corner filled with pinks and purples and whites.
But gardening is an adventure and it teaches me to be flexible. There’s a lesson in that… things just don’t always come out the way you expect, but they can still be beautiful.
John Revolta
Just finishing my morning cuppajoe and thought I read “I am learning a lot from the reptiles”. First time I got interested in anything all day. Ah well.
raven
My wife and her pal off to the garden club tour!
Miss Bianca
oh, envy at the beauty! Here in central CO we are dealing with almost a foot of snow which has quite buried our blossoms. Obligatory genuflection to the sentiment of “well, but we really need the moisture” aside, I will say that this is *not* the May Day I was looking for!
tybee
we have monarch caterpillars on the butterfly weed. :)
jeffreyw
Toby keeps watch under the rhodie.
Shana
@bemused: When I cleaned out my parents’ house after my father died a couple of years ago I found herbs and spices that I swear had been there since my childhood (I’m 57) and certainly since my mother had died in 1999. I did try to get my father to throw some of them out a few years previously but as a child of the Depression he flatly refused although there’s no way he had every used them in the 15 years since she’d died.
debbie
@jeffreyw:
Beautiful rhododendron!
jeffreyw
@debbie: We think it’s needing pruning but we don’t have a clue as to how. Watching Youtube how-to vids.
WaterGirl
@John Revolta: I am truly sorry to have disappointed you. But I have to confess that I chuckled out loud at your comment.
WaterGirl
@raven: Lovely women, both of them! How is it that I can’t recall which of them is your wife???? What’s wrong with me?
Miss Bianca
@raven: @jeffreyw: Oh, my! Such lovely photos, both of you! Thanks for bringing a splash of color into my suddenly all-white world!
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: @debbie: I’ll see your beautiful rhododendron and raise you beautiful kitty!
Jeffreyw, I think about Annie from time to time, so I know it must still be really tough for you guys. Such a sweet girl. I was thinking the other day looking at the sweet photos of Annie that if I ever get another biggish dog, I think I would get one like Annie.
John Revolta
@WaterGirl: That’ssssssssss nicessssssssssssssssssssss…….
debbie
@jeffreyw:
There’s probably a lot of unreliable advice on youtube. you should email your county extension or a nearby university with an ag department.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: Brittanies are great dogs, we have had several with no bad ones. Alas we are down to one, Jack. Katie has some Brit in her, and maybe some Jack Russell, it’s hard to say just what for sure.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
I’d agree with the others who said make sure the stuff isn’t cold. Also don’t overbeat the mix.
generally for every 1 1/3c flour I add a cup of buttermilk, 3T sugar, pinch o salt, 1/2t baking soda, 2 1/2t baking powder and 2 eggs and a lil melted butter. then add milk until it’s the consistency you want.
I usually add other stuff to health it up for the wife and kids, like chia seed and all that sort of crap. as long as it isn’t much it won’t change the way it cooks.
raven
@WaterGirl: The blondie is my bride.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Who knows, you might end up adding another Brittany to your bunch?
My Tucker is half brittany spaniel and half lab. He weighs 40 pounds and people always think he’s a golden retriever. I googled – guess how they originally got golden retrievers? Yep, they mated labs and spaniels.
Tucker’s gorgeous color and feathers and awesome tail are brittany, but he is all one color.
WaterGirl
@raven: I kept going back and forth! She’s looking pretty happy – is all her leg pain or sciatica or whatever it was gone?
WaterGirl
@chopper: Okay, room temperature for everything. Don’t overbeat the mix – do you mean the mix once you add wet and dry together? That’s definitely more liquid, I did kind of think it was too thick, but what do I know since I’ve never made them from scratch before?
I think I might try a dutch baby next. I don’t have a cast iron skillet so I’m hoping it will work with my stainless steel skillet that’s just the right size and shape.
edit: forgot to say thanks for the tips!
raven
@WaterGirl: Since her doc told her she MUST do here stretches in the morning and she complied she’s been much better.
Anne Laurie
@WaterGirl: I am no kind of cook, but is it possible your fantastic Kitchenaide mixer overbeat your batter? Bread & pastry recipes always seem to caution against “overhandling the dough”, so maybe those extra 30 seconds changed the chemistry of your mix enough to ‘toughen’ the gluten?
WaterGirl
@raven: That’s so great!
Edit: what are her stretches? (asking for a friend)
WaterGirl
@Anne Laurie: Hi AL. The only thing I was beating was the milk with the egg. I added the dry mixture and stirred that by hand, just enough to mix it in. So I don’t think that was it, but then if I knew anything about making pancakes, they probably wouldn’t have sucked! :-)
currants
@satby: Late–busy/long day, but Thank you! I love planting garlic the way I love planting daffodils: stick ’em in the ground in the fall, and watch ’em come up in the spring. Awesomely easy, really (just don’t plant peas or beans near them). (But greens–kale, chard–do well, and the garlic keeps the bugs down–I have another raised bed with garlic and greens interplanted, and those are for bug control and early garlic, not for drying bulbs.