Growing vegetables

I had an interesting conversation today with a very experienced vegetable gardener. She grew up in a rural community in NC where seeds were saved and shared, vegetable gardening was a regular activity, and putting up vegetables was part of summer life. Her journeys have taken her to European cities (where she saw lots of vegetable gardening first-hand), to Detroit, where she helped organize a community garden, and now to Clemson as part of the Sustainable Ag Initiative and the Student Organic Farm. We share a love of vegetable gardening, clearly.

She was surprised to hear that SC Master Gardeners are now becoming enthusiastic about the idea of growing vegetables (when I started at the Garden 15 years ago, there were maybe 5 MG's in our local group of 60+ that I knew who grew vegetables). She thought that that was the point of the MG program (I wish!)

I've done several programs over the last year to different MG organizations in SC with a 'Creative Vegetable Gardening' theme. It's been definitely a 'new' interest. But I'm thinking this is only the beginning. I sent off a revised piece about vegetable gardening today for the SC Nursery and Landscape Association's publication -- the editor replied it was a 'hot topic'-- hooray!

I'm planning to be more focused on producing and storing vegetables for later use (I'm totally inspired by fellow gardening bloggers like Rob and Kathy), rather than just current consumption. It's sounding like fun at the moment, as well as tasty and nutritious.

Organizing the programmatic part of our Garden Fest in April this year, for the first time, I'm feeling a strong sense of community and interest in vegetable gardening, which is most welcome.

I didn't grow up in a family of gardeners, by any means, being a city kid, but my maternal grandmother was an excellent and keen gardener (by early necessity), and I was entranced by her berry patches, stores of home-canned beans and tomatoes, and preserves. And one set of my paternal grandparents were farmers, too, and a visit to their farm was a wonderful experience when I was maybe 8 years old.

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Smoke Signals.

It's only the first day back and already it feels as if we've been in school forever. Only 5 weeks and 4 days to the Easter holiday. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job but we always seem to be working at such a pace and trying to keep track of so many things. All my children, except for 1 who is ill, have returned full of energy, too much in some cases and I've had to rein a few of the boys in. Tomorrow being Shrove Tuesday we just have to make pancakes. We're going to do this as a whole class, looking at the ingredients and everyone mixing them in turn. I couldn't face the logistics of 31 children safely watching the pancakes being fried so we will do PE while my teaching assistant cooks the pancakes and then we'll all taste the results. At least I'm not planning to do what a colleague once did, (though I was tempted), her children mixed the batter, then unknown to the children she microwaved some pancakes she had made at home. The children do do proper hands-on cooking but that's in small groups of 4 with 2 parents helping.

It's been bright and sunny today and the lengthening days mean no more driving to and from work in the dark. It looked as though there was going to be a spectacular sunset but just at the crucial moment a big grey cloud bank rolled in.

When I got home Romas was outside creating smoke signals with a bonfire he had built to burn the last of the brambles he'd been pulling up for me. He's a useful garden helper , being young and strong he can get so much of the heavy or back breaking work done for me. I don't mind paying for jobs done properly and willingly.

My bonfire/ bramble dump area is actually on my neighbour's land so I like to get stuff disposed of quickly rather than let it become an eyesore and give cause for complaint.

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Shelving Storage

Modern Designer Sideboard - Storage
Contemporary Storage Solution in a wide variety of finishes
Dimensions: W216.2 x D46.7 x H74.2cm
These sideboards offer choices of finish for you to create the perfect storage solution. Great for living rooms, dining rooms, even home-office set-ups and bedrooms. By selecting the finish that complements the surrounds, you can work this storage solution into any room of the house.

People DAY Modern Designer Floor Storage System

With an understated contemporary aesthetic and clean lines, choose from the characterful grains of Daniellia wood, or a matt or high-gloss lacquer. Then complete with wooden door modules or with doors of polished or metalized glass – and internal shelves are supplied in transparent glass.

Modern Designer Sideboard - Storage
Contemporary Storage Solution in a wide variety of finishes
These sideboards offer fantastic quality & value with many choices of finish for you to create the perfect storage solution. Great for living rooms, dining rooms, even home-office set-ups and bedrooms. By selecting the finish that complements the surrounds, you can work this storage solution into any room of the house.

MDF Italia Random Modern Designer Shelves

Launched in Milan 2005, this is THE perfect bookcase for those who like to have clean, sculptural library systems. Shelves at various standard heights fit into the backs through concealed dovetail slots; appearing fitted they happily stand alone. The Random Shelves have a lasting appeal that looks as if they have been made to measure. Create your own sculpture with the colours and objets d’art that you place within. Whether yellow or green is your current theme you can tailor the feel to suit your pleasure. We LOVE the Random shelves when placed side by side to create a whole wall of sculptural shelving. A complementary backdrop for classic and minimal modern spaces alike.

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Wall of Blues

A few weeks ago Delikatissen featured a slew of beautiful images from the portfolio of photographer Carl Dahlstedt. How could I not immediately fall for this bedroom? Love the wall of course, and those cute little lights under the window.

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Recycling for the garden. I've been collecting odds and ends to use for the garden. Empty toilet/paper towel tubes, plastic take home salad containers, paper egg cartons, yogurt cups, and dryer lint to name a few. Also the compost bin is filling up with veggie and fruit scraps, along with said lint, and strips of newspaper. In another day, this bin will be finding a dumping off spot in the back forty under a tree that has some dirt poking through the snow. The top two pictures show my tomato, petunia, and marigold seeds that I've planted using household 'trash'. I also discovered that my oven's lowest setting for proofing yeast bread makes to perfect temperature for germinating seeds (75-85 F) ... so don't be alarmed seeing my starter trays in the oven :). Let's just hope I don't forget about them and accidentally turn the oven on ;) After they sprout and get a bit bigger, the plan is to make little biodegradable pots from newspaper to plant them in while they continue to grow indoors.

Bottom photo: indoor compost bin. this gets dumped in a old kitchen waste basket mixed with newspapers just out the back door and later dumped again onto bare soil.

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Last Day Of The Holiday.

The bright sunshine this morning was so inviting but after opening all the doors and windows in the house to let the fresh air blow through I had a good sort out of some cupboards.

Sadly the sunshine didn't last and the rest of the day was chilly and grey. Romas did stirling plumbing work up in the loft. He followed Peter's instructions to change a ball valve in another tank and sorted out out most immediate plumbing problem ie no water to our ensuite. It was messing with the plumbing that started Pete's hand off so he certainly can't do any hands on plumbing.

It's been lovely to have the week off. I'll have to remember to go to work tomorrow morning! I've enjoyed having some peace and have been able to get on with 'housewifely' jobs, the washing has all been done and now that the hens are laying I've even been baking my easy chocolate chunk cake.

Easy Chocolate Chunk Cake.

Ingredients.

4oz butter,

4oz sugar, (granulated is fine)

8oz self raising flour,

100gm chocolate, (I use supermarket value plain or milk chocolate)

4 eggs, (free range)

Method.

Soften butter, (a quick blast in the microwave).

Add sugar and eggs. (Warning, eggs from battery hens will cause your cake to spontaneously combust, and they're horrible and pale.)

Beat vigorously, (I use an electric hand mixer).

Throw in the flour and stir in, (no I don't bother to sift).

Chop up the chocolate ,add and mix in.

Grease a baking tin, (silicone cake tins are fantastic), and put mixture in tin.

Bake on a medium heat for 20-30 mins until done. Sorry but the Rayburn is very variable and I go with whatever heat it is giving me.

I did do a whole series of 'How to' photos but this is a really simple recipe that always works. It can be made with more chocolate or some of the flour replaced with cocoa powder to make double chocolate chunk cake. All variations go down well with my boys and their friends.

I did go up into the loft to have an initial scout around, there is so much stuff up there and I'm going to have to make a proper inventory. There is so much of my mother's art work as well as many boxes of china and glass and interesting items that she collected over the years. Nothing especially valuable but it will be hard to know what to do with it all. Oh well , step 1 get up there and start listing. I might even fing my lost folder of paperwork.

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Hepatica americana

Hepatica americana

We saw the first Hepatica in flower this morning. It was expected; it's one of the first of our native woodland wildflowers to flower. We'd actually made a detour on our walk to see if flowers were open in a spot we knew and we weren't disappointed.

I checked for a post about seeing Hepatica last year (it was on February 29) -- I couldn't remember if I'd made one, but of course, I had. This is an image that my gardening companion took last year.

Hepatica flowers open in late morning and close at night. I love retelling the story about the entire lab group in Germany (where I studied after graduate school) making the trek to see the first Hepatica nobilis flowering in the snow.

A beloved symbol of spring in Northern Europe, I'm also reminded of the graceful Hepatica logo for an International Botanical Congress in Berlin years ago.

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