Winter sucked just a little less today

I woke up this morning looking like this:

I am so done with the snow. You can't even enjoy "playing" in it since it is like 10 feet deep. Even the dog is like, "Um, nah, I'm good, I'll hold it for a while." I don't want to hear about a time to rest from gardening, enjoy the different seasons, blah, blah friggin blah. I AM DONE.

I must admit, however, there were three things that did occur today to lighten the mood just a bit.

First, my garden blog pal, who I worship like no other, Allan Becker, sent me a personal email including a blog post from last winter that highlighted a number of winter worthy shrubs. Check it out here. I am a monstrous fan of the Cornus 'Arctic Fire'.

   
Second, that kick ass wife of my mine whipped up another stellar dinner. Today it was spaghetti squash with meat sauce. You can find a very similar recipe here. In case you haven't tried it, the spaghetti squash is baked and the strands of the squash can be removed to replace the actual spaghetti. Bellissimo!

And last but surely not least, my daughter made me a picture as she is also fed up with this weather and is ready for spring:

     
She knows the way to my heart.

John 

Monsanto, Whole Foods and a side of Roundup with your alfalfa

I had been prepared to write a blog post entry today about one of my favorite ground covers. It was to be nice, light reading for a Friday afternoon. But I couldn't bring myself to complete it because of something that is eating away at me.

I will not claim to be an expert in all things organic, various farming practices, or even genetically engineered crops. But I have shopped at Whole Foods, eaten Stonyfield yogurt and know all about the beast that is Monsanto. If you haven't already, watch the film Food, Inc. I promise you will never look at food the same way again. And I promise you will become infuriated with the practices of Monsanto ... and the FDA ... and the USDA.

 
I can voice my disgust all I want to my friends and family or post an article on Facebook and Twitter but it isn't enough. I am pissed at myself for not getting more involved and taking a stand. It may be as simple as refusing to shop at Whole Foods or refusing to eat a certain yogurt, but it is a start. I am determined to change my ways and I hope you feel the same after reading the articles below: 
 
http://www.counterpunch.org/cummins01282011.html    

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/kiss_your_organics_goodbye/

http://www.naturalnews.com/031138_Monsanto_Roundup.html

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thank you
John

How I've learned to enjoy insect destruction

Last spring, I purchased a few Swamp Milkweed plants (Asclepias Incarnata 'Ice Ballet') at my local native plant sale. I knew these were native to my region and therefore could handle my poor soil conditions. I also liked the white blooms and knew exactly where I could place them in my garden beds:    

Soon after these were planted in the ground however, the evil aphids arrived. The first reaction I had was to destroy the little f'ers but also stuck with my strong belief in not using any chemicals whatsoever when treating plant issues. I knew I could attempt to hose off the aphids but something told me to just let it be. I'm glad I did.

Within days of the aphid parade, the lady bugs showed up and started to chow down on the aphids:      

I loved watching it all go down and to my surprise, didn't care about how the plants looked as a result. I am your typical OCD gardener when it comes to design so this was a nice development in my maturity as a gardener. And it only got more interesting from there.

I knew the swamp milkweed would attract butterflies and all sorts of other creatures, but admittedly, did not know that it was the sole host plant for the monarch caterpillar/butterfly. In early August, I snapped these shots in a manic state of excitement:

Hot damn! Sweet! I didn't give a rat's behind that all of my plants were getting completely destroyed and stripped of all their foliage:

 

About a week or so later, I found two beautifully sculpted chrysalis:   

And two weeks after that:

All I could think of at that moment was how sad it would be if someone were to sacrifice this incredible exhibit of nature at it's best just to make their plants "look pretty". This may be the greatest lesson I've learned over the years and I urge you to do the same.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Take a look at the photo below. This is the same previously destroyed plant from above, in early Fall. The foliage came back like gangbusters. Man, I can't get enough of this stuff: 

Keep it real
ONG

What John ate - pot roast edition

I'd like to introduce you to a new series of posts I will be "peppering in" (pun intended) going forward. "What John ate" will outline what my "Ina Garten in training" wife made for the family that day.

You often hear people say "Cooking is simply the ability to follow a recipe. If you can read, you can cook." That may be true to some extent, but I have been witness to the fact that it goes much deeper than that. I am a horrendous cook (most likely due to my inability to multi-task, what was I saying?) but I know good food. And I know when someone goes beyond just following a recipe line by line. That would be my wife and today's dinner was a perfect example of that.       
Today was a pot roast and I had my first inkling that it was going to be off the cuff, when my wife asked me to pick up the meat and some onions and she would "wing the rest." And she did.

First, the meat was seared to give it a nice crust on the outside (excuse the photos, I'm a first time food photographer):         

 

Then the vegetables - celery, onions, carrots and parsnips - were sauteed to up the flavor. By the way, I have become a monstrous root vegetable fan and parsnips might be at the top of that list:  

While I cannot cook a lick, I am a smart and responsible gardener (or so I am told) and know that the scraps need to go right into the compost heap:

The roast was to be cooked in a slow cooker and here is what the necessary liquid consisted of (again, it was all on a whim and not from one recipe - color me impressed).

The liquids were first cooked together in the same pan as the meat so the bits of meat left in the pan would further enhance the flavor.

In it all went and I have to admit I totally dug the difference in colors, which is not all that different from observing beautiful color combinations with plants. Uh oh, my worlds are colliding.

Hours later it was all done and the house smelled heavenly (my apologies to any vegetarians/vegans, although you probably left already): 
 

All that was left was to strain the remaining juices and thicken it with flour and boom, the gravy/sauce was complete. Time to eat:
  

Now I know it was good because the kids ate it, even if they insisted on calling it "meatloaf". Whatever, as long as they weren't eating grilled cheese or chicken nuggets again. Top it off with a fire, football and a bottle of wine and you have yourself the prototypical Sunday winter dinner. Good f'n times.

My next step is to get my wife to write her own food blog. Yes, there are thousands of them out there, but I am completely sincere when I say that I am spoiled by what I eat every night. This is done by someone who works all day, is home to get the kids off the bus and out of school, helps them with their homework and runs a mean household. I think that makes for a good read and it WILL HAPPEN sooner than later. Bank on it!

ONG   

   

Gardening with children

I am super anxious for the spring to arrive to see if the kids still have any level of interest in joining me outdoors. We made some serious progress last year as I realized I needed to tailor the gardening experience differently with each of the little ones.

My eight year old son has become somewhat of a "foodie", thanks to my wife's incredibly diverse and damn delicious cooking (I am going to call her out and push for her to start a blog in a future post). Common sense, which can be a bit of a reach for me some times, told me to focus on the edibles with him and we did just that.

He couldn't have been more pumped up when we went blueberry and peach picking last summer:        

While he enjoyed eating the fruit right off the branch, I think the little dude has a future as a chef. He not only loved the fruit salad my wife put together, but he also got the presentation and commented on the "nice color" combo.

I finally took the plunge last year and decided to grow all of my edibles on the back deck in containers, where not only could I control the quality of the soil but could also hide them from the lurking deer.

I grew 3 different types of lettuce, kale, spinach, peppers and two different varieties of tomatoes. The lettuce was by far the greatest success story as it produced endlessly for us into the summer and we ate some serious amount of salad:           

The greatest part of it all though, was seeing my son pull the lettuce leaves right out of the container and eat them right on the spot. I think I hear Johnson and Wales calling.  

Now my five year old daughter couldn't be more different from my son. She is fruit and vegetable averse and she would literally kill you if you forced her to eat them. Hopefully that will change over time and from the constant exposure to fresh produce she will have to withstand.

On the other hand, she is all girl (and a damn cute one if I don't say so myself) and loves princesses, flowers, butterflies and birds. She has an imagination and playfulness beyond words so I know what I need to tap into:

 

My little charming one would often tell me "Daddy, I love the flowers I see outside my playroom." Well she better be ready to get her gloves because this is the year she'll get her pruning on.    

Last year, I took each of the kids through the growing process from beginning to end:

And while there clothing of choice leaves a lot to be desired, they GOT IT and I can only hope we take it to the next level this year.

Have a great weekend my friends.
John

Wordless Wednesday

Flowers are overrated

In order to prove my point in today's entry, I had to first hook myself up to a nice little contraption that measures your "excitement" levels when viewing a particular photo:

Now that I have that in place, we can start the test. Here is the first photo I will now view:

Now that is a nice flower, a Hemerocallis 'Joan Elliot' daylily if I had to guess. Wait just one second ... OK ... done. I am now confirming the actual excitement score. Looks like an 88 on a scale of 100. Not too bad. We move on to the next photo:   

Whoa!! Is it hot in here or is it just me? Can I get a cigarette? Here's the score ... looks like a 98 out of 100. Hot damn.  

Let's try this one more time. First photo:

Well hello there little lady ... come here often? The excitement score is ... 93 out of 100. Not too shabby.   

And photo number two:

Um ... excuse me while I stumble over my words ... now that is a beauty inside and out. Score is 101 out of 100. Deep breaths ... deep breaths.

I knew it.

I love flower "buds" more than I love the actual flowers. I had a feeling all along that this was true but I am thrilled to now have confirmed it through a true scientific test. Now the question I ask myself, is why? My thoughts:

• It's the anticipation that is more exciting than the actual event. As soon a peony blooms, and maybe this is just my somewhat negative view on life in general, I feel like it is on it's way out. 
• A bud signals the fact that the plant has made it through another year successfully and that is an exciting time in the garden for me.
• Bud's are just as attractive as flowers. This may be a stretch, but so many of them are pretty sweet looking in contrast to the plant's foliage.
• The buds' that appear in the spring coincide with our best weather here in zone 6, so the foliage looks so healthy at the same time the buds are appearing.
• The buds are typically safe from the deer but once they bloom, GONE (especially true with the daylilly blooms).
• Maybe I just want to be different so back off already!

As I scanned through my photos from last year, I realize now, how obsessed I'd become in taking close up shots of emerging buds. I have so many of these photos and I am just as excited looking at them now.

For your viewing pleasure, I now give you some of my many macro shots:                 

Lobelia Siphilitica

Chelone glabra (Turtle head) 

Clethra 'Hummingbird' (Summersweet)

Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower)

Echinacea purpurea alba 'Fragrant Angel'

Hemerocallis 'Little Grapette' (Daylily)

Achillea ageratum 'Moonwalker' (Yarrow)

Astilbe 'Deutschland' (False Spirea)

Knockout rose

Who's with me on the bud love?
ONG