You Can Thank My Mom

Here's the recipe for the broccoli salad I mentioned in my last post that a couple of you said you were interested in having. I got it from my mom many long years ago and make it often when I can get my hands on fresh broccoli.

BROCCOLI-RAISIN SALAD

2 large stalks broccoli, wash and use tender flowerettes only
10 strips bacon, fried and crumbled
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup slivered almonds

Dressing:

2/3 cup Miracle Whip
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar

Put first four ingredients in a bowl. Mix together the dressing ingredients and pour over salad and toss. Is best made the night before serving or at least 3-4 hours ahead of time.

Okay, now I'll tell you how I deviate from the recipe and I'm sure you can, too, and still get a yummy-good salad to serve.

I use thinly sliced pieces of the broccoli stalks along with the flowerettes. (Just can't waste those nutritious, crunchy morsels.)

TEN strips of bacon?? Gee, that has always seemed like a lot to me. I keep fried and diced bacon in a container in my freezer for convenience and use some of it in recipes like this. How much do I toss in this salad? Oh, gosh. Less than a quarter cup probably. You, obviously, can put in as much or as little as your little heart desires.

My mom always said Miracle Whip made the best tasting dressing which I've used, but I've also used mayonnaise, both store bought and homemade.

Sometimes I don't have as much broccoli as other times. Because of this I drizzle some of the prepared dressing over the other ingredients and mix it up. If that doesn't make it moist enough, I add more. What I'm trying to say is you may not want to use the whole amount of dressing that the recipe makes. Use your own judgment on this.

I made my salad yesterday morning for last night's dinner. The above picture is what we had leftover to eat with our scrambled eggs this morning.

My mom was a good cook and I have many recipes on cards in her handwriting which I treasure. Thanks for this one, Mom!

A Day in the Dirt

It may be a little bit on the warm side today (mid-80s . . . which I know some of you would love to have rather than your three digit temps) but it's good for us to sweat, right? Gets those toxins right out of your body!

I finished getting the potatoes hilled up. Other than their rather haphazard germination rate, they're looking good. This is the first time I've planted potatoes in the "pumpkin patch" so I'll be curious to see what kind of a yield we get this year. We so much prefer red potatoes to white ones that I didn't plant anything but reds.

This morning I picked our first decent sized harvest of strawberries. I've given some away and the rest we'll use in our lunch time smoothies and/or eat fresh in a bowl with milk. (Or cream, hee-hee.) Sure wish somebody would use some of them to make a refrigerated strawberry pie topped with whipped cream.

I'm not quite finished with working on our expanded blueberry/haskcap berry patch yet today. Had to come in for a break from the sun . . . and bending over.

Early this spring we decided to expand the above area. Papa Pea plowed up the sod and I've now tilled it three times. We've picked about a ton of rocks off it three times, too. This morning we trekked into town to pick up a couple bales of peat moss for me to spread on the new area. This will start to make the soil more acidic so it'll be ready for more blueberry or haskap berry bushes when we decide what to put in there.

The new area is "L"-shaped and the three haskap bushes we planted this spring are across the foot of the "L".

They're not lush bushes yet (!) but have progressed a lot from the sticks we planted.

Well, I've slurped up the last of my iced coffee pick-me-up so I suppose I'd better get back out there to finish up for the day before time to make dinner. I think grilled cheese sandwiches and a cold broccoli salad will be the "gourmet" selection for tonight!

I Think My Garden Hates Me

I think it's mad at me for letting it lie fallow last year. For not giving it my time and attention. For throwing the seeds of a cover crop over everything but not planting any veggies or flowers.

I can't remember ever having had a garden this far behind where it should be at this time of year. I've never had so many seeds not germinate. Or transplanted seedlings do so poorly when transferred to garden soil.

There should be Sweet Peas climbing halfway up this trellis by now. The couple of tall plants you see are the only ones that germinated from my first planting. I only got about 50% germination from the second planting.

These beans are doing okay considering when I planted them (June 8th). They're a French filet green bean that is my hubby's favorite. You pick them when they're no more than 1/4" thick. I'll admit they are very, very tasty, but they don't freeze worth a darn so these will be strictly for fresh eating.

This bed of alternating rows of scallions and kohlrabi don't look too bad, but there is nary a kohlrabi bulb starting to form. And I planted them on April 29th. Considering kohlrabi needs to grow quickly in cool weather to be sweet and tender, they may be a bust. Maybe the chickens will be able to play soccer with them.

I set my peppers out three weeks ago inside a cold frame to give them a good start. I sincerely think they have gotten smaller since I transplanted them. And something is chewing on them. Are they not pathetic looking? Sigh.

My Morning Glories were started inside. Babied and talked to. After transplanting outside around the tepee trellis, they all died. Deader than door nails. Kaputz. Withered up. Fell over. The ones you see here I direct seeded after that. Something is chewing on them, too.

These lettuce plants that are finally, almost, barely, just about big enough to harvest were ones I saved from a bed of lettuce I planted on April 29th but had terrible germination. I transplanted them to this bed and totally replanted the first bed on May 17th. Nuthin' came up that time. Nada. (Is there a Lettuce Curse going around I don't know about?)

I'm doing a little four-row experimental patch of corn this year. It was totally flooded last week so I guess I should be happy the little corn sprouts have all survived. They're about 4" high. Knee high by the Fourth of July? Ha! We're hoping for ankle high.

This shot shows my three rows of shell peas and main crop of green beans. Today I came across a picture taken May 25, 2010, and the peas and beans were bigger than these are today on June 26th of this year.

One of my beds of storage onions looking pretty good. They got a little beat up by the heavy, incessant rains last week but have bounced back. No bulbs showing yet though.

More transplanted (rescued) lettuce and a few plants of Swiss chard that were originally planted on that fateful April 29th day. It's not even quite big enough to start harvesting yet. I wonder if it (along with the lettuce) is going to be bitter?

During the flooding of the garden last week I lost all the kale that had just sprouted, some lettuce and two cherry tomato plants. The beets are looking a little spotty but I think I'll get enough out of what's left.

Even my flowers in the garden don't look good. I hadn't mulched anything when the rains came so they are all splashed heavily with mud. I had started all of them inside but right now they're looking a little the worse for wear and not as healthy as when I set them out.

As I said, I've had some insect damage. I don't know what's been dining on the peppers or the potatoes as I haven't been able to find the culprits yet. Today I did see quite a few very small grasshoppers in the garden. Yeesh, I thought grasshoppers were only a bother during dry conditions.

Even the soil in the garden doesn't feel "right" this year. I suppose that could have something to do with the fact that it was dry for so long and then flooded for several days.

I need to concentrate on finding a way to make friends with my garden. Maybe something in writing saying I'll never let it lie fallow again?

The Animals We Love

They never live long enough whether they leave us when they're nine or nineteen.

Chicken Mama could use your love and support today. She had to have Maisy Grace, her 8-1/2 year old Golden Retriever, put down.

This picture was taken a couple of years ago at Christmas time. Maisy had just opened her present of this big ol' rawhide bone and really didn't have time to pose for a picture. "Just let me be so I can work on this bone, please."

Maisy was a people dog if there ever was one. She was happiest being right in the middle of things and close to the people she loved. Her exercise of choice was retrieving . . . retrieving anything you threw for her. If she saw you skipping a rock out into the water, she'd swim out to where the rock went down and dive over and over under the water until she found that particular rock. And you can bet she knew just which rock it was.

She was a beautiful girl with a kind, gentle personality. She had a shiny, gorgeous coat and I often told Chicken Mama that when she brushed her she should save Maisy's hair and spin it into golden yarn.

It was the right time for Maisy to go and it seems in her own quiet way she told Chicken Mama so. Because it was the right time, I think it was easy for Maisy. Not so easy for her people.

It's Strawberry Time in the Northwoods

As I was working in the garden today, I happened to glance over at the strawberry patch and saw a bit of red in among the green, green leaves.

I had to drop everything and go check it out. Low and behold, I found a few ripe berries!

But as you can see, they're not very big yet and a few of them had already been discovered by those filthy, slimy, hateful, no-good slugs. Given the rains we've had, that should come as no big surprise.

After I finished my garden work elsewhere, I dove head first into the strawberry patch to 1) pick what ripe berries there might be, 2) do a little weeding of the ever-present quack grass (ugh), and 3) check out the strawberry plants in general.

I was afraid with all the moisture we've had, and lack of sunny days since, there might be a mold problem. So, so happy to report nothing like mold was found (I really searched pretty well) and the plants and berries look healthy.

It's kind of hard to see the berries because they're so green yet but the plants are just loaded this year. We've definitely had the moisture so now if we can just get the sunshine needed, we should get a great crop.

I'm thinking Strawberry Shortcake, how about you?

Chick Update

The chicks are eating, drinking, pooping, sleeping and seem to be very happy with their life in our brooder.

The brooder is set up with a screen on top because we've learned in the past that very quickly the little peepers can jump higher than you'd ever think possible and too often seem intent on making an escape to check out parts of the garage that aren't included in their little world.

Our chicks came from Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa where we've orered chicks for several years and, as usual, seem to be very healthy. Our order this year was for Black Australorps, Icelandics, Dominiques and Golden Laced Cochin bantams. Because of hatching difficulties at the hatchery, we ended up with Black Australorps, Icelandics and Barred Hollands. No banties, sad to say. We've always had very good luck with bantams because they go broody for us, make excellent mothers and also give a fair amount of eggs for a longer period of time than standard sized hens.

The hatchery offered to give us a partial refund because they couldn't supply the varieties we wanted, but we told them that wasn't necessary. Maybe next year we'll give another try at the two breeds we didn't get this year. We've always enjoyed dealing with Sand Hill as they're a family business that does right by their customers.

Because we didn't get these chicks until so late in the season, they won't start laying until close to the first of the new year. Right now our current seven laying hens are giving us five or six eggs a day. If they can hang in there with good production until these new chicks come on board, we'll be all set.