To Market, To Market

Since it is very boring this time of year in the garden, here's a podcast worth listening to about the CHEF'S GARDEN in Ohio, that made a dramatic comeback after the Lee Family updated their garden-farm to cater to faster, brighter, smarter people who like doing the vegetable and food business just a little differently than the status quo of a bygone era long ago.

Incidentally, this podcast was placed on TWO of my blogs, since I also maintain and operate a Food Blog titled Chef Vinnie's Kitchen Heat.

Where the Money Meets the Rubber of the Road, Now, the inter-connectedness of Food and The Garden and The Politics of Food, are all interlinked and cannot be seperated.

That's the politics of the garden.  That's the politics of food.

Interdependent is the word. Some people get the interconnectedness, some don't.  F'em.

It's A Slow Time In The Garden....So Here's a Video From The Bug Chicks

The Crack In The Cement Flower That Refuses To Give Up and Die Even In The Middle of November

You've got to love the tenacity of
flowers that spring up outta the cracks in the cement
and keep on growing and blooming halfway through November



They just seem to throw caution to the wind and
proceed to grow defying nature and natural odds.



I watered them regularly just like my other flowers
that I planted this past summer
never thinking they'd last this long



....And here they still are, the runts of the litter, who defy-ed all odds by

springing up from a crack in the cement.

 All my other flowers have long since died due to frost. But these flowers growing from out of a cement crack  are so hardy, they refuse to give up.  They are not mums.  I did not plant them there. They just kinda showed up one day out of the crack.

Now they are a welcome reminder of this past summer's color and garden.

The Last Garden Flowers Of The Season Still Blooming on November 4....Amazing

 None of these flowers are Mums.  That alone is enough to make me wonder how did they last so long.


These flowers have made it till today frost free and very alive




Till Spring and Summer I'll savor these flowers color and the warmth they bring



    These are the last of flowers out of my garden still blooming today that I picked before the cold gets them...I'll savor their bloominess till they shrivel up in the vase and die and I'll keep them around just to re- remind myself of next years garden, come spring.  Does every gardener already have their heads into next year's garden at the beginning of November? Just wondering.

The Weirdest, Odd-est, Strangest Pumpkin I've Ever Seen On My Travels....Somebody Give Me a Clue As To What This Please Is

If anyone out there in the blogosphere of garden land can identify the woody weave like material on this pumpkin please leave a comment here or on facebook.  I bought this pumpkin at a local mom and pop farm because of it's un-usualness.  There were two other pumpkins at the farm with this covering, but this one was, by far, covered the most.  The pithy woody substance breaks off easily when you try to peel it off the pumpkin.  Any identification/ understanding of what this stuff is would be greatly appreciated.

The Phat Cat

PuffBalls......Ready to Eat.....Right Out Of The Acreage....Wild, Yummy, and Gourmet



A Black Walnut placed alongside this puffball shows how big this one is.





This puffball was hit by the lawmower when it was smaller and grew this way, but it's a bonafide puffball.




That's a Bic Lighter on the puffball that I used to  demonstrate its size



Freezing Tomatoes

The process is simple for freezing tomatoes. First you put them in boiling water for 45-60 seconds, then you douched them in a bowl of ice cold water, then you remove the skins, then you smoooch them in your hands get remove the seeds and extra moisture and then you put them in freezer bags.  Simple.  The whole process took about 1 1/2 hours and now I have fresh homegrown garden tomatoes for the winter.

Black Walnut Time In the Garden....It's a Dirty Job But Somebody's Got To Do It



A Black Walnut...That Is Green With The Husk Still On





a black walnut tree

 Fresh Shucked/Hulled Walnuts



My process for gathering, shucking, and eating walnuts is simple.  Collect the Walnuts. Put them in Plastic Garbage Bags.  Run over them while they're inside the plastic garbage bags with a car or truck to smash the hulls off. Take the walnuts out of the bag,(or by this time peel the bag off the walnuts) clean the husks off with plastic bags or gloves over your hands so you don't get  the stain from the walnuts on your hands and look like you're turing a different color, namely black. Also wear old clothes and walnut shucking boots, which they sell at any Gander Mountain or Outdoor-sy Store.(*Note...that's supposed to be sarcastically funny) You'll be looking like a refugee, if you dress properly while walnut shucking.  No pictures please.

Put Them in a Cage or a Milk Crate. Hose them off.  Dry Them Out in The Sun. Crack with a Hammer and Eat.  Simple.

The squirrels will be out and about looking for a free meal. A shucked Walnut is like finding gold to a squirrel....so protect your nuts.(jock straps won't do)  Put your nuts in a safe place while you sing quietly or hum the Helen Reddy song "Sometimes I think, that it's me against the squirrels"

*Note (See You and Me Against the World by Helen Reddy for the song reference)




The Official Walnut Shucking Boots That Only The Finest Shuckers Are Wearing This Year

 


The finished product that awaits my mouth and my nut bread,...
gettin' straight to the nut cuttin' as a friend of mine has so eloquently put it.






 

This is what a black walnut looks like before the process of shucking and removing the hulls

My way of cleaning the walnuts and keeping out the squirrels Put them in a cage

One Grasshopper, 5 Photos

These PokeWeed Berries Helped In The Writing Of Many Of The United States' Colonial Documents

I love the bright pink stems of the pokeweed. berry plant. It makes them very photogenic. So I did a little investigating online and discovered a lot of good stuff about pokeweed, and a lot of not so good stuff.

The good stuff is that the juice from these berries was used to make ink that was used back in the colonial days to write a lot of our documents including the Declaration of Independence. Indians also used the juice to paint their horses.

The not so good stuff is that the berries are deadly and toxic to mammals..

In any case, the pokeweed berry is a very ornate berry that says "Look at me,...Look at me" You cannot miss the beautiful colors of the pokeweed berries, as you look about on the happy trails and paths of

weed-dom.

My !st Attempt At HomeGrown SunDried Tomatoes

It's been six months approximately since I started this gardening blog. Originally it was meant to be a place where I'd post my pictures of my nature and my oudoor life and work.  But it's become more than that.  It's become part of me.  An extension of myself. Just like my other 2 blogs Cheyanne's Campsite and Chef Vinnie's Kitchen Heat. That's why I adore blogging and sharing.

My first attempt at gourmet sun-dried tomatoes.....we shall see how they turn out.

This process of sundrying tomatoes in the sun may take 3-4 days but I'm willing to try it at least once.

And into the Sun they Go.

The Tiny ButterFly's Held a Convention Party At My House Today.

I have no idea where they emerged from or what cocoon they were hiding in, but these tiny butterfly's were the sweetest things to watch today as the flitted from one place to the other. All in all there were about 10+ that were having a party by my deadheads drying out in the afternoon sun.

Name 'em, claim 'em, and feed 'em peanuts.  Whatever their REAL names are they were sweet to watch.

Actually sometimes if I do not like their REAL names, I rename them anyhow. I do not care who discovered them.  I do not care what their latin name is. Sweet Little ButterFly's Fits.