It's that time in the gardening season when you look at your garden and wonder, " What the heck am I gonna do with all those ____________?" Could be tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini. However you fill in the blank, discovering ways to use all that delicious homegrown goodness is challenging. Several years ago, I asked myself this question while staring at hill of huge jalapeno peppers. And that's how my family formed an addiction to jalapeno pepper jelly. Jalapeno plants are highly productive and if you don't have a plan, in the garbage or compost bin they go. Unlike my husband, I don't eat them like apples. Food pantries are a good option, as are neighbors, but spicy peppers are not a universally desired food. This is the moment water bath canning entered my world. A quick search of ...
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Some Much Needed Inspiration from Walters Gardens
My garden has been begging me to get out of it. I think it was the best thing I could do for it this summer. The oldest part of my garden is on the west side of my house, just inside the gate. It's about 15 years old and it's looking it's age. Plants have an expiration date. Either they age out of beauty in the eyes of the gardener or they simply lose their vibrance. I think there's a little of both going on here. I've been staring at the same space with the same plants for years and finding it difficult to reimagine it any other way. I needed a new perspective so I ditched my garden for the day and made a two-hour drive to Walters Gardens in Zeeland, Michigan. I spent the entire morning considering, imagining and snapping pictures of scenes and combos that appealed to me. The colors ...
What To Do With So Many Jalapenos?
I'm not going to pretend to be a canning pro. If you're looking for advice on that, please look elsewhere. For me, canning is a problem solver and, this early in the game, an experiment. I have more homegrown vegetables than I know what to do with! We should all have such problems, right? But, more specifically, I have more jalapenos than we can possibly eat. Unlike the cherry tomatoes they pop in their mouthes passing through the kitchen, the kids aren't reaching for the jalapenos. My husband, however, is a different story. You say "hot pepper" and he starts salivating much like I do when I hear "chocolate." He's a heat addict and until recently, would eat them like one would a banana. His tolerance blows my mind and I grew the jalapenos just for him. The problem is, his stomach ...
Cedar Apple Rust: Gelatinous Blobs Dripping from the Junipers
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse with all this doom and gloom I've been sharing with you about the demise of some of the trees in my garden. And I'm sorry to tell you, the drama continues! The Chicago area has gotten over six inches of rain in the last four days, with more to come, revealing something I've never seen in my garden or anywhere else for that matter. You know how you know of something or someone? That's how I regarded cedar apple rust fungus (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae). I know what it is and would much rather have book knowledge of it as opposed to the up close and personal kind I'm getting on every single juniper in my garden. There are only four, and they're all peppered with orange gelatinous bits of goo that look like some nasty little garden troll blew ...
