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 ...
Vegetables Have Beautiful Flowers, Too
I'm not sure why this hasn't occurred to me until now, perhaps it's because I'm spending so much more time in the vegetable garden. Truth is, and I'm embarrassed to admit it, I've never really paid much attention to flowers in the vegetable garden. At least not until this year. I've been so focused on the end result - juicy tomatoes, hot jalapenos and crisp cucumbers - that the flowers just seemed more like a means to an end more than something to admire like one would a zinnia or dahlia. MayJuly I'm in love with this space, made new by the raised beds we built to replace the old ones. Connected by a hog panel arched between the two beds that's now covered in bean blossoms and twisting vines, it feels like a gateway into another world where I get the pleasure of observing the ...
The Owl and the Rabbit – This Isn’t a Love Story
As many of you know, I often profess my extreme dislike for rabbits which manifests itself in many ways. Verbally ("little bastard" is a go-to), physically with many a shoe launched out the door at all hours of the day and, when my dog Stella was still with me, the frequently snarled "Get that rabbit." She was a keen huntress. I'm sharing this in an effort to purge myself of the guilt I suddenly carry after what I witnessed last weekend. Let me preface this by writing that my garden is crawling with rabbits as a result of the raised deck in my neighbor's yard that serves as a sort of flop house for all the horny rabbits who pop in, scratch an itch or two or twelve, and leave me to deal with the darling little critters that result from their promiscuity. It's a problem. We've had ...
Add Butterfly Host Plants to Support Caterpillars
May and June have been for working in the garden, not writing about it. At least until now. Quite frankly, I'm exhausted and despite feeling overwhelmed at times with all the plants that need homes and the general maintenance (weeding, watering and plain 'ole fussing), there's been one thing that's slowed me down. Caterpillars. My daughter and I planted fernleaf dill and cucumbers from seed in May. Since toddlerhood, cucumbers have been my youngest daughter's favorite veg and so it's been her job to plant it every year. Only this year we added fernleaf dill nearby with the hope that the black swallowtail butterfly will find it. With this in mind, we planted enough for us and enough for them. It's been a sort of plant it and forget it thing. With so many other things to tend to like the ...
May in the Garden: A Mix of Beauty and Brawn
May has been a blur with all the clean-up and gear changing that comes with extreme temperature fluctuations, torrential rain, and the relentless march of weeds through every bed. It seems like the moment I pull a weed, three more grow in its place. Kinda like when you pull a grey hair. So I stop pulling altogether, the hairs not the weeds, and I can only imagine what that would look like if I did the same in the garden. Nonetheless, the garden is shaping up and plenty of plants are having their moment. I often imagine how beautiful it would be if it all just popped at once and remained so all season long. But then if it did, the novelty would wear off and there would be nothing to anticipate. I like knowing that no matter what, something in my garden on any given day is going to grab ...
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 ...
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