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Category: Garden

  • First Iris

    FirstirisThe first Iris of the season opened its bloom today. 

    This iris is right next to the front door, which is a fairly sheltered little spot protected by the house from the cold air that tends to blow from the North and West, and somewhat also by winds from the south as they most often seem to be coming from the south west.  One year, when I diligently took temperature measurements around the yard I found that this little section of the front yard easily ran about 10 degrees warmer in the winter.  It averages a touch cooler in the summer too mostly because it is one of the few areas of the yard that gets bright morning sun but lots of shade in the afternoon.  Too much of our property seems subject to the harsh, pounding afternoon sun.

    When I stepped outside the front door to take the picture a couple of sparrows flew away in alarm and started twittering madly.  They must be building a nest.  I shall keep my eyes on them, it may be in the ferns near the door or at the base of the Azalea.  I remember a few years ago when they nested in the large pot of flowers right next to the front door.  Alas, I have not replanted that pot yet this spring, even though it is already getting late, so the exposed dirt is not a promising nesting site.  I used to love to sit on the step just inside the front door and watch the sparrows come feed their babies. 

    I sat on the step for a while, and the birds started to hop cagily back, but then my cell phone went off and I had to stand up.  They could see me through the window as well as I could see them, and the motion startled them off again.  Perhaps another day, when I am not answering the phone for the office.  If the nest is somewhere near the door where we can watch it, perhaps I will be able to show Owen something interesting in a few weeks when he comes to visit.  It is possible that the chicks will not yet be ready, there may be nothing to see, nothing that can be watched with the attention span of a baby anyway.

    Oh just sitting here for a brief moment and watching the birds reminded me of a much beloved book I read as a child, An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden.  I shall have to see if I can rustle up a copy as now it is set to plague my mind.

  • In the Garden

    Life seems to be slowly getting back to normal, or at least this weekend has been a perfect weekend in many ways, even though I didn’t actually sew.

    I did spend some time reading and that was a wonderful way to get myself motivated and focused once again.  I also got out in the garden a wee little bit — today really was a perfect gardening day, sunny breezy and in the upper 60’s.  I suppose if it were like this all season I woudl live outside.  I am finally coming terms with the fact that I don’t like the heat, and the sun is not good for me, but I still like a garden. Truthfully however noone would know that looking at our place this year.  It is an overgrown mess from 3 years of workmen and repairs and construction and today was the first bit of gardening I have done this spring, and here it is nearly summer.

    Oh well, I know there are more important things going on.  But getting out in the yard even for the hour I spent outside today really refreshed me and helped me get back into the normal groove of things.  Actual sewing, aside from the dreams of garments to be made and the fondling of fabric cannot be far behind.

    As sewing progress is still fully imaginary, I shall instead show you a few tulips.  I adore tulip season, but this year even the tulips have sat out in the garden basically ignored, whereas I am usually filling vases and bowls by the armload.  They are a little short this year.  Remember they had started to come up in January, and I am sure that false start compromised their stature a little bit.  But the flowers are glorious:

    Tulips1
    Tulips2

  • Spring Bounty

    Springbounty

    Spring continues to shower us with good things and I am again savoring time in the kitchen.  You may be tired of reading about ramps and morels and spring vegetables, but we have in now way exhausted the possibilities in the kitchen.  Now that spring is really here, even the offerings at the fish market seemed to have improved. When I stopped by Adams on Friday, I got to the store just after a group of fishermen had dropped off a catch of Striped Bass.  Now I have mentioned before how lucky I am that I get Bluefish, Striped Bass, and at this time of year, Shad, that are brought in by local fishermen the day they are caught.    As I walked to the fish market, they were just unpacking a bunch of bass onto the ice.  They were beautiful and of course I bought one.

    Now a good sized whole striper is a bit big for two of us, so I did not cook it all Friday night (I hope this does not bring out the fish police).  One fillet was wrapped in paper, surrounded by ice and this whole conglomeration of things was then put in a giant zip Lock bag (I think fabric came in it originally) and stuck way in the back of the refrigerator until Saturday night.   

    And because it is rare that I have two pieces of the same fish, I decided to experiment a Little.  Friday night I steamed the fish using a technique I learned from an article about Jean Georges Vongerichten many years ago.  I pulled off a large sheet of foil, then I layered spring vegetables on the foil.  I used some of the tiny asparagus you see in the photo, morels, and some slender tiny spring carrots, grown in pots, each about the diameter of a pencil.  I placed the fish on top of this and then layered the ramps over the fish and drizzled the entire thing with olive oil and a little salt and pepper.  Then I sealed up the foil packet and placed the entire package on a very hot iron skillet that had been heating while I got everything ready.  When the foil packet puffed up like an old jiffy pop popcorn package, I started the timer, and cooked the fish for 4 minutes.  I took it off the heat and let it rest 1 minute more.  Then dinner was served.  It was heavenly.

    Saturday night I baked the second fillet, again simply drizzled with olive oil.  The ramps were cooked and pureed and baked into individual custards, and the remaining tiny asparagus and the bell pepper were simply sauteed together.  Another perfect dinner. 

    Now what was the purpose of all this?  I wanted to see how the fish turned out.  The steamed fish was delicate and flavorful, really really good, it almost melted on the tongue.  The baked bass was also very good, very flavorful, and a little more toothsome.  It was still quite tender but it had a little firmness on the tongue, more al dente I suppose, and George and I both felt we preferred this preparation.  The differences were subtle, but now I know. The vegetables and the meal as a whole was a success both nights.  Perhaps it is true, simple things are best.

    And speaking of simple things, the pansies I planted last fall have sent up progeny this spring.  They have been blooming heavily the last month or so:

    Springbounty2

  • The promise of Spring

    Spring finally seems to have arrived and the weekend has been warm and sunny.  There are signs of growth in the flower beds once again, the daffodils and tulips are coming up although nothing is really blooming yet, and the forsythia are finally blossoming, although still a bit sparsely.

    Although the hybrid crocus have been out for some time, and have survived the cold and wet admirably, the wild (species) crocuses have just now stuck their heads up from beneath the leaves:

    Wildcrocus

    Spring is in the air in the Kitchen as well.  We had our first soft-shell crabs this past week.  I didn’t memorialize the event on film because I had temporarily mislaid my camera, one problem with having a teeny tiny pocket sized camera.  I had hoped for ramps this week but they are not yet up around here.  Apparently they are glorious just a wee tad south, in Pennsylvania for example, but not here.  I had hoped the guy who brings ramps would be buy this weekend, but he called and said he had so few that he could barely meet the restaurant demand.  I am a loyal customer, but do not purchase in quantities large enough to get first dibs after all.

    The mushroom man was by however.  Of course he comes all winter as well, if the mushrooms are growing that is.  I am lucky that my house is right on his route, between his stops at restaurants in Rhinebeck, the CIA, and Poughkeepsie, so I get fabulous mushrooms without having to spend more carbon in the procurement.  We had shiitake and oyster mushrooms this week, and they are far far better than any I can get at the local gourmet grocery — yet another plug for buying local when possible.

    Mushroomdelivery

    Last night we had shiitake with non-local asparagus and tonight we will have local chicken breasts roasted on a bed of leeks and shiitake.  I had hoped for ramps, so the leeks were purchased in a pinch.  But I know the ramps will come, and other spring treats as well:  fiddleheads, morels, asparagus, shad.

  • Green

    Not Saint Patrick’s day green, but spring green.

    Is March a winter month or a harbinger of spring? We would like to think it is the latter. Many a March has been warm and sunny and I have worked away in the garden only to be faced with a bitterly cold April. This has not been the case the last couple of years however. I suspect the reason Saint Patrick’s Day is so popular in this country, outside of the heavily Irish centers of population is that it also comes at the beginning of spring. Green is the color of spring.

    Figgy thinks that spring is definitely coming. He broke dormancy last week and I hauled up from the garage to the sun porch on Thursday, just before Friday’s snowstorm, the biggest one of the season so far. That fuzzy white background is brought to you by blowing snow as seen through a wall of windows. March always seems so full of surprises. Wednesday it hit 70 degrees. Friday topped out in the 20’s. That seems more like a Texas-sized shift in the weather rather than New York weather. Still I think I am ahead. Last year, Figgy thought spring was coming in February.

    Today is Saint Patrick’s Day. My typical March 17 celebration centers on pea-planting. But not this year. Truth be told, the vegetable garden still sat under a layer of ice before the snow came, so I hadn’t planned on putting the peas in this weekend anyway. March seems a little cold for peas, but the frosts are usually minor and short lived at this time, and the peas can handle a bit of cold. I can plant later, aiming for any time from mid March to early April, but with peas there is always the guessing game we play with Mother Nature, and I tend to opt for an early start. The peas can take the cold but not the heat. Will May be hot or cold? Here in the Hudson Valley of New York State it can swing either way. I suspect many are more cautious in their pea planting as the farmer’s markets are filled with peas in early June, if the weather cooperates. Although there are many plants for which there is no advantage in an early start, this has not been my luck with peas. I usually have peas before they are available at the farm stands, and this is, to my mind, a plus. I get a double pea season. There is nothing quite as sweet as a pea picked right off the vine. And a pea picked in early to mid May is definitely a harbinger of spring. So it seems spring may be a little later this year.

  • April in January

    Record high today, 70 degrees in Poughkeepsie, although I recorded 72 here.

    It was a wonderful day to work in the yard. I caught up with some clean-up I had missed during those hectic autumn months when life seemed out of control. 

    But this winter is strange.  It is too warm.  The plants seem to think it is April or May.  I am not complaining that the pansies and snapdragons keep coming back into bloom, both were filled with new buds today, if the weather doesn’t get too cold I will have flowers again next week. The blossoms are a treat in January.

    But other things worry me.  The irises are sending out new growth.  The tulips and daffodils are peeking above the soil line.  The hyacinths are even further along:

    0106bulb

    The poppies are getting huge.  The asters and sedum are sending up new growth as well:

    0106sedum

    What will this mean?  Tulip season is in May here not
    February (like in Houston).  Will all 360 tulips I planted in a fit of
    greed and tulip-lust in October be for naught?  Will they bloom in
    February while I am away in Arizona and southern California? That can’t
    be possible.  Will the snow and ice finally come and slaughter all the
    young plants before they have even had a chance to grow?  The weather people tell me the strange weather is caused by el nino and we are in for several more months of this strangeness so all might be well.  We might have a bilzzard in May.  They might be wrong and we might have mass tulip infanticide next week.

    I suppose there is nothing to do but enjoy it and hope for the best.  I can certainly enjoy the mild weather.  If this keeps up, think of all the work I can get done in the yard. Perhaps then, when the dog days of summer finally hit, I won’t feel guilty about not slaving away in the heat.  Instead I will sit on the new deck by the pool and lounge, margarita in hand.

  • Friday Update

    Yesterday
    morning it looked like we would end up crushing my favorite flower bed, but
    careful planning saved most of the flowers.  While we working in the
    garage and driveway (which occupies most of our front yard), the masonry crew
    was in the back setting up a truly maze-like array of forms for the concrete
    pour which is scheduled to occur on Wednesday.  We are now off for
    the weekend, but the masonry crew will be back on Monday despite the holiday.
    It will truly be a laboring Labor Day here, as the crew has a lot of work to do
    before the building inspector, two engineers, and various other contractors
    appear to walk through the site and hopefully get approval on Tuesday afternoon
    so the pour can proceed on Wednesday. 

    And I seem to be becoming the "homeowner from Hell" as I once again
    was out on the site, blueprints in hand, explaining plans, pointing out was not
    being done correctly and generally trying not to be too much of a nuisance
    while insisting that things be done correctly.   When they try to ask
    G he always refers them to me "She’s the engineer" he says.  And
    to think I never knew I would love reading blueprints so much.

    About a quarter of the work done today is not correct, but it is a particularly
    complex portion of the job.  Unfortunately by the time the crew got to
    that portion, the foreman and general contractor had both left and only the
    non-English speaking crew remained on-site.  My pathetic attempt at
    explaining the engineering issues and how the form construction was wrong in pidgen
    Spanish was not effective.  I desperately need to refresh my language
    skills, although this was never my strong point.

     Monday will
    truly be a busy day as I go over the site with the foreman before he progresses
    further.  I am not worried that the pour will go wrong.  The engineer
    who designed the set up for the electric pool cover will be here Tuesday, as he
    prefers to oversee the preparation for and pouring of, the supporting concrete
    for his part of the project, and the current framework will not accommodate the
    housing for the motor and reel for the
    pool cover. The structural engineer is
    known for his meticulousness and being a stickler for detail as well so I am
    not worried about the final job.  But I do hope to avoid further delays
    and get the set up correct on the first try.

  • Construction resumes

    Something’s happening behind the house:

    September1menatwork

    The crew is here to frame for the pour.  They are behind schedule.  The plan is for inspection and conference Tuesday morning with the pour Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday.  However it is doubtful that the forms will all be in place today and the crew is supposed to finish up tomorrow (Saturday) a day which is also supposed to be filled with heavy rains due to the travelling plans of Ernesto.  My apologies to Florida, but I wish he had stayed further south.

    Meanwhile the powers that be (men in boots driving trucks, and my own darling husband) have decided that the only place for the dumpster is next to the spa and the "Iris bed" that I built last summer, with the door to the dumpster opening out over my flower bed.  G has decided, wisely, to lay some boards over the flower bed so that we will all be tromping over the boards, flattening my flowers but not tamping down the soil as well.  I think the whole shebang will just miss my irises, which are starting send up flower stalks for the second bloom and I think I have the boards laid out in a way that only knocks down the glads and cleomes and the annuals in front but those are short-lived at this point anyway.  I think it is well enough laid out that even big clumsy men who don’t think about flowers will miss the iris buds.

    The mixture of lillies, cleome, and gladioulus at the back of the bed has been quite successful.  The first lilies were devestated by the deer when they started to come up so they were replaced with white lilies.  This was fortuitous because the white cleome with the white lilies have been really beautiful and the pale purple gladioli have been just the perfect accent.

    September1cleome

    cleome

    September1glad

    gladioulus.

    Unfortunately I did not get photos of the lilies in bloom.  Next year.

    Luckily for this weekend’s construction the chrysanthemums I planted on the west end of the bed did not come back up this year, well only 1 out of 5 and it is still terribly small.  It fits under the lumberwalkway I just set up.  I don’t know why I can’t grow chrysanthemums.  The sedum in the same position on the other end of the bed have grown fabulously.  They are over three feet tall, thick and lush, after only one year’s growth.  Here they are just beginning to bloom:

    September1sedum

    I will put some more sedum in the bed on the west end, after all the trampling has ceased.  l worry that by matching plantings on the two ends, one side will do better than the other and it will look even worse.  Well, can’t be worse than non-existent chrysanthemums.

    But now, I must go help haul lumber and other detritus so that we can get as much accomplished as possible before the rains.

  • A day in the garden

    It is a pleasure to be outside today working in the yard.  It is still hot; it is summer after all and heat is to be expected; but the oppressive humidity seems to have abated a bit and one no longer walks out the door to be blasted by the force of the wet soggy heat, as if one has walked into a tiny space surrounding an over-vigorous hot-tub, steam pouring out, blasting body to a state of exhaustion so dense and wet that all one can do is sit and loll about.

    A hot summer day can be a glorious thing.  Oh yes, I might prefer to dig on a cooler day, but cooler days have been few and far between this summer and I see none on the horizon.  This day, hot but dry with a bit of a breeze, seems like the epitome of summer and there is much summer work to be done.  Nature’s overabundant growth must be beaten back and tamed, forced to my bidding.  There are gardens-in-waiting to be cleared, rose bushes to be moved before the construction crews resume their labors, new beds to be built. 

    Oh it shall not all be done today.  Probably only a small start shall be accomplished, but I must seize what opportunity arises.  I had planned to go to the gym and sew today, but if I go to the gym early I will not work in the yard later, I will laze about; and if I work in the yard now I will undoubtedly be to tired to push the weights later today, but gardening is its own form of work and I shall be happy to employ those muscles as well.  The beds that have needed water have been hosed down, The vegetable garden will be weeded next.  Then I shall have to tackle clearing a new space for the huge climbing rose that still abides at the corner of the once-pool-deck, before that area is flattened and rebuilt.  I am glad I let it stay, I have enjoyed seeing its abundant roses out the living room window all summer, but now that construction is about to resume, I can no longer delay and must resign myself to fighting the large thorny thing.  It is my own fate, my own decision that brought me here.

    And now, this brief break for water and a cool-down has been spent and it is outdoors to the blue skies and the glorious sunshine (even though I am hidden under long sleeves and a big hat) bending mother nature to my will.

  • Hot! Hot! Hot!

    Last night’s performance at the Berkshire Choral Festival was truly specatacular.  We were treated to Brahm’s German Requiem with Kelly Nassief and Phillip Cutlip.  I had heard NAssief before and really enjoyed her performance.  Cutlip was new to me but also wonderful.  The entire performance was a joy, and I am sure this was not ony because I love the work so.  Both G and I were humming bits and pieces throughout the entire drive home.

    But it was unusually hot in Sheffield, as hot as at home.  Usually it is much cooler in the Berkshires, even in the fierest heat wave.  And it is hot here, mid 90s with high humidity, and expected to continue like this for several days.

    We went out blueberry picking this morning and then cherry picking as well before stopping at the farmer’s market.  By the time we returned I felt totally wilted.  G. does not tend to keep water in his car, a camel he is, never thirsty.

    But as soon as I saw the yard I knew that no amount of personal wilt would allow me to stay inside, lest I lose my babies.  The flower beds looked they would soon be gone, the plants lying on death’s door.  After pitting cherries and getting them in the freezer, I was back outside, hose in hand, Schubert on the Ipod, watering.

    We got about 3/4 inch of rain on Wednesday, and yesterday’s rain obviously did not account for much.  But the plants aren’t used to this kind of heat, and they obviously don’t like it.  I can’t say I blame them.

    We don’t have a sprinkler system.  We really can’t have the high-pressure underground system for serveral reasons.  First we have a well and although it is steady it may not provide enough pressure to run such a system.  Secondly.   the well is a the north side of the house, where there are no gardens, although there may be some if we ever get the deck built.  Most of the yard and all the gardens are on the south side of the house with rock ledge in between.  There is no path between the two except through the house, and even if we ran an additional set of lines through the crawl space on the ledge called our basement, there is no way we could bury the lines deep enough to be below frost depth. 

    The rock ledge issue is what keeps me from having a buried low pressure system as well.  I can’t bury anything.  I could set up a system, mostly on the surface, which I took down every fall and reinstalled every spring, but I would have to store it somewhere as well.  Perhaps the new storage room under the deck (which will not hold the pump) will work for that.  In the meantime I am still digging and putting in flower beds, and the regions to be watered are not connected or easily run off the one faucet we have. 

    So I hand water.  A sprinkler seems too wasteful.  Hand watering IS relaxing.  I can ruminate, I can listen to music, I can just let my mind wander.  But it takes time.  And it is HOT.