The Amazing Adventures of Souper Girl and Broccoli Boy

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

I spy with my little eye, something starting with G

Garden Girl logged nearly 1800 miles of driving in the past week. What did I see the most of along the roadsides of the interstate routes from NJ to MI? Goldenrod! Joe Pye weed was a close second, and often both of them were growing together.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Quelle surprise

It's raining. Again. Can only hope that Friday is sunny and cool for my brother's wedding.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Weekend doings

I've got sore and sunburnt shoulders, but I managed to weed and mulch the big bed alongside the driveway (the one pictured in "Hell no, I ain't gonna mow") on Saturday. Broccoli Boy mowed the lawn and we took bags of weedy clippings over to the Public Works grass recycling. Should be good to mulch the clippings at the next mow.

The mornings are a bit chilly, which is nice when I have to go out and work my tail off. It's also been quite wet lately, and I found dog stinkhorns hiding with the weeds amongst the herbs and irises. They look like orange Nerf darts with muddy tops. Once I got rid of the sun-occluding weeds, the stinkhorns started drying up in the August sun... and I didn't get a photo of the funky looking things in full "bloom". Here's one I got from the web:

I did try to start a new bed behind the shed (it's a northen exposure, mostly shade) on Sunday before my mom and aunt stopped by for lunch, but I was deterred by a great amount of trap rock buried under the soil. I'd have to spend more time on amending the soil and screening out that rock than I care to, so I think that I'll make raised beds or a container garden back there instead. I can't even see that spot from my house - it'll be more for the neighbors' viewing pleasure than mine. I suppose just having repaired the shingles and painting it a few years back was an improvement, but I like to make pretty things for people to look at. In any case, the shipment of plants I got in from Royal Dutch went into the shady bed on the east side of the house instead. I have to call them because 4 of the poker primroses that I received were just mush, and I doubt that anything is going to come up.

Next weekend, I think I'll try to dig the black-eyed Susans out of the sloped wildflower bed and start trying to tame that area a bit. I like the wildflowers in June, but by August they look like a weedy mess. The Chinese forget-me-nots (while beautiful & blue in June) are now gnarled grey things with the stickiest Velcro-like seeds ever. I had an unhappy incident a few weeks ago when I got them stuck in my hair.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Teach a woman to cook...

...and you get some wild experimental dishes, especially when there's stuff in the fridge that needs to be used up.

I had a half dozen Thai eggplants in the fridge that I peeled and chopped into bite size pieces, tossed with kosher salt, and let sit in a colander for an hour or so to get the bitterness out. I rinsed them and set aside. I cut up a bell pepper, onion, some canned straw mushrooms (not enoki), pickled lotus rootlets, and minced up some dried shrimp. Stir fried it all together in coconut oil with some fish sauce, lime juice, Thai basil, and hot sesame oil. Added some chunks of seitan near the end. Yielded 4 pint containers. I threw a cup of black rice into the rice cooker to go along with it, which yielded 4 cup containers of cooked rice. I also made a quart of cucumber & daikon kim chi pickles, so I packed up a cup of that to go with my lunch today as well.

Tomatillos and some of the peppers ended up in a green chicken chili, and I'll be making chicken paprikasz again soon with the Hungarian peppers I've been growing.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Since I'm going to have a sewing area in the basement...

...maybe I'll pick up a few things at IKEA to make it fun. How about some buttons for the wall and the floor? Should snag them before they're gone - I don't know how long these button themed items will stay around.