A Small Green Obsession

Clovers are near and dear to my heart.  From my childhood I remember my mother more often than my father on certain things and clover looking is one of them.When I went to college my mother gave me a clover that I have yet to kill.  She told me that it was from the clover she had when I was born.  When Cole was born I started a new one from my original one and let's just say it hasn't died yet, but it has tried.

I can't remember a time when I haven't looked for a four-leaf clover.    I am obsessed about looking for a four-leaf clover and when walking I'm often looking down trying to spot one of nature's "deformities".   I have a theory that mom knew I'd always want to find one and this activity kept me out of her hair for a good 20 minutes at a time.

Still to this day when I am at the park for a picnic or sitting in the yard, you'll catch me combing through (visually or literally) a patch of clover. I remember that the first four-leaf clover I found was  David Libscomb College in Nasheville in 1990-1991when Stacey was there for Odyssey of the Mind (I think).  All I remember was it was a warm spring day (not like the almost summer we are having today) and there was a large lawn.  Sometime the next year I learned that where there is one four-leaf clover there is usually two--genetics and all--in the same vein as how my sister ended up with blue eyes and I ended up with green.

Yesterday, I bent down for more clover looking and found this.  Most of you saw it on facebook.  Yes, there was a second one and no I didn't clip that one.  Just the one you see here.  No one should be greedy with luck.  There is enough to go around. 

I love the life lesson that what society sees as something unique (the four-leaf clover) is actually not the common rule in nature.  Clover to me is a really beautiful plant/weed.  I like to think that we should hold dear those things which makes us different.  At least for me, I plan on framing my little reminder of luck. (and I totally know where to find it again--thank you genetics).

UPDATED 3-19-12:
I asked the neighbor if I could dig up this little clover and they said yes so now I'm growing my own luck !(unless it voluntarily dies on its own, of course.)

Holy Cow!

It is not often you hear, "I've got to go pick up my cow".  Nicole, Cory, John and I purchased 1/8th of a cow in May and it was butchered this week.  Nicole picked it up this morning and we had a cow pool party where I collected my 1/4 of the 1/8th of our cow.  To put 1/8 of a cow in perspective, it is about 85 lbs of meat before the butcher and about 60 pounds after.  It fits into a large soccer mom cooler, but the lid won't shut.  We got a variety of cuts and a lot of ground beef.  We estimate that we paid $3.65/pound for our bounty.  I am especialy going to enjoy trying to find a receipt that will make beef liver taste delicious.  I have a particular vivid childhood memory where I told my mother that the chicken and dumplin's had gone bad because I had accidently gotten the chicken liver, a delicacy reserved for my grandmother Pearl.  In its pre-packaged form, my portion of our cow looks like this.

I don't think I have to question where the beef is

In other" return to retro practices", my garden is battling aphids and General Whitney is not winning that war.  A new strategy is required, but in this picture the battle looks quiet.  I made my first batch of blackberry jam.  It is my favorite of the jams.  Nicole picked the blackberries for me and they were the largest ones I have ever seen.  The jam does not disappoint either.  I'm hopeful for greenbeans soon.  I've got a lot of jars to fill.

Do you see that little yellow tomato? It is a pear cherry tomato.

The aphid war zone

The camera on my phone makes these jam jars look almost angelic.  Let's hope they don't float up to heaven too soon.

My Saturday was completed by my favorite dinner.  I don't quite cook it like Mama does, but I didn't do too bad with fried zucchini, mac and cheese (should have been velvetta) and soup beans with corn bread.  Charlie was my dinner companion and he brought a fabulous bottle of wine for the meal that I made him not open.  We'll share that some other time.  This really is more of a Miller Lite meal and the Blue Moon he also brought complimented the simplity of the meal.  After dinner we walked Liddy around the neighborhood and sat on the porch and watched the neighbors.  Simple summer things are why this is one of the best times of year.

Favorite Time of Year

May through July are my favorite times of the year.  Most people prefer the coolness of a spring morning or the way the smell of the fallen leaves add crisps notes to Autumn.  Not me.  Give me rising humidity levels, evening thunder storms and the hopes of a garden harvest.  Maybe it is a reminent of my childhood excitement about summer--school being out, pool/beach time and my birthday.  I am still surprised how hopeful I get at the onset of my garden.  Will this year be better than last?  Will mom teach me something I didn't know before? Did I learn anything since last year about creating boundaries with my natural neighbors (bugs, birds, or squirrels)? When will the first tomato makes it's appearance and from what plant will it be?  What can I learn to "put up" this year?
The professional planner in me is amused by the recent rhetoric and new trends associated with the things I do because my grandparents did them and because I don't want these traditions to die.  My Papa would have laughed me to the end of the driveway if he heard urbanists described his lifesyle. To his generation, these things just made common sense and I don't know when we as a society started going away from it.  Perhaps it was the rise of the modern day subdivision and the deed restrictions against common sense activities like gardening, yard animal ownership(seriously I am no where near owning goats or chickens) and hanging your laudry out to dry on the line.  I offer the following examples:

Trend One: I am an urban agricutrualist.  I have a 5x5 garden plot on the duplex lot I rent.  I also put lettuce and herbs in pots on my porch. Essentially, if you grow anything edible in the city, join me as an urban agriculturalist.  Maybe we'll get our own club t-shirts.

Trend Two: I am an environmentalist for having a garden.  By growing my own vegetables, I am wasting less energy to go to the store to buy vegetables and using less pesticides which are also harmful to the environment (let's face it my garden is not organic.  I love Miracle Grow).  I guess environmentalist overlook the fact that I still visit the farmer's market for eggs, fruit, some meats, honey.  Maybe I'll buy carbon offsets (that whole concept makes me giggle).

(photo taken from National Archives)

Despite having three wedding this spring I managed to get a garden started this spring and even before Mother's Day which is the wivestale deadline my sister recites.  I think in Charlotte vegetable plants have to be in the ground before May. Thus far, I have harvested a cucumber and killed the cilantro (seems par for the course. Cilantro is my Achilles heal. Maybe this year's cilantro sacrafice will look favorable on the garden gods. For more see my cilantro post from last year) RIP Cilantro 2011.

Strawberries have plumped their way into my heart and jam jars.  We've had one bad week for the berries when it rained for five days straight, but even then they are still good for jamin' and freezin'  In the pantry I have jars of strawberry preserves, strawberry jam and strawberry jam with fresh ground pepper (a new variety for my shelf and one I am enjoying as a sweet end to a savory breakfast). Canning brings me to Trend Three.

Trend Three: Preserving food yourself is better for you and fun. Preserving food reminds me of the story of Aesop's The Ant and the Grasshopper. I have often turned down playtime at the pool so I can make a round of blackberry jam. Sure, canning is fun to me, but it is a delayed satisfaction. Preserving is work upfront.(Martha makes everything look easy but she has a staff. My grandmother, Pearl, had a staff of children and grandchildren. I have me)  There is the hot kitchen in the middle of a 90 degree heatwave June and I dare anyone to describe puttin' up a load of corn in mid-July as fun when you're battling gnats and flies. The payoff is having a personal gift for someone or memories of great holidays with food traditions like green beans and creamed corn that you can pass on to the next generation of Nintendo players.

I'll let you know if my hopes rise or sink.  Right now, the summer joy rests on 20+ plants, a supply of city water and Miracle Grow.  

While you wait, enjoy the recipe below. I got from my friend Cory (who got it from Savor Cafe) Mom and I had one using some old gin I got from my uncle's house.

Strawberry Basil Martini

7-8 strawberries

7-9 basil leaves (medium to large leaves)

1/3 cup simple sugar

3 parts gin

ice

Muddle strawberries and mint. (I just threw them into a blender) Combine all ingredients into a shaker and give it a good mixing.  Pour into desired glass.  The recipe should make two martinis because you should always share.

One fact to Summer

Spring is for idealists; summer is for realists. In Spring, one dreams of bountiful gardens and there is so much hope and promise in the air that it is intoxicating. Cautiously this spring, I tried not to over plant my garden, giving each plant it's unique and special place to grown into its own. What summer is teaching me that just didn't stick when I took it in high school biology or by watching the Lion King, is that my garden is just as much a part of the Circle of Life as anywhere else. Everybody's got to eat and that includes, the squirrels, the rabbits, the ants, the spiders, the earwigs...everybody. And everybody in my "neighborhood" has loved my garden. The ants loved my eggplant to what I am sure is their death. The squirrels have liked both the eggplant and zuchini. I'm not sure who is lovingly nibbling on the sage and basil. Luckily, some of the herbs, tomatoes and peppers still remain. I've even had new growth on my lettuce which has been nice. Yesterday I ate a salad that all came from my garden.

So in that sense, summer remains a realist. I really can eat whatever is left over (after it seems I have fed "the neighbors"). And the reality is that I got my wish. Summer came early and it has come hard. I am bracing for one long, hot season (secretly I love it and use minimal air conditioning. I only wish I worked somewhere that allowed me to wear a bathing suit or tank tops and skirts all day).

What's in the Garden

Oh how I have two supporting unpublished posts on why I want to blog about my garden, but the reason is quite simple. I think this is the only way to keep tract of what grows and what does not grow.

My lettuce season has come and gone and I ate so many salads, I was starting to think I'd not need another salad until November. Thankfully I was spared from any bunny incidents but was not spared ants. Where the lettuce grew is replaced by cantaloupe. We'll try it again this year.

I've been getting most of my plants from the Bradford Store in Huntersville with the exception of the lettuce. I like that I can ask them questions and I feel like they know what they are talking about contrary to their counter parts at Home Depot (which is more convenient, but WAY less helpful)

I've had my first cherry tomatoes arrive in red, but none of the others. I planted Sweet 100's (the cherry ones), Pink Ladies, German Johnson's and a yellow one whose name I forget. One of my neighbors gave me some late tomatoes to start so hopefully I won't have them all come in at once.

I have eggplant, but lost one of my little soldiers to squirrels digging in the garden. I have no idea how to fix that problem. Something got to the eggplant leaves, but whatever it is has moved on to another garden as the new leaves look healthy. I am going to invest in cedar oil as I heard while sitting at Thomas Street Tavern (all great advice comes from a barstool) that this was a natural way to control pests.

I have banana peppers and chocolate peppers this year. The chocolate peppers are supposed to be like red peppers.

I'm trying a bush type dill pickle and zucchini and one squash plant. With those I'll eat like a king for weeks on end.

Lastly, I have three okra plants. This will definitely be a experiment of growth and cooking because I don't know what you do with okra other than order it fried from the KW line.